Shade Weygandt brimmed with confidence. She had just set a personal record in the pole vault by clearing 9 feet during a middle school meet, and she was hungry for more.
Weygandt, then in eighth grade, had the bar raised to 9 feet, 6 inches and took off down the runway with purpose. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to reach her goal -- but that was the least of her problems. As Weygandt soared through the air, a strong crosswind blew her away from the safety of the landing mat and caused her to crash down on the concrete next to it.
She escaped with only a concussion and a golf ball-sized bump on her head. After that frightful of a fall, nobody would've blamed her for easing back into the sport. But for Weygandt, taking time off was out of the question -- she returned to vaulting the very next week.
Weygandt has endured many other injuries since then. As a freshman at Mansfield (Texas), she cut the skin connecting her ear to her head so seriously that it needed to be reconnected with surgical glue. Days later, she won the Class 5A state title.
Such is life for a pole vaulter. Though her injuries have been scary, Weygandt doesn't view them as anything more than the result of a bad day at the office. She feels that if she had let them hold her back mentally, she might as well have given up the sport then and there.
"You can't doubt yourself," Weygandt says. "If something happens, you have to get right back up and do it again."
"She has an amazing ability to put that stuff behind her and come back from it," says Paul Richards, who coaches Weygandt with Club Altius. "She's pretty strong mentally."
That quality is a key reason why the 5-foot-7 Weygandt is rated the nation's No. 1 pole vaulter and No. 4 girls' track and field recruit in the ESPNU DyeStat player rankings. A three-time state champ and the Texas prep record holder, Weygandt graduated from Mansfield in late January so she can compete in national events this spring before heading to Texas Tech in the fall.
Considering the injury risks of the sport, what gives someone the impetus to sprint down a runway carrying a four-pound fiberglass pole and then fling herself more than a dozen feet in the air?
"You have to have a daredevil mentality, almost like action sports," Weygandt says. "People ask if we're scared, but we don't even think about it because we have confidence we can do it. As you gradually get up higher and higher, you get used to it."
Weygandt started pole vaulting as a seventh-grader. It was no surprise she chose a unique sport because she had never been one to stick to the norm in athletics.
When she was 5, Weygandt quit her tumbling class and took up taekwondo, often going up against boys in her age group. Before quitting taekwondo for pole vaulting at age 12, Weygandt won a pair of U.S. Open titles and earned a second-degree black belt.
Weygandt credits taekwondo for giving her the focus and confidence necessary for pole vaulting, an event that requires both traits in abundance -- especially while starting out. After some early struggles, Weygandt joined up with Richards in February of her freshman year.
Richards competed at Cal State Long Beach and is the son of Bob Richards, who is the only man to win two Olympic gold medals in the pole vault. Bob Richards was also the first athlete to grace the front of a Wheaties cereal box. So yeah, his son knows a thing or two about the sport.
When Paul Richards started working with Weygandt, he noticed she had lightning-quick speed but wasn't consistent when planting her pole at the end of the runway. She was also using a pole that was much too short for her height.
Once the appropriate tweaks to her form and equipment were made, Weygandt improved at a rapid pace. Before she met Richards, her best jump was 10-2. After training with him for three months, she leaped 12-9 at the Class 5A state meet to take the title and set a national outdoor freshman record.
"Paul is the best pole vault coach I've ever had," Weygandt says. "He's laid-back and patient. He knows so much about mechanics and what I need to do better."
Weygandt has since improved her personal best to 13-10, which she recorded at last spring's Region I-5A meet to set the state outdoor record and the national outdoor junior mark. Her 13-10 was also the nation's second-best height by a high schooler in 2008 -- behind only current LSU freshman Rachel Laurent -- and was better than any performer at last year's NCAA Outdoor Championships.
This year, Richards set a goal for his prized pupil of 14-6, a height that would have placed her in the top 10 at last summer's U.S. Olympic Trials. With national outdoor class records as a freshman, sophomore and junior, Weygandt is certainly on track to reach her ultimate goal of qualifying for the Olympics.
Weygandt won't be able to claim a fourth state title with Mansfield this spring, but she'll still have plenty of opportunities to compete at elite national meets.
"This will better prepare me for college so I can make the transition to a higher division," Weygandt says.
To get ready for the elite competition, she has literally been training in her own backyard, which features a certified pole vault setup. Weygandt practices there with her Club Altius teammates and also does sprinting, weight training and gymnastics drills by herself.
"She works out harder on her own than just about anybody I've ever seen," Richards says.
"She holds herself up to a very high standard," adds her mother, Kris. Setting such a high standard inevitably results in a few painful falls. But for Weygandt, it's just another day at the office.
Jon Mahoney covers high school sports for ESPN RISE.
