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Vaulting puts Chase over top

By Daily Bruin Staff

April 10, 1996 9:00 p.m.

Thursday, April 11, 1996

Event goes to great lengths in hopes of official recognitionBy
Scott Yamaguchi

Daily Bruin Staff

You will find her on the infield of Drake Stadium every day,
polishing the skills that have propelled her into the elite group
of track and field athletes in the United States.

Jocelyn Chase is, without a doubt, among the best in the nation
at what she does ­ right on par with UCLA teammates like shot
putter Valeyta Althouse, high jumper Amy Acuff and discus thrower
Suzy Powell, all of whom have established themselves as top
contenders for NCAA individual titles at this June’s outdoor
championship.

You will not, however, find Chase in the athletic department’s
track and field media guide, where Althouse, Acuff and Powell
occupy full pages of biographical information listing their honors,
awards and records.

In fact, Chase ­ a sophomore ­ did not win a national
title as a freshman, and she has absolutely no hope for a
championship this year.

So what’s the catch?

Chase, you see, competes in the pole vault ­ an event that
has only recently been embraced by women and has yet to be
sanctioned for them by the NCAA.

The event’s recognition by collegiate athletic’s governing body
is not too far off, giving Chase hope that she will have a shot at
an individual title before her eligibility expires. Last season, it
was in contention with the hammer throw for the next women’s event
to be adopted, but in the end, the NCAA committee that makes such
decisions opted for the hammer.

Now, the women’s pole vault appears to be the leading candidate
in the race to be sanctioned, though the women’s steeple chase has
entered the picture. And if the pole vault does not win out, it
would be a tremendous disappointment to Chase, who watched as her
event became sanctioned at the high school level the year after she
graduated.

"It is a pain," she says. "In high school, I missed the women’s
competition by a year, and now I’m here, and hopefully it will be
sanctioned sometime while I’m still here. If it’s not, I’m kind of
missing it each time."

Still, Chase remains optimistic, and with good reason. The women
pole vaulters’ fight for acceptance has come a long way in a short
period of time.

"Everybody kind of laughs, you know, ‘Why do we need the women’s
steeple chase? Why do we need the women hammer throwers?’" UCLA
pole vaulting coach Anthony Curran says. "The cool thing is, with
pole vaulters, I even laughed as a coach, ‘Why do we have to have
women’s pole vaulting?’"

But Curran, who is considered a pole vaulting authority and
whose current male prodigy, sophomore Scott Slover, ranks second in
the NCAA, never fully discounted the notion of women pole vaulters.
Chase, who attended Agoura High School, had much to do with
that.

She had been involved in gymnastics, as most female pole
vaulters have, until her freshman year in high school, when she
took up track and field as a sprinter/miler/thrower. Before too
long, the effects of her activity in gymnastics began to show in
her knees, and she was limited to the throwing events.

Then, on a whim in her junior year, she decided to attempt the
pole vault.

"I did it because it was a challenge, because they said that
women couldn’t do it," Chase says. "A lot of my guy friends were
pole vaulters, so I asked them how to do it. At first, I was just
trying to figure out how to hold the thing, but I started trying
it, and it was really cool."

Soon, through a friend who already trained with him, Chase was
hooked up with Curran, and in the first meet of her senior season
­ the Pole Vault Summit in Reno, NV ­ she won her
division with a mark of nine feet, six inches.

Now, Chase is ranked fifth in the nation among all women with a
personal best vault of 12-0 1/2 and has Curran, who even last year
doubted women’s potential in the sport, convinced that women can
succeed.

"Last year, I went to the nationals for high school, and it
looked stupid ­ I said, ‘OK, these girls shouldn’t be doing
this,’" Curran says. "But as I’ve been working with girls, it’s
just phenomenal what they’re doing now and how quickly they’re
picking up the sport.

"At this point, I’m not laughing any more."

KRIS FALLON

Though she may not win an NCAA title this year, Jocelyn Chase is
one of the nation’s best pole vaulters. She remains optimistic that
her event will gain recognition in the near future.

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