Mind takes Mendonca to new heights
This article appeared in the St. Petersburg Times on April 24, 2003.
By JAMAL THALJI
When Michelle Mendonca pole vaults, her mind works as hard as her body.
The Gulf junior knows the physical techniques, how to bend the pole and the correct way to land. Yet the calculations in her head are no less important.
She understands that pole vaulting is a demonstration of a central tenet of physics: the conservation of energy.
That law says energy never can be created or destroyed, only converted from one form to another. A pole vaulter sprints, and that energy of motion - kinetic energy - is transferred to the bent pole to create potential energy, which overcomes gravity.
Converting as much kinetic to potential energy as possible is what great vaults are all about.
"You have to know what you're doing," Mendonca said. "You can't just do it."
But not every vaulter does. Mendonca remembers a summer vaulting camp at Slippery Rock when all the girls sitting in a classroom around her turned glassy-eyed watching the daily two- to three-hour physics lectures.
Not Mendonca. She was like a sponge.
"There's a lot of physics in pole vaulting, and I'm much better at math and physics than anything else," Mendonca said. "For a lot of the girls there sitting down for hours in a college atmosphere, just looking at pictures and diagrams of pole vaulting, they were so bored.
"The whole time I was there I was like taking notes. It was so awesome."
Like a lot of vaulters, Mendonca brings years spent in gymnastics. She brings athleticism (she's also a diver on the swim team) and work ethic. But she's a student of the sport, too. With a 4.2 GPA, she's a student of a lot of things.
The dirty little secret of pole vaulting is that not every coach can coach it. It's specialized and arcane. Few coaches competed in it, much less trained in it. That's why vaulters tend to be such a friendly group: they huddle around the pit, always studying each other's techniques, eager to learn from more polished competitors because, sometimes, that's all the coaching they get.
That's where Mendonca's classroom prowess comes in. Her ability to study the event much like a math or science class has led her to a new height: Sunshine Athletic Conference champion.
"There's not very many vaulting coaches out there," Gulf coach Dean Lofton said. "She probably knows as much as I do. I can look at her and help her but I'm not a great pole vault coach.
"I think it's mostly the way she studies in class that's helped her."
That, two summers worth of exclusive pole vaulting camps and a dedication to the sport. Yet Mendonca almost gave up gymnastics, and thus pole vaulting, until the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. There, American Stacy Dragila became the first woman to win the gold in the pole vault.
Like countless other girls, Mendonca was hooked.
"I have a future," Mendonca thought. "That was a huge inspiration."
That future gets brighter with every leap. Her freshman season, she barely topped 7-feet-6. "I was falling all over the place," she said. After her first camps she improved to 9-6 her sophomore year. She leaped 8-6 to win the SAC on April 10, but six days earlier she set the school record of 10 feet at the Suncoast Relays at home.
That height already has her well-positioned for the postseason. She is in the top four in Class 2A, tied with Bishop Kenny's Jessy Rushing and Cardinal Gibbons' Meg Ewin. Her goal this season is 10- 6, which she will chase at today's Class 2A, District 9 meet at Wesley Chapel, and she wants to hit 12 feet by the end of her career.
Since 11-6 is the state's best vault so far this year, and was the best last year, that bodes well for her.
Until then, Mendonca will keep watching her VHS copy of Women's Pole Vault with Stacy Dragila and maybe read Heat It Up! Achieving Full Potential in the Pole Vault by famed Canadian coach Brian Risk for a third time.
"A coach can tell you everything over and over," she said. "But there's some things you have to pick up by studying it."
