Month: April 2019

On Sunday, following The Park Church of Christ’s “Achieving New Heights” sermon by Mitch Wilburn, Brandon and I grabbed a quick lunch, loaded up the poles and headed to Fayetteville, Arkansas.

We arrived at Fayetteville High School’s vault facility and spent the afternoon vaulting with fellow vaulter and friend, Ryan Roark. On hand at the practice was 2008 Olympian April Steiner Bennett and Fayetteville HS coach and previous Abilene Christian star decathlete and vaulter, Greg Culp. During the vault session, Brandon easily cleared 15′ and had some really good attempts at 16′

After the practice we drove to the hotel that the University of Arkansas had reserved for us, cleaned up, and later met Arkansas Assistant Track Coach Mario Sategna in the lobby. He took us to dinner at a nearby BBQ restaurant where we spent time learning about each other. It was a good evening and we enjoyed visiting with Coach Sategna.

Coaches Sategna and Bucknam, and Associate Head Coach Doug Case met us in the cafeteria for lunch where we continued our discussions about the UofA Track program. After visiting for a while, we continued the tour around campus with Matt where we were able to see the outside of the dorms, classrooms, and made a stop inside the Bud Walton Arena where basketball games are held. The lobby contains a trophy and awards area where the amazing history of Arkansas track is displayed.

And as nice as it is, they are preparing to improve it further. They are planning to build a new building at the south end to provide new locker rooms, training facilities, and coaches offices. We took a few minutes to walk around the track during practice and observe other athletes. We met the women’s renowned vault coach, Bryan Compton, and also two very famous Arkansas women vaulters, Olympic silver medalist Sandi Morris and Olympian Lexi Weeks.

We then said our goodbyes to Coach Sategna and returned home to Broken Arrow. It was a fantastic experience and Arkansas Track is tops in the country. Such a successful program. Brandon is definitely interested in UofA as one of his top choices.

On Sunday, April 28, Mitch Wilburn preached a sermon titled “Reaching New Spiritual Heights” at The Park Church of Christ in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He approached me the week before and asked if we could help him use pole vaulting as the sermon illustration. I agreed that this sounded like an interesting concept for a sermon, so we met over lunch a few days later to iron out the details.

At the end of the week Austin, Brandon, and I moved the standards and front sections of our pit from the back yard to the stage of the auditorium. Sunday morning, Mitch began his sermon and called Brandon to the stage after introducing him by showing his school record vault of 15’7″ where his teammates dog piled him on the pit afterwards. Mitch then called Austin and I to the stage, followed shortly afterward by my father, John Hanoch.

A video excerpt from the sermon can be heard below, or you can click on this link to hear the entire sermon online.

On Thursday evening at Union High School track complex, Brandon won his first Varsity Conference Title with a vault of 15’3″. This was the 4th best vault of his career despite some crazy strong swirling Oklahoma winds.

Brandon opened the competition with a 1st attempt clear of 14’0″, then his 2nd attempt clear of 14’6″ won the meet so he moved the bar to 15’3″ and had an easy clearance on 1st attempt. At 15’3″ he was using his 14’6″ 200lb 5.1 flex pole. He then moved the bar to 15’9″ but failed to clear, struggling with the strong swirling winds that had been building in intensity over the competition.

On Friday, April 19, at the John Jacobs Invitational, Brandon had one of those days when everything seems to go wrong. It was a very windy day with a 20-30mph tailwind out of the north. While Brandon was waiting for the bar to reach his starting height of 14′, the wind blew something into his eye causing it to hurt and tear up… he tried removing and cleaning his contact lens and also flushed the eye with saline and eye drops, which helped a little but did not completely take away the tears or pain. Only three other vaulters were still left in the competition at 14′. On Brandon’s first attempt, the strong tailwind suddenly gusted from the west right as he was dropping the pole into the box. The pole missed the box due to the smaller opening of the box collar and bounced into the base of the pit. Of course this has the effect of unexpectedly raising your grip by 8-12 inches in the middle of the vault and never ends well!  Luckily Brandon recovered well and managed to stay on his feet avoiding injury as he was rejected back to the runway. 

His 2nd attempt was better but he blew through his pole. He was able to finally clear on his 3rd attempt.  The bar went to 14’6″ and Brandon cleared easily on his 1st attempt.

The remaining competitors failed to clear, giving Brandon his first ever win at the John Jacobs Invitational. Brandon decided to put the bar at 15’1″ and his pole was too soft on his 1st attempt. He went up poles on his 2nd attempt, but as he was running down the runway, the plastic soles of his spikes separated from the rest of the shoe causing him to run through. For his 3rd attempt he borrowed a pair of spikes from his teammate, but failed to clear the bar.

What a crazy day it was! But he won the meet and took home the really cool John Jacobs Wrist Watch as his award.

We traveled to Jonesboro, AR on the afternoon of Saturday, April 13th, so that we could begin our visit at noon on Sunday.  As luck would have it, the weather did not cooperate with us… we had to drive through heavy rain and high gusty winds the entire 6 hour drive.

