Riga Resident Jenn Stuczynski Vaults Her Way Onto World Stage

Jenn Stuczynski

26-year-old Jenn Stuczynski is the best female vaulter in U.S. history and has a chance to become the best vaulter on the planet if she can overtake world-record-holder Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia.

Scott Pitoniak
Staff writer

Jenn Stuczynski never lacked for sporting advice while growing up in the Chautauqua County village of Fredonia in the 1990s. Her father, Mark Stuczynski, would critique everything from the way she snapped her wrist while pitching a softball to how she positioned her body to box out an opponent for a rebound on the basketball court.

But when Jenn took up pole vaulting at Roberts Wesleyan College four years ago, the elder Stuczynski found himself at a loss for words. Father no longer knew best. In fact, father knew nothing.

"I joke that the real reason she took up pole vaulting is that I didn't know anything about it, so I'd know enough to keep my mouth shut," Mark said over the phone from Fredonia Food Mart, the grocery store that's been in the Stuczynski family for two generations.

"And Jenn's strategy worked. I'm still clueless about it. All I know is that it's a good thing when her body sails over the bar and the bar doesn't come down with her."

Mark and his wife, Sue, will be there in Beijing for the Summer Olympics later this month, hoping that bar continues to stay up on the stand each time their daughter vaults.

And while they may not understand the techniques involved in being successful at this incredibly difficult sport, they are well aware that 26-year-old Jenn is the best female vaulter in U.S. history and has a chance to become the best vaulter on the planet if she can overtake world-record-holder Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia.

Should the Riga resident pull off that upset, she will become one of the biggest stories of these Olympics.

Her rise in the sport has been meteoric, considering she didn't touch a pole until the summer of 2004 and now is the American record-holder at 16 feet, 1 3/4 inches — just 4 3/4 inches shy of Isinbayeva's all-time best.

"I would equate it to someone picking up a golf club for the first time four years ago and going out and challenging Tiger Woods at the Masters," says Rick Suhr, the former Spencerport High School wrestling All-American who has coached Stuczynski from novice to second best in the world.

"I really thought she wouldn't be at an elite level until maybe 2010, 2012. But Jenn is an incredibly focused and determined athlete. When she puts her mind to something, look out."

Learning to work hard

She always has been a naturally gifted athlete. As a 9-year-old, she played in an adult couples' golf league with her grandfather, Richard Stuczynski, and she more than held her own against men and women old enough to be her parents. "I love golf and wish I still had time to play," said Stuczynski, who is strong enough to consistently mash tee shots 280 yards.

"The thing I remember about those days is that while my grandfather was carrying my clubs, I was doing cartwheels up and down the fairways."

Her first sport of choice was softball, and she initially took it up at age 6 because her best friend and next-door neighbor, Jennifer Hobbs, played it.

"When I saw that she got to wear a uniform, I wanted to try to get a uniform, too," she said. "I remember waiting for my dad to get out of work and dragging him outside to play catch with me. That's how much I was into it."

The Stuczynskis, by their own admission, were not an athletically inclined family — though Grandpa Richard is an accomplished amateur golfer in the Southern Tier and Sue Stuczynski was the fastest kid in her middle school.

But they all are familiar with the benefits of hard work, something that they learned while pulling together to run the family store.

"Jenn was required to pitch in there at an early age, and, while we might not know where her athletic skills come from, I think our work ethic is something that did rub off on her," Mark said. "We tried to teach her that you should always work as hard as you can and good things will happen."

Jenn was competitive from the start. She hated to lose at any sport. But when she did, she would use the pain as positive motivation.

"If she lost a game in softball, she would ask me to stay with her and work on the things that hadn't gone well during the game," Mark said. "She was always looking to improve and learn from her mistakes."

At Fredonia High School, she excelled in softball, basketball, soccer and track and field, where she competed in the pentathlon — a five-event competition consisting of the hurdles, shot put, high jump, long jump and 1,500-meter run.

Two sports at Roberts

By the time she began attending Roberts Wesleyan in 2001, she was 6-foot-1, and her height along with her sprinting and jumping ability and her aggressiveness enabled her to develop into the greatest female athlete in school history.

Stuczynski was virtually unstoppable on the basketball court, where she averaged 24.3 points and 6.6 rebounds per game during her senior year to become the National Christian College Athletic Association's Player of the Year.

She also was an All-American in track and field while establishing school records in the 100-meter hurdles, javelin, high jump and 400 hurdles.

