Written by Sarah Kyle
Harding freshman Tiffany Chambers opened the outdoor track season strong, setting a new school record in pole vault at the Rhodes Open last Saturday.
The meet was the collegiate debut for Chambers, a native of Rogers, Ark., who broke Leslie Stackpole’s 2008 record of 8 feet, 10 inches by vaulting 9 feet, 5.75 inches, finishing in 10th place at the meet.
Chambers said that while it is exciting to break a school record, she did not break her own personal record from her high school vaulting career. Breaking that record, Chambers said, will prove more difficult.
“I did set a school record, but that wasn’t my personal best for outdoor, so to improve from that height shouldn’t be all that hard,” Chambers said. “To break my personal best, though, that will be tough. There are a lot of little things in pole vaulting that have to be done just right in order for a good vault to happen.”
With the rest of the season still to come, Chambers said the jump and vault teams have been workinghard to prepare for the 2010 outdoors season.
“[We] have been working hard on building explosive muscles and increasing our speed,” Chambers said. “We run 200s, 100s, [are] lifting three time a week, [have] drills specific to our event and full approach vaulting or jumping at least twice a week.”
The training has only been helped by the support of coaches Guymon and Phillips, Chambers said.
“[Phillips] is taking the time to teach me even the basics of vaulting again,” Chambers said. “[Guymon and Phillips] are always there at our meets and know the right things to say to get me motivated. I’m the type of athlete that needs to be pushed by my coach, but supported at the same time.”
One area that Phillips has particularly helped Chambers with is her approach, which Chambers said is the first of many steps to perfecting her skill, as she started vaulting just two years ago.
“Vaulting is compiled of many little things that build on each other. In order to vault well, everything has to be just right,” Chambers said. “Being new at vaulting in general, I have to start at the beginning and work my way up.”
Chambers said she believes that the remainder of the season will only bring better and higher vaults as she masters the technique and gains more strength, but that she looks to God no matter how successful the season is.
“Josh Winslager, the vaulter from the men’s team, and I have been working very hard to improve our heights over the past few months, and to see that pay off has been amazing,” Chambers said. “But no matter how the season turns out, God has brought us so far already, and I am grateful for all He has done.”
With the growing success of the team in recent seasons, Chambers said she believes the program will gain more new recruits in coming years.
“People are starting to hear about our sport inside the university and out,” Chambers said. “People from back home ask me about the team and what they can do to become a part of it. With records being broken, it makes the team as a whole look better and more appealing to recruiters.”