On Sunday morning, we were able to attend worship service at the Southwest Church of Christ in Jonesboro before meeting up with Assistant Coach Matt Vining.  He took us to lunch where we met up with ASU student-athlete hosts, pole vaulters Michael Carr and Nada Buntic.  We had a great meal and it was nice getting to know Michael and Nada.  After lunch, Coach Vining took us to the campus where we were able to see many of the different buildings such as the student union and library.  We stopped by the track and had a short visit with Coach Vining in his office, were he told us about himself and his coaching philosophy, and gave us an idea of what it would be like working with him at ASU. We were also able to see the indoor practice facility where they setup the vault pit during the indoor season. 

The afternoon tour continued with us making our way back to the track where we were able to tour the locker room and Brandon was able to try on an ASU uniform.

There were pictures of previous ASU track stars on the walls leading upstairs to the track offices and I happened to see the picture of one of my friends and former competitors, NCAA national champion, Kelly Riley.

Later that evening, we went to a Hibachi Japanese steakhouse for dinner and were joined by other members of Coach Vining’s team.  The athletes told the wait staff that it was Brandon’s birthday (even though it wasn’t) and they brought out a desert with a candle and sang happy birthday to him.  After dinner, Brandon went out with his host for the evening where they got to bowl and have a visit to the dorm rooms to see what dorm life would be like.

Monday morning, Coach Vining picked us up at the hotel and took us to meet with Nate Carr, the athletic academic coordinator to go over the degree choices and services they provide to keep athletes on track to graduate. We then toured the training facility, and weight room (which will be moving soon), and then drove the short trip to visit Earl Bell’s facility just outside of Jonesboro.  Unfortunately Earl was not able to meet with us that day.  It was pretty cool getting to see all the signatures on the wall of vaulters who have PR’d at Earl’s facility.  We saw some pretty famous names on the wall. We traveled back to the track so that we could sit down and visit with Head Coach Jim Patchell. We had a good discussion and then met back up with the group and had lunch at a local taco restaurant. Our final activity was to meet back at the track to observe the vaulters practice. It was an awesome day… nice tailwind, sunny clear skies… warm temperatures… perfect day to vault. After the practice, we loaded into the van and made the return tip home. It was a great experience and we learned so much about Arkansas State University and their track program. A big thanks to Coach Vining and Patchell, and especially to the athlete-hosts, Michael and Nada. Everyone was very welcoming and made us all feel like a part of the team.

The Broken Arrow Track Team traveled to Pittsburg, Kansas to compete in the Pitt State Gorilla Relays. Brandon won the boys pole vault setting a new meet record of 15’0″. There were 53 boys vaulting on two pits and Brandon had to wait over 3 hours between his final warmup jump and his first vault in competition. He entered the competition at 14′ and easily cleared on his first attempt, then passed to 15′ and again cleared on first attempt. No other vaulters made this height. Brandon then attempted 15’7″ but was unable to clear. The Broken Arrow boys team ended up winning the meet over Tulsa Union High School.

Weston Hulse, Creighton Shaw, and Brandon combined to win the Pole Vault Relay at the Whitey Smith Relay Carnival in Rogers, AR on Friday evening. It was a fun event where each of the three competitors from each team added their final heights together and the team with the highest score wins.

Weston Hulse, freshman at BA, jumped a personal best 13′, equaling the freshman record held by Brandon. Creighton Shaw, equaled his personal record clearing 13’6″. And Brandon cleared 15′ placing 2nd overall in the competition. Brandon entered the competition at 14’3″ and cleared easily on his 2nd attempt. Reagan Ulrich, a junior from Branson, MO, entered the competition at 15′ and both he and Brandon cleared on their first attempts. The bar then went to 15’6″ and Ulrich passed to 16′. Brandon was getting lots of height over the bar, but failed to penetrate, coming down on the bar all three attempts. Ulrich failed to clear the bar at 16′, but he won the competition based on one fewer miss in the competition.

There were several good things that can be taken away from this meet. First was that Brandon was mentally tough. The entire evening the vaulters were jumping into a 5 mph headwind. This did not impact Brandon in any way as he ran from his full 16 stride run, and ended up jumping his final three attempts on the biggest pole he’s ever vaulted on, his 14’6″ 4.9 flex. In addition, Brandon pushed through the pain of an injured left foot from a minor mishap earlier in the week.

Brandon visited ORU on Wednesday, Apr 3, to get to learn more about the school. He knows well that ORU is a great place to be for vaulters, but he knew little about the rest of the school.

Coach Dial met Brandon, his Mom and I, at 10am and began with a tour of the campus.  We were able to see classrooms, and meet teaching staff, as well as visit the cafeteria, student union, and other key places around the campus.

At the end of the day, around 4:00pm, Coach Dial introduced Brandon to the track team during circle up prior to their practice, and he knew several familiar faces on the team.  Overall a great experience and we appreciate Coach Dial and Shawna for spending the day with us.