Written by Pole Vault Carolina Founder, Adele San Miguel
Originally published in Vaulter Magazine
September 2019

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” Henry Ford

July 27, 2019 proved to be a blazingly hot day in Des Moines, Iowa. The thermostat registered 100 degrees on the track at Drake University’s stadium, where the men’s pole vault was contested at the Toyota USATF Outdoor Championships. That afternoon, Sam Kendricks broke the American record with a 6.06 meter jump, 19’10.5”, a validating victory for an athlete whose use of shorter poles and lower grip is sometimes challenged.

But when you know your own way, you follow your own lead. On fire from the start, Sam entered the competition at 17’11” and cleared his first eight attempts. With hip height at 5.91, Sam and his coach, his father Scott, thought the record was within reach. Sam grabbed his 16’1” 220 lb ESSX pole and exploded down the runway. A miss. Gathering himself, Sam sprinted toward the pit a second time, and on this jump, the bar stayed.

Sam had been in this situation before. The 2017 USATF Nationals were held in Sacramento, also in the blistering heat. After a long day in the sun, Sam jumped 19’8” for the first time, winning the meet and joining the 6 meter club. A soldier when he’s not vaulting, Sam is rehearsed for stress, and mentally ready to perform his best when he is most fatigued, at the end of a meet. For Sam, the high temperature just meant the circumstances were ideal for the American record to fall.

Growing up on a Mississippi horse farm where life is ordered by the rhythm of nature, Sam progressed in the vault by keeping it simple. He carefully mastered each phase of his development without rushing toward an unlikely goal. His diligent efforts have compounded over his 13 year career, steeping him with confidence and resiliency. Sam relies on himself, not the weather, to perform well. The conditions within Sam govern the conditions without. This is the foundation of his success.

Son

Sam grew up in Oxford, with his father Scott, mother Marni, and three siblings, twin brother Tom; sister Charli; and younger brother John Scott. All the Kendricks’ have competed in track and field.

When Sam was 13 years old, Scott was the track and field coach at Oxford High School. The year was 2006, and it had just become legal for females to compete in the pole vault in Mississippi. Sam’s competitive nature kept him and Tom hanging around the track. Scott, an accomplished coach by then, started Sam with the girls pole vault training group. Their goal was to one day break the school record of 13’7”.

Scott had vaulted in high school, but his success was limited by the one pole his school owned. He studied the event closely and made sure his athletes had a full complement of poles, so that he could coach them to victory, which he did, winning the MHSAA state meets eleven times in a fourteen year period.

Scott especially researched Wladyslaw ‘Wally’ Kozakiewicz. Wally is the Polish vaulter who won the gold medal and broke two world records at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Wally’s technique became a model for Sam, in particular his ability to push off his handgrip.

Scott Kendricks is a former Marine pilot and horseman. He served our country on three continents before settling in Oxford. Track and field, the Olympics, and horses are lifelong passions. Disciplined and introspective, Scott could see early what Sam would need to concentrate on to achieve the moderate success they anticipated at the time. In the same way that a horse may wear blinders to prevent distraction, Scott kept Sam’s focal point on what he needed to improve, not on others’ techniques, or criticism of their own.

Mother Marni is the Associate Dean of Engineering at the University of Mississippi. As a problem solver, when difficulties arose, Marni knew what questions to ask and where to get the answers. Though both parents created an environment of possibility for their children, Marni credits her husband.

“Scott is an underestimated, incredible, expert coach who would have a Ph.D in pole vault if there were such a thing.” said Marni, “Somehow using their customized methodology, physical abilities, and effective training plan, they routinely do what was thought to be impossible.”

Rebel

Sam worked on accelerating through the vault. By the end of his junior year, he jumped 15’4.25, taking second place at New Balance Nationals Outdoor in the Emerging Elite category. When his senior year drew to a close, Sam was jumping 17’, the highest height yet vaulted by a high schooler in the state. In addition to an ROTC scholarship, Sam earned a spot on the track team at Ole Miss. When Sam’s horizon expanded from his local high school and the state meets to the Southeastern Conference, his goal stretched too. The primary objective was to make the first bar at the SEC Championships, usually set somewhere in the 16’ range. He started every practice jumping at 16’ bars, on 15 foot poles, to master technique and accommodate for physical changes as his body continued to grow.

Sam competed as a Rebel for three years, winning national titles twice. In 2014, he won the SEC Championships, NCAA’s, and USATF Nationals Outdoors in quick succession. The Kendricks technique had been proven. It was time to expand his field of vision once again, and compete around the world as a professional.

