"Rise of the Knight" Exploring Track Pole Vaulters and Epic Fantasy Genre Part II

Title: “Rise of the Knight” Exploring Track Pole Vaulters and Epic Fantasy Genre

Part II

The knight.  They started training them young and they were capable of feats of strength in their armor.  It probably depended on what era you were talking about but I do know some knights could do a headstand in their armor!!  Serious pole vaulters are strong too.  In ninth grade Autumn went through a homemade program called the “Arrow Program.”  It started five months out from track season and progressively got harder.  Autumn went from being able to do two pull ups to eleven.  She built up to 90 sit-ups and did weight lifting.  Her weakness was push-ups which she would not master until she took weight lifting at school.  She sounds strong doesn’t she?  When Autumn went up to train at Rockback they do a weight training aspect and I asked her, “How did you do compared to the other good girls.”  Autumn laughed.  “I’m the weakest girl there!  Dad, most of them are gymnasts!  You wouldn’t believe how strong they are!”

Knights took years to forge.  They started as seven as a page and at fourteen they became a squire.  I’m sure athletic aptitude helped but they were trained from a  young age to master all the skills a knight needed.  My point is you couldn’t just take an athletically talented man and forge him into a knight quickly.  Pole vault is the same.  When I did a five-year gender comparison of male and females athletic abilities in track and field, I learned that boys had a severe advantage in all most all the events... except for one.  The pole vault.  In the study, I compared small school boys (Class D) at a sectional contest to the female winner of the state qualifier contest (best girl out of 70 schools!).  I went down to sixth place for boys in the sectional contest.  Where the most elite girl 400 runners would have been crushed by class D boys, the female pole vaulters would have destroyed the boys!  I learned elite 100 sprinters, high jumpers, triple jumpers, and so many more struggled against the Class D statistics.  Why were the pole vaulters so mighty?  It is because to become a good vaulter takes far more than basic athletic aptitude... that is only the beginning.  You have to master several complicated skills AND need to have speed, strength, and core.  When Autumn was vaulting in the summer (after her freshman season) she was only a straight poler at that point and would still crush lower level guys, who were clearly stronger and faster than her.  They just didn’t have the skills they needed. 

You can imagine a Knight on the field of battle against peasants, just mowing them down because of superior weapons and training!  This is essential in vaulting too.  With each pole vault pole costing at LEAST $400 (more when you figure in shipping!), it is not a cheap sport.  Each pole has a weight rating and different styles of poles do different things.  At JT, we have a 120 “Mystic pole”, a standard 120 pole, and a Pacer FX 120 pole.  One of those poles “The Mystic” was built to help your kids bend the pole, the standard pole gives the athlete more bang for their buck when they learn to bend, but the FX?  Only the most elite vaulter need apply for that pole and that is not even the highest level pole available, the carbon.  (I have ONE 160 Carbon... most little schools don’t have such a pole).  Poles are also different lengths which makes a huge difference too!  Most kids in my program like Autumn’s 150 pole which she calls, “Levy” because it is an 11 foot pole and is easier to manage than some of the longer ones.  Like the Knight, a vaulter needs expensive equipment and the training to know what to do with it.  They also need a pole vault pit.  Some schools don’t have them.  They just can’t afford them.  We used to have a Frankenstein pit made by the maintenance crew for me out of two old pole vault pit systems that were too small.  The AD at the time, Rich Macintosh, spent time on the phone getting an official letter saying it was legal for competition from the powers that be in NY Track and Field.  We nicknamed it “The Marshmallow” because it had a gray tarp cover (the only way to make it legal) that would billow up when the wind blew (and the wind almost ALWAYS blows in the spring!)  When I mean billow up, I mean the tarp sometimes would billow as high as the bar up to seven feet!  Some kids hated the Marshmallow and refused to vault on it.  We would shrug and take the points.  When CS got a new system, they were nice enough to give us their old matts (they were just sitting under the bleachers and we asked about them).  If schools don't offer pole vault, don’t judge them too harshly.  A good pole vault matt system is now close to $20, 000 dollars without shipping!  YIPE!! 

Why is a track team like a fantasy novel?  You have many different types of people on a track team, that are all vital to the team!  You have your shot putter (your catapult), your discus thrower (your archer), you pole vaulters and hurdlers (mounted knights carrying either lances or swords), your long distance runners (your rangers), your jumpers (your agile spies or in fantasy lingo “thieves”), your sprinters (pikemen and ground units, formed up in lines), and your relay units (a small party on a quest).  All are needed and when you are missing a group you feel it. 

Why is it like an EPIC fantasy novel?  I only have time to give one reason today.  Dean R Kootz says of characters in a Epic Fantasy novel, “In the epic, you will have one lead protagonist of course, in order to focus your reader’s attention and concern.  However, in addition to this hero, the epic should contain at least half a dozen secondary protagonists who are nearly as important as your hero.  These will play less crucial parts in solving the major story problems, and they will appear onstage less often than your lead, BUT they will be sympathetic people with, whom your reader can identify and about whose struggles he can care.”  This is so much like track.  In basketball you might have a one or two star players who guide the team to a league or state title.  They are the hero and everyone supports them.  In soccer and in football the same thing can happen.  Occasionally people remember the line protecting the quarterback but generally the quarterback and the receivers get most of the glory.  In baseball the pitcher, first baseman, or short stop is more glamorous than playing left field.  I’m not saying that “left field” isn’t important but if you don’t have a decent pitcher, you are toast.  In track and field, your heroes may bring honor to the team and excite the crowd (which every team needs) BUT they will not be able to help you in your event.  If Autumn pole vaults great, it has no effect on my high jumper or miler!  It may boost morale but you still must battle the other team in your event, perhaps with no help from a super star or even a team veteran.  Also, your quest matters just as much as the heroes quest.  In Lord of the Rings, who is more important, Frodo, Gandalf, or Strider?  That is a tough question.  Each have important roles to play and those helping them are vital as well.  In track and field, the points a star gets count the same as what a rookie earns if they win or place.  Sometimes the team hero must face the other teams hero in an epic clash but the rookie wins their event easily and the crowd roars in approval!  Like the Epic, the story is spread out all over the place.  In basketball, football, lacrosse, soccer, or even ultimate Frisbee, the action is confined to a single arena.  In track, the team is spread out all over the place and might even be going at the same time!  Your pole vault knight dashes down the runway, her pole gripped tightly, while across the field your triple jumper is also exploding down the runway toward the sand.  On the track the gun goes off and your sprinter pushes off the blocks heading for the line!  Behind the grand stand the discus throwers launch their colored circles high into the air, far out of the sight of the crowd!  Back at the tent, the Captain says to her relay team, “Alright, girls, let’s go!”  As one they jog to the clerking tent, as one, hoping to win their event.  It is an epic struggle requiring all sorts of different people, doing their best to score points or win ribbons for themselves and points for the team.

*** Author Adrian Essigmann has eighteen books in print on Amazon.com, soon to be nineteen!  All of them are $.99 cents on Kindle, with the exception of “An Assumed Risk” which will be (Lord willing) an e-book before summer.  All of his books are available in soft cover too!  Type Amazon Adrian Essigmann and his author’s page should come up ***