My brothers and I play a ton of sports. We like baseball, basketball, bowling ‒‒ we do it all. Each of us specialize in one sport though. My youngest brother plays lacrosse, which suits him well. He’s tough like a $4 steak, tough like bark on a tree. He’s a coconut, no matter how hard he gets hit, he won’t break. My other brother plays volleyball. He’s tall, 6’ 3” and still growing, growing fast like a bolt of lightning. He jumps so high he could give the Statue of Liberty a high five. He’s a pencil, so skinny and tall he can put his hands over the net without jumping.

But I like the odd sports. The sports that make me stand out like an orange in a bowl of apples. The sports that no one, no one would ever think of doing. Which is what makes pole vaulting perfect for a person like me. A sport where you plant a pole into a pit running at full speed and launch yourself in the air. A sport where one is a plane, running faster and faster on a runway until take off. A sport so different, daring, and divergent that people are bound to ask, “Now how did you get yourself into that?”