It was also time to find a new carbon pole that would not break under Sam’s style of jumping. After snapping 5 poles in a short period of time, Sam lost confidence in them, and Team Kendricks reached out to Bruce Caldwell on Facebook, looking for help.

Bruce is the founder and former owner of ESSX poles, and an expert at matching a pole to a vaulter. At the time, the company was very small, only selling about a thousand poles per year. Upon learning that Bruce had designed and manufactured poles for Wally Kozakiewicz, the Kendricks were hopeful.

Bruce and his engineer, Beto Sanchez, built three poles for Sam, and drove to Oxford from Fort Worth, TX for Sam to try them. At this point, Sam’s personal best was 19’. Still, Bruce and Beto had listened and brought him 15’9” poles. Sam went back and forth with the poles from different manufacturers, unsure of which suited him best. Bruce and Beto, intent on assisting, made a second batch of poles and another trip.

“Sam, please break this pole!” Beto challenged upon his return. Sam taped it up at practice and easily jumped his PR. A partnership, and a friendship, were born.

Patriot

In addition to representing the red, white and blue on the track for Team USA, Sam also serves the flag as a First Lieutenant in the Army Reserve. He is a Motor Transport Officer with a Truck Company in Millington, TN. He performs most of his military drills during the winter, permitting him the time an elite vaulter needs to travel and compete during meet season.

At Ole Miss, where Sam had also been offered scholarship from the Marines, he enjoyed being part of the Rebel Battalion, one of the larger collegiate units in America. His staff officers afforded him latitude so he could maintain his NCAA competition schedule.

So ingrained is Sam’s patriotism that when the national anthem played during the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, heralding the gold medal win for another athlete, Sam, sprinting into a warm up jump, skidded to a stop on the runway. Turning to find the flag, he stood at attention in a show of respect. A swell of patriotism followed. The video has been viewed over fifty thousand times on You Tube. First he served, now he leads.

Rancher

Sam and his wife Leanne are building a home on some acreage adjacent to Scott and Marni’s property in Oxford. It is half a mile a way through the woods from Rancho Olympia, Sam’s world class training facility. After Sam won the World Championship in 2017, he and Scott decided to build a training area on the family ranch.

“We wanted the area to have a special name so the kids who come to train here could have some bragging rights,” said Scott.

Their property sounds like a vaulter’s dream destination. In a lush clearing surrounded by towering oaks lies a 36” high Velocity Sports pit with a 3” top pad. In what was once an old deer thicket is now a lightning fast Kanstet/Velocity Sport runway, courtesy of Bruce Caldwell and his business partner Valery Bukerev. Richey standards and UST-ESSX poles complete the setup. Close by are two lighted riding arenas, horse stables, and a barn for Scott to teach riding and train horses. Still, his top priority is to prepare Sam for top level competition. Sam and Scott brought pole vault to the heart of Mississippi, and they brought Mississippi to the elite levels of pole vault.

Champion

A beloved competitor known for his sportsmanship and humility, Sam does not know a stranger. When he landed on the pit from his record breaking jump in Des Moines, he stood up and spread his arms wide, inviting his competitors to come for him. They joyfully flattened him in a dog pile, celebrating his clearance and new American standing. Emerging, Sam walked into Scott’s arms and cried beneath his father’s cowboy hat. Media gathered close and the track and field world paused to take it in: a son, so grateful for his father’s investment in him; a father, who stewarded his son’s dreams to reality one centimeter at a time, overcome to witness success at this level.

“Most big meets don’t allow coaches to go down to the pit, even after a world record,” Scott said. “Rio – no hug; London World Champion – no hug; so I jumped the fence at Des Moines. I was going to get my hug this time. It was worth it.”

Back home in Oxford, Marni and Leanne along with family and friends, watched the event live at Buffalo Wild Wings. The atmosphere was equally jubilant.

Scott and Marni Kendricks planted seeds of greatness in their son, cultivated them through consistent attention and effort, and now enjoy the harvest of success from the pole vault world’s biggest contests.

The Toyota USATF Outdoor Championships mark the 6th year running that Sam has won nationals. Since then, he has been victorious in four competitions. Sam jumped 5.80 meters at the Capitol District Vault in Omaha, NE; he set the record at the Festungsspringen International Pole Vault Meet in Koblenz, Germany with 5.81 meters; Sam tied Jeff Hartwig’s record at the Meeting of Paris with 6.00 meters; and he won it all with a third attempt clutch jump of 5.93 at the Diamond League Championship meet in Zurich on August 29, 2019.

When will Sam jump 6.06 meters again? He is not thinking about it. He has his blinders on and is working on keeping it simple, because now he knows he can.