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Growth process: MC’s Henkins hopes to continue his rise in pole
vaulting
Release Date: February 28, 2007
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Jonny
Henkins |
| © 2007,
Scott Spitzer/Captured Moments Photography |
MONMOUTH, Ill. — The late Al McGuire, the legendary NCAA champion
coach turned broadcaster, once said of his athletes, “The best thing
about freshmen is that they become sophomores.”
That’s a statement that Jonny Henkins, Monmouth College’s
All-American pole vaulter, certainly understands.
The All-State performer at Kewanee High School has been a freshman
track athlete twice, with the first time occurring in the spring of
2001.
“I came into high school as a hurdler, but the pole vault caught my
attention,” recalled Henkins, who is one of several national-caliber
Monmouth athletes who will compete this Friday and Saturday at the
Midwest Conference Championships in Galesburg. Monmouth’s men’s team
will enter the meet ranked third in the nation. “I’ve been doing it
since my freshman year. That first year, I remember clearing 7’6,
and that was a big feat for me, as distant as it seems now.”
Between his freshman and sophomore years, however, Henkins had the
type of transformation that McGuire so often saw. His progress was
due in part to a summer of workouts with KHS track coach Marland
Rachel, and he also learned better vaulting technique. By the time
his second Boiler track season began, it didn’t take him long to
reach new heights.
“I cleared double figures by the second or third meet that year, and
I set the school frosh-soph record of 12’0,” said Henkins.
By the time his KHS career was over, he also broke the school
record, clearing 14’3 at both the sectional and state meets as a
senior. He earned All-State honors by placing fifth at the 2004
Class A Meet.
In the meantime, Henkins had been considering a college to continue
his vaulting career, and he said he ultimately chose Monmouth
because “it was close to home, and when I came for a visit, I liked
everything about it.”
“Jonny was clearly the type of high school kid we like to recruit,”
said Monmouth College track coach Roger Haynes. “He was an All-State
kid, and he had the physical abilities to get even better. He’s the
type of kid who could’ve gone to a scholarship school. Both he and
Peter (Sprecher) are jumping as high as any scholarship kid in the
state right now.”
Becoming a Fighting Scot also meant becoming a freshman again, and
Henkins recalled that his newest four-year journey again took a
while to pick up steam.
“We had a communication problem early on,” said Henkins of his
relationship with Haynes, who is now in his 24th year as the MC
track coach. “I didn’t really communicate with him, and I think a
lot of that came along with being a freshman, and maybe some of it
was intimidation. He approached me and told me he needed to know
things, and we’ve had better communication since then. It’s made our
relationship a lot better. He’s a good listener, and I look up to
him.”
Haynes smiled when asked about the McGuire statement, and he said he
has his own favorite quote about what happens to athletes as they
move through their Fighting Scot careers.
“The one I use with the kids all the time is ‘Things don’t stay the
same. They either get better or they get worse.’ Jonny’s chosen to
get better in all areas. He certainly wasn’t a problem or the cause
of any trouble ... I either leave my kids alone or I really dig at
them to find out what’s going on, and that first year, we left each
other alone. He’s made the changes. He has more solid beliefs now on
where he’s going and what’s important to him.”
The results can be shown both numerically and by accomplishments,
and Henkins prefers to use the latter when measuring his success.
“My goal is to be national champion,” he said. “It’s not a certain
height. I just need to do the best I can do on that day (at
nationals). If I’m my very best that day, I can be national
champion.”
Being a national champ is not merely a pipe dream for the junior.
After all, thanks to a memorable afternoon of vaulting, he and
Sprecher both cleared the automatic-qualifying height of 16’6, which
currently has them tied for fourth in the nation. And Henkins
already has a fifth-place national finish under his belt,
accomplishing that at last year’s national outdoor meet.
“Being All-American is a pretty big deal to me, but so is making the
automatic qualifying height this year,” said Henkins. “I looked for
that all last year and never made it.”
Ironically, Sprecher reached it first during Monmouth’s home meet on
Jan. 27. In fact, his classmate sometimes beats him at meets,
leaving Henkins fourth in the nation but second on his own team.
“We’re not rivals,” he said. “We joke a lot with each other. When he
hit 16’6, I looked at him and said, ‘Why’d you have to do that to
me?’ But then I did it, too.”
“We certainly have a pole vault ‘culture’ now,” said Haynes, who
also has a trio of talented women’s vaulters, led by Galesburg’s
Jessica White, who is ranked 10th nationally. “Developing a culture
like that is important, and it’s something we feel is also happening
with our distance group and with our throwers. Track kids want to be
around other successful kids. We’ve had other coaches come up to us
at meets and ask if it’s OK if they film our kids vaulting, which is
a nice compliment to get.”
Henkins automatic-qualifying goal has been accomplished, but with
the potential to compete in four more national meets in his career,
it’s clear that he’s not going to rest on his laurels. One number
that Henkins said does intrigue Sprecher and him is Keenan King’s
school record of 16’10-3/4. Both made good attempts at the height at
the Jan. 27 meet.
“Coach Haynes is always pushing me to be better than where I’m at,”
he said. “When I was vaulting 15’0, he told me I could go 16’0, and
now he tells me I can go 17’6 or 18’0. He sees the potential.”
Henkins added that future increases in height will come about
through “keeping my head in the game and not letting my surroundings
intimidate me.”
“He’s not a finished product by any means,” said Haynes. “He’s
naturally competitive, both vs. the bar and vs. the competition.
Once athletes get good, it’s hard to get great, and that’s where
we’re at. Being a national champion is a hard thing to predict. We
had two in 2005 (Zach Barr and Blake Boma), and they both took very
different approaches. Zach was motivated to keep doing better and
better and let the result happen, while being a national champion
was all Blake thought about for two years. I think Jonny gets a
little down on himself when he doesn’t see the big number at a meet,
but even his 15’7 vault (on Feb. 16) would have been good enough to
medal at nationals last year.”
Haynes looks at the pole vault, as well as many of the other events
in track, as a “science experiment,” and he explained why.
“In ball sports, it’s the score you’re concerned with, but in track,
it’s more of a competition with yourself to reach new levels of
performance. In the pole vault, the bar always wins, even at the
world-class level. You may do better than you have before, but at
some point, you fail to make the height. But each time out, we add
to the formula to try to make it work out like we want.”
That typically means tinkering with the training, although slight
adjustments are also made during competition. Haynes said that when
Henkins and Sprecher both cleared 16’6, it was early in the season
when all they’d really covered in practice was fundamentals. That’s
caused Haynes to re-focus his attention on fundamentals now that
four meets have gone by without either vaulter moving past 16’6.
Due to Monmouth’s success this year, Haynes was asked if the pole
vault is perhaps his favorite event to coach.
“They’re all my favorite when you have motivated kids in an event,”
he said. “I really enjoy trying to help them do something they’ve
never done before.”
For Jonny Henkins, the one-time 7’6 vaulter at Kewanee High School,
that something just might be a national championship.
Men's Indoor Track
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