On Saturday, Andrea Willis will be favored to win her third consecutive state title in an event she knew little about when she entered high school.
A senior at The Classical Academy in Colorado Springs, Willis competed as a gymnast as a freshman, a sport she had spent nine years devoted to. The only time she had stepped on a track was in gym class.
Before her sophomore year, however, a friend of her father’s suggested Andrea, because of her height (now 6-foot) and athleticism, should consider trying pole vaulting. Her father, Steve, asked Andrea whether she had interest.
She did, and she took little time adjusting to a new sport.
As a sophomore, she won the state title with a record vault in Class 3A of 11-6. A year ago she won the Class 4A title with a vault of 12-6.
“As new as she was, she was instantly good at it and humble about it,” said TCA track and field coach Tim Daggett. “She wins the state championships, a big smile and a shrug. Never stressed out, wasn’t riding the roller coaster emotionally.”
On tap Saturday will be a chance to improve upon her Class 4A record, which she has reset several times this spring. Her vault of 13-4¼ inches March 28 was a state Class 4A record that she topped five days later with a 13-5 vault. A week after that, she cleared 13-8, then soon after 13-9.
Willis’ immediate success was even more impressive considering her limited opportunities to practice when she first took up track. She practiced vaulting just once a week because she was spending up to five hours working on gymnastics with her club team. Because the Colorado High School Activities Association requires five practices before an athlete can compete in a given track meet, it took Willis more than a month to be eligible for her first event.
With the success she had at state in the pole vault, Willis decided to drop gymnastics.
“I didn’t strictly focus on pole vaulting until I quit gymnastics,” Willis said. “A lot of (my improvement) is preseason training that I never had time for. There’s also video study that goes into it. I watch a ton of professional pole vaulters and my video from past meets just to get better.”
Willis’ background in gymnastics, however, prepared her well for a sport in which she’ll compete next school year for the University of Kansas after also getting recruiting by the likes of Air Force, the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, Sioux Falls, Mississippi and Nebraska.
“With gymnastics, I’m used to being upside down and I have body awareness,” said Willis. “I know where I am when I’m upside down. That helps.”
Willis’ tranquil demeanor and natural toughness also have helped.
“The other day, she had a huge bruise on her thigh that I asked her about,” Daggett said. “She said, ‘I get so many bruises doing this that I don’t even pay attention to them.’ She’s just super calm. She’s going for state records, and there doesn’t seem to be anxiety there.”
Andrea’s interest in vaulting may have been unwittingly sparked when watching the Beijing Olympics in 2008 on television. She and her father were intrigued with a feature story about Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and a former gymnast.
“I jokingly said: ‘Andrea, you’re too tall for gymnastics. You should try pole vaulting,’ ” her dad said. “Her answer was, ‘I’m a gymnast.’ That was always in the back of my mind that a tall gymnast might be good at pole vaulting.”
Willis is now towering over the competition.
Mario Sanelli: msanelli@denverpost.com
Sky is the limit
Andrea Willis has placed in 19 of the past 23 events she has entered and has not lost since 2014. A look:
Year W-L
2014 3-4
2015 8-0
2016 8-0
Source: MaxPreps
