If he were born three thousand years ago, junior Jackson Cooney may have been designated as the village river-hopper in ancient Greece. In modern times, however, he must content himself with the title of second best pole vaulter in Marin.

“A lot of freshmen always want to try pole vaulting just because it looks fun to be up that high,” he said. “But when they try, they are turned away most of the time because it’s much harder than it looks.”

Successful pole vaulters possess a unique set of athletic skills – the speed to generate enough momentum given only a 20-30 meter run-up, the body awareness to contort their bodies in mid-air, and the flexibility to arch their backs over the bar.

Cooney, a junior, fell in love with the sport his freshman year. Although he had excelled at the long jump and triple-jump, his background in gymnastics gave him an unusual level of suspended body awareness.

“One of the hardest parts of the long jump is being able to adjust your body by folding your torso into a 90 degree angle which allows for minimal drag, but that’s just what Jackson was best at,” said jumping coach Brett Johnson. “If he could control his body like that, then I figured he had what it takes to pole vault.”

Much of that difficulty comes from the challenge of timing, of coordinating all the different components of a jump, an almost impossible task for an inexperienced athlete. To complicate the task even further, there are few set standards of a jump, meaning vaulters must determine several factors – the distance from the bar to the pit, the length of their approach, the size of their pole, the location of the jump point – simply to have a chance at maximizing the potential energy stored in the bent pole.

“It’s a lot of trial and error to see what works for you,” Cooney said. “That’s kind of frustrating for some people, to not have someone telling you exactly what to do since it’s different for each jumper. It just puts a little more pressure on you when you’re trying to get as high as you can.”

As Cooney moves down the runaway, he keeps count of the steps in his head and sways the pole rhythmically on his shoulder, syncing step with sway, so that he doesn’t miss a beat as he transfers the pole from shoulder to the half inch chalk circle that marks his takeoff.

Cooney’s job is not complete once he has sprung upward thanks to the energy of the pole. After lifting himself up to his maximum height, he must turn his body and swing his legs up and over the bar, an acrobatic maneuver which requires a considerable amount of arm and core strength.

“People don’t realize that side of it,” Cooney said. “They think you just sort of fly over the bar but we have to do separate upper body workouts like push-ups and pull-ups to make sure that we can lift ourselves over the bar.”

Because the sport requires skills beyond those of a normal track athlete, Cooney often puts in extra work after completing a normal practice to refine his pole vaulting skills.

When most of the other track athletes have gone home after a strenuous workout, Cooney grabs a spare shirt from his duffle bag, chalks up his hands and shuffles toward the pull-up bar – taking the steps slowly. Once he gets to the bar, he eyes it timidly for a moment before jumping up and grasping it with both hands. For a moment he dangles lethargically. With a well-timed hip thrust, he flares his legs out in front of him and begins to rock pendulously, lifted higher and higher with each successive turn.

The drill, a leftover from Cooney’s gymnastics days, strengthens his core but also refines his feel for the air and teaches him to control his body. Thus far, his extra training has paid dividends.

Cooney’s personal record is 13 feet, good enough for second in MCAL behind Tam junior August Kiles, who holds the county record with a mark of 15’7”. Falling from such heights is dizzying, sometimes frightening, yet there are few feelings in sports quite like it.

“It’s something that most people will never really feel, what it’s like to almost fly over the bar,” Cooney said. “It can sometimes get boring doing the same thing over and over but then you’ll have one of those jumps that feels amazing. It’s a really special feeling.”