McGEE: Skills learned from dad
4A state mark of 11’6” which has to be set at the state meet. I often wondered how she came by that talent.
Last week I had the chance to meet her father, Walter Mooneyhan, who helps out with the Blackhawk program. What I didn’t know was that he was a state champion in the 1980s, winning the Meet of Champs as well. His mark of 15’4” was the state record for over 20 years.
Mooneyhan was coached by Harold Wilson, a friend I have known for many years who was the coach at Heber Springs, Mooneyhan’s alma mater. Wilson was a supremely gifted vault coach, and I have attended high school meets where his vaulters regularly beat everyone else’s.
His son Zeke was a state as well as a national champion. I met Zeke when we stayed at the same hotel at a national AAU meet in Cocoa Beach, Fla.
I was once on the national AAU track and field committee in the 1900s, and
I was one of many who pushed to add pole vaulting to the list of events that girls could participate. At a national convention, the event addition was debated with a lot of the older coaches being firmly against it.
“Girls are just not strong enough” was their argument.
Anyone who has watched high level gymnastics knows that their are plenty of “strong” girls in sports, but since there was no vaulting opportunity in track and field, no one worked on it. Duh.
I was a national pole vault judge at two meets not long after girls pole vaulting was added, and I polled the athletes asking them whether they also participated in gymnastics. Seventy-five percent of those early vaulters were gymnasts, though now there are plenty of girl athletes in the vaults who are not.
Genuine powerhouse track programs have good vaulting instruction in place. The Lady Razorback track team did not win any NCAA titles in the sport until they developed a formidable pole vaulting crew. Down around the Hot Springs area, Morry Sanders has long run an excellent pole vaulting school which has produced a ton of high school all-state athletes, many of which went on to All-American honors in college.
It takes a lot of effort to excel in track and field, especially in the technically demanding events. Pea Ridge is fortunate that the athletes have not only highly qualified coaches, but also can count on unusually gifted volunteers.
Though labeled as an individual sport, track and field can be a consummate team sport.
Editor’s note: John McGee, an award-winning columnist, sports writer and art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, writes a regular sports column for The Times. He can be contacted through The Times at prtnews@nwadg.com.