Emily Brigham was involved in gymnastics and tumbling for many years and competed on the national level in Kansas City. She watched pole vaulting on TV, heard a gymnastics background can help form a strong pole vaulter and always wanted to try the event.
Brigham's junior high didn't offer pole vaulting, but she immediately started the event as a freshman at
Mill Valley (Shawnee, Kan.) near Kansas City.
"Enjoyed it probably the instant I picked up a pole," she said.
Emily Brigham
Photo courtesy of Mill Valley High
Brigham quickly caught on and started to clear 9 feet, 6 inches, marks that most girls don't reach until their junior or senior years. At the state meet in 2010, she took fourth in Class 5A with a mark of 10 feet.
Then, the athletic, hard-working Brigham started to compete in indoor meets with Just Vault, one of several pole vaulting companies in eastern Kansas — and kept on improving at a high rate.
"What keeps me coming back is you are always going to have failure and I don't like to end in failure, so it just keeps me coming back for more and more and more," she said.
Two years later, Brigham is now the best pole vaulter in state history. She has twice cleared 13 feet and broke the state mark of 12-9 set last year by El Dorado's Jaimie House. Brigham is ranked No. 3 nationally, according to dyestat.com.
Brigham called clearing 13 feet the biggest accomplishment of her pole vaulting career. In two weeks, she is the heavy favorite in Class 5A to win her first state crown.
As well, Brigham stands first in Kansas this year in the long jump with a leap of 18-11, according to longtime Kansas track historian Carol Swenson.
Mill Valley track coach Mark Peck, in his 35th year of coaching, including the last 11 with the Jaguars, said he has rarely seen an athlete with Brigham's drive and athleticism — and never witnessed it in the pole vault.
"She is an all-around great athlete," Mill Valley pole vaulting coach Ryan Hays, who has worked with Brigham for the last two years, said. "She is very good at the long jump. She would be great anywhere on the track that she would put her mind to or worked at at all, so she has got some God-given talent and it's great to see it.
"Other than that, she works really hard," he added. "It's hard for kids to put in a lot of time in the offseason like she does just for one event in track and field. A lot of times, kids are going to get tired of something and not going to want to do it as much, but she is always eager to get better and she is always eager to work at it."
Peck remembered when girls' pole vaulting first started in Kansas in the late '80s.
Peck recalled then-Blue Valley (Kan.) High School coach Harry McDonald having petitions to allow girls to start pole vaulting. Peck "vividly remembered" when a girl cleared 7-6, a mark he called a "big deal" back then. Then, the records rose.
"We have come a long ways since those days," Peck said.
Swenson has followed Kansas track records for decades. Many events, including the boys' pole vault, have records that have stood for years. Of the top-12 all-time Kansas boy pole vaulters, only one vaulted since 1994.
On the girls' side, the top-23 vaults in Kansas history have all come since 2000.
Now, Kansas offers multiple camps and places to vault. Many athletes, like Brigham, have a gymnastics background. Hays — who has grown up around pole vaulting — believes there are many more opportunities for pole vaulters now than in the past.
"There hasn't been that many girl vaulters and the girls with a little bit of a gymnastics background have the good drive and the good body awareness," Hays said. "They are finding that they can be very good at it, so parents are starting to push them."
Brigham, though, has separated herself with her serious work ethic that she learned from her dad, Larry.
"He just never gives up and once he puts his mind to it, that's what he is going to do," she said. "We are like twins. He is one of my biggest supporters. He is the only one who always encourages me to do everything."
Her sophomore year, Brigham started to vault during the indoor season at Just Vault, a program run by Todd Cooper, a three-time All-American at Baylor who twice competed at the U.S. Olympic Trials. Brigham doesn't participate in any other high school sports and normally starts with Cooper a few weeks after the school year begins.
She makes the 104-mile round trip to Cooper's business at least twice a week for practice, sometimes three times. The first indoor meet occurs in December, with several more after the holidays. After just six months of vaulting, Brigham cleared 12-3 at Just Vault.
"It was unusual, but I kind of caught on real quick," she said.
Last year, Brigham really wanted to clear 12 feet, but struggled and took fifth at state with a leap of 11 feet. She also finished second in the long jump at 18-2. Hays knew Brigham could clear 12 feet, but needed work in the weight room. Brigham realized that, too.
Now, the 5-foot-4, 118-pound Brigham said she spends all her time lifting if she isn't pole vaulting or at practice. Brigham said she is much stronger than she was last year.
"I figured out that the strength is the key to everything," she said with a laugh. "Funny how that works. I think I just saw the professional vaulters and how muscular they were and how successful they were and I was like, ‘Hmmm, maybe that will work.'"
At the March 30 Ottawa Invitational, Brigham vaulted 12-6 and tried to break House's all-time Kansas mark. However, she and Hays ran into a problem. The pole vault officials didn't have the correct measuring implement. Before the April 5 Mill Valley meet, Hays bought the correct device en route to the competition.
"Knew we had to get one because she was going to come to a lot of meets where she was going to break (a record)," Hays said.
It came in handy as Brigham vaulted 12-9.50 to break House's mark and then went 13-0. At the Shawnee Mission North Relays on May 4, Brigham tied her record again.
"It felt really good, because I had been working really hard for that and once I got it, it was just a big relief," she said.
E-mail Conor Nicholl at cnicholl1@gmail.com
