Schumer remains on the rise, named Southeast Missourian Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year

When Katie Schumer joined the Jackson Middle School track and field team in seventh grade it was with the intention that she would be a sprinter.

During warmups one day a question was posed by the coaches that completely changed Schumer's trajectory.

"'Alright, are there any gymnasts in here?'" Schumer recalled. "And all my friends were like, 'Katie's a gymnast!' They just, like, pushed me forward, so I didn't really have a choice."

Schumer, who'd taken up gymnastics when she was about 3 years old, obliged and joined up with coaches Bob Sink and Tim Rademaker and the team's other pole vaulters.

Schumer admits that she didn't enjoy it the first few weeks, but the similarities between gymnastics allowed her to catch on fairly quick.

Now four years and two Class 5 all-state performances later and the junior-to-be has earned the title of Southeast Missourian Girls Track and Field Athlete of the Year.

"I'm kind of a perfectionist, so I wasn't very good starting out and it made me frustrated," Schumer said with a laugh. "I was like, 'I'll just run. I know how to run.' I got to my first meet -- I think I won -- and I was like, 'All right, I'll do this. I like winning.'"

As much as she enjoys winning, it's her dislike of losing and determination to not let that happen often that Sink believes has led to her success in her first two years of high school.

He witnessed it in May when she finished second in the sectional meet to Seckman's Taylor Gross. She'd finished second behind Gross at sectionals the year before, too.

"This year she got beat by the little girl from Seckman, who's a very good competitor and, boy, you could just see it in her face when the thing was over," Sink said. "It was really like, 'Boy, I can't believe I let her beat me.' That's just kind of her mentality. She really wants to do well and really wants to succeed."

Despite her natural ability in the event, it's taken countless hours of work to propel her to the level she's at now.

She spends the fall and summer months training with Rademaker and rarely takes days off. Her dedication had to be tempered when she got mononucleosis last winter before the start of her sophomore season and wanted to get back to practicing right away. The coaches stressed the need for her to recover so she could come back closer to full strength.

"The thing about being a pole vaulter -- it takes a long time," Sink said. "That's not a deal where you can just show up and you're going to be good. It takes a lot of work, and it's probably the most difficult event of track and field."

Her technique wasn't perfect, and still isn't. The sport is one that requires constant change to improve. Vaulters are never quite comfortable because they are constantly learning new pieces of their technique and trying to work their way up to bigger poles that will lead to greater heights.

Schumer struggled with her body posture, tilting forward after planting the pole. Sink and Rademaker knew it was one of a handful of things that needed to be corrected if she was going to have success at the high school level.

"That one summer between her eighth-grade and ninth-grade year we really struggled in practice because of some of the poor techniques that she had," Sink said. "Then, man, all of a sudden her freshman year, that spring ... it was like she just kind of turned it on and started moving up on bigger poles and really became a very good performer for us."

Sink and Rademaker push all the athletes they coach to keep it process-oriented and not focus on the results, and when Schumer did that, the outcome was pretty good.

She finished fifth at the Class 5 state meet as a freshman with a vault of 10 feet, 6 inches. She took fifth again this season, clearing 10-9.

Lee's Summit West senior Nicole Kellenberger, the defending state champion, won the event with a vault of 11-9 this year after clearing 12-7 in 2015. Another senior, Gross, took third with 11-0, while a couple of juniors finished second and fourth.

"It took me awhile to figure out freshman year, 'Wow, I'm fifth in state,'" Schumer said. "This year I really wanted to be better than fifth, so when I got fifth I was a little disappointed because I knew I could jump better than what I did. But next year's a whole new year because the state champ's gone. It's anybody's game, like, who's going to step up? I want to be the one that steps up."

Schumer described this year's state meet as "kind of crazy." She'd planned to support teammate Dakota Maddox in the boys pole vault and then would be able to stay comfortable at the hotel until she competed the next afternoon.

Instead, Maddox's event was delayed until 9 a.m. the next morning, so she spent the hours prior to her event in the heat watching Maddox.

"It was just like a big mental check because I wasn't ready," Schumer said. "Then when I got out there I was kind of tired, but I got the adrenaline rush, kind of focused up, and you get going and you don't really feel it. You're just like in the mode. But the physical effects start to hit you, like once I'd jumped a couple times. I was getting to the end and I was taking three attempts at everything, and then I got to 11.

"I knew I could do it. I've jumped it a million times in practice, but it just wouldn't happen. I was a little disappointed because I knew I was better. If I would've jumped 11, then I [could've] been [as high as second], I would've moved up. But it just didn't happen and it was a little tough."

Schumer, a finalist for the Semoball Awards Girls Track and Field Athlete of the Year, achieved her personal-best height of 11-3 at the district meet, which she won for the second consecutive year.

"You get there and you really think you're pretty good, and you figure out there are a lot of other people that are pretty good, too," Sink said about the state meet. "She hasn't quite reached the point of the gal that won the meet. She's very capable of reaching that point."

Since the state meet wrapped up a month ago she's spent quite a bit of time watching Youtube videos of Olympic pole vaulters so she can better visualize what it is her coaches are trying to get her to improve, and she'll definitely be watching when the summer Olympics take place in a few weeks.

She's also focused on weight lifting. The goal is to compete on a pole that is bigger than the competitor's weight, so that after it bends the return at the top will shoot the vaulter off higher, but strength is needed to handle the bigger pole.

"She's got some things she's going to have to work on as far as staying with her pole a little bit longer and letting that pole move all the way into the pit and coming out of the end of the pole instead of bar jumping," Sink said. "She doesn't do that [often], but a lot of times a lot of kids they see that bar and they just want to drop their feet over instead of continuing up that pole and using that pole as a tool to help them get over the bar. Like I said, it's a difficult event. We've had a lot of kids that were really good athletes that couldn't do it basically because it's so technical. She's got a lot of things that she can work on to get better at. Of course the other thing is if she can get faster and stronger, naturally those two things are going to lead to better and better performances."

Former Jackson pole vaulter Sierra Maddox, who's currently a member of the Southeast Missouri State squad, works out with Schumer and company occasionally, and the two send each other pole-vaulting videos.

Maddox won state her junior and senior years with a height of 12-6 and set the Jackson record with a vault of 12-9 as a senior.

"I'd love two state championships," Schumer said. "That'd be great, because Sierra kind of set the bar pretty high. I'd like a school record. Been trying for that. A sectionals win would be good. Haven't been able to do that."

Schumer has two years to reach those marks.

"I think that's in the cards for her," Sink said.