But it wasn't until after she had entered graduate school at Roberts to begin work on her master's degree in child psychology that Stuczynski was persuaded to try pole vaulting.

Suhr, an assistant track coach at the time, was well aware of her athletic prowess. But it was her intrepid nature that prompted him to believe she had potential as a pole vaulter.

"I was watching her play in a pickup game against members of the men's basketball team, and she had absolutely no fear," Suhr recalled. "Guys were having problems stopping her. She just seemed to have the toughness and attitude one needed to succeed in pole vault."

Suhr made his pitch by appealing to her love of challenges.

"I said, 'You know, Jenn, you've been good at a lot of things, but I think you might have a chance to be great at this,'" he said, recounting the conversation. "At first, she kind of looked at me like I had three eyes. But, fortunately, she was intrigued enough to give it a shot."

Stuczynski struggled mightily at first. It took almost seven months before she became comfortable with the task of sprinting down a runway with this pole in her hands, planting the pole into a slot and catapulting her body into the air and over a bar.

Because she had a year of track eligibility available (she hadn't competed in the sport her sophomore year), she was able to compete for Roberts during the 2005 season as a grad student. All she did was clear 14 feet and win the national championship.

"That was around the time I thought she had a chance to become something really special at an elite level," Suhr said.

Gambling on her potential

At the end of that spring, Stuczynski made a difficult decision. She phoned home to tell her parents that she was going to suspend her master's studies and concentrate full time on vaulting. Her father offered encouragement, but once he got off the phone he was ready to cry because he believed his daughter was chasing a dead-end dream.

"I was aware of a few female runners, like Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who were able to make a living in track, but I had not heard of female pole vaulters who were able to," he said. "My feeling was that she was taking a huge risk, and I wasn't the only one who felt that way. Her professors and some of her coaches felt it was a big gamble, too."

The person who believed in her most was Suhr, who wound up taking a second mortgage on his Riga home in order to procure money to fund her quest.

"I was just trying to buy time until she started clearing the heights I thought she would and start drawing the attention that brings big appearance fees and endorsements," he said. "Looking back, it was kind of a crazy bet on my part. But I thought she was on the verge of something really big."

Suhr's gamble paid huge dividends. In May 2007, Stuczynski vaulted 15-10 to break Stacy Dragila's U.S. outdoor record by an inch. A month later at the Reebok Grand Prix in Los Angeles, she vaulted 16-feet, 1/2 inch to become the first American woman and only second woman in history to clear that height.

Adidas and Nutrilite came calling with six-figure contracts, and track officials now offer her sizeable fees to compete in their meets.

Despite the hefty financial rewards and heady achievements, Stuczynski remains grounded.

"She's one of the most humble people you'll ever meet," Suhr said. "A lot of people are kind of taken aback by that. They see this fierce competitor on the runway and they think that's what they are going to see away from the competition, too. But she's a completely different person away from pole vaulting."

Stuczynski feels at home in Riga, where she trains inside the dimly lit, Quonset hut vaulting facility Suhr built a decade ago.

"It's nothing special," she said of the building that houses Suhr Sports. "We call it Rocky's meat locker because in the winter it's so cold in there you have to wear layers of clothing so you don't freeze to death. But it serves its purpose. It's a place where I can come back to after a meet and correct any flaws and get back on the right track. It's a comfort zone."

So are the hay fields and woods surrounding the building. Stuczynski is a huge animal lover, and she enjoys taking her dog Tundra — a great Pyrenees — on long walks.

"It's very relaxing for me," she said. "It's my way of getting away from thinking about vaulting, and that's important because you need a break now and then."

She credits Tundra, whom she purchased last year, for helping her get through her rehabilitation from an Achilles injury that sidelined her for three months late last fall.

"Tundra doesn't care how high I jump," she said. "He just wants to get outside and run around."

Stuczynski's focus will be totally on pole vaulting for the next three weeks. She competes in the Olympic prelims on Aug. 16 (starting at 10:10 EST). The finals will be held two days later at 7 p.m., when it's anticipated she will meet her rival, Isinbayeva in a battle for the gold.

Her parents will be in the stands, and although Mark and Sue Stuczynski won't offer any advice, they will offer their loving support.

"We're awfully proud of what's she's accomplished," he said. "She's worked so hard to get where she is. I think that's what we're most proud of."

SPITONIAK@DemocratandChronicle.com

Source:  Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle