While reaching new heights, Kalsey’s season put on hold by injury
Westminster College’s Marissa Kalsey is a seven-time All-American and two-time NCAA runner-up in the pole vault. Her senior season was recently cut short because of a broken ankle. A Waynesburg native, Kalsey hopes to receive a medical hardship ruling from the NCAA so she can compete next spring.
Marissa Kalsey
It took years – from the time Marissa Kalsey took up the event as a youngster, through her journeys at Waynesburg High School, to her senior season at Westminster University – for the first bad break in her pole vaulting career to occur.
Actually, the bad break was in her ankle.
In the first event of this outdoor season – last month’s Juniata College Invitational – Kalsey, adjusting to a new pole, came down awkwardly and broke her left ankle, ending her season. She is eligible for a medical hardship for next year’s outdoor season.
“It was the first outdoor meet of the season and I was doing really good,” said Kalsey. “I had already (hit the qualifying mark) for nationals … I had cleared 12-6 and was going for a PR jump of 13-4.”
Kalsey made two strong vaults but the problem arose on the third try.
“I came up short in the pit,” she said. “I wasn’t deep enough. I hit the bar on the way down with my shins. My (left) foot hit the mat and all my weight came down on my foot.”
Kalsey had surgery in Pittsburgh and faces a long rehabilitation process: three to four months with no weight bearing on the ankle and six months out of the sport. She is permitted to do upper body work. Kalsey is optimistic the NCAA will grant the medical hardship – Division III’s version of a medical redshirt – so a return for the spring season can happen in March.
“As soon as I did it, I knew it was broken,” she said. “It hurt at the time but it was more my foot was numb. I was sitting there crying because I knew my season was over.”
And another sparkling run through the NCAA Division III Championships was put on hold. Kalsey became a seven-time All-American – and earned her fourth straight All-America honor in indoor competition – with her third-place finish at the 2016 Indoor Track & Field Championships. She has finished second in the national championships twice and is a four-time Presidents’ Athletic Conference gold medalist and part of the Titans team tournament champions.
Her hopes for another strong outdoor season, and possibly a national championship, ended with the injury.
“It’s very frustrating. I was doing very well, even through indoor.” she said. “In indoor, I was clearing my (personal record) of 13 feet by a foot. I was using these new poles – 14-7s (14 feet 7 inches long) – and I had been jumping continuously like that. The past couple years I was jumping like that inconsistently. Finally, they began coming out. Once I got on the 14-7s, my vaults were very high but they were also very short and that was what we were working on. I couldn’t clear the bar. I was coming down on it.”
When Kalsey is ready to resume her vaulting, she can count on Bradi Rhoades being there. If that names rings a bell to track fans in this area, it should. Rhoades competed at Waynesburg High School and has been the vaulting coach at Westminster for the past eight years. Under Rhoades, the Titans have won the pole vault title in the PAC championships four of the past six seasons and the women’s title the past five. He has produced seven All-Americans in women’s pole vault.
“The first time I saw her was when she came up to one of our summer camps and I could tell immediately that she was a very talented person,” said Rhoades, a 2000 graduate of Waynesburg. “I had the inside (track) on her because we went to the same high school and her pole vault coach was my pole vault coach.”
That would be Butch Brunell, who is regarded as the best pole vault coach and one of the best track coaches in the WPIAL, if not the state. Brunell guided Jocelyn Lindsay to the first PIAA pole vault title when the sport was introduced to girls competition in 1999. She won again as a senior.
“Marissa and I hit it off in summer camp and it’s turned into what it is now,” Rhoades said. “What impressed me the most was how coachable she was. When I saw her, my first thought was to get her faster and stronger.”
Another important aspect is the relationship Rhoades has with Kalsey. Trust in this event is critical. You don’t ask an athlete to stick a pole in the standard box and propel their body 15 feet into the air before landing on strategically placed cushions without trust that both know what they are doing.
“It’s critical. It’s tricky because there are not a lot of high-quality, high-tech pole vault coaches out there,” Rhoades said. “Then you have the variable of personality. Does it match yours? Is this going to work? You have to have a professional relationship with someone you believe in. When someone like Marissa comes along with this high-end ability, it’s about getting her to mesh with someone she can trust and believe in. So when I tell her, ‘Hey, you need to do this workout at this time,’ she knows I’m leading her down the right road and she is all in. Having that factor is critical.”
Kalsey said having Rhoades there extends a comfort level that began at those summer camps.
“I had the opportunity to work with him and jump with him,” said Kalsey. “He was so energetic and so positive and that was what I really liked. I feed off of that. I don’t feed off negative energy or someone who is discouraging. I loved the way he coached. I chose (Westminster) because I thought Bradi would be the one to get the most from me. D-I, D-II, D-III didn’t matter. I just wanted a coach who get the best out of me.
“Trust is extremely important, more so in the vault. You have to trust your coach to put you on the right pole. It can be scary when says to go to this pole. But he told me that’s my job as a coach and you can’t worry about that. It’s difficult sometimes because your body might not want to do it if there is a bit of doubt in your mind.”
Kalsey is now concentrating on recovery and will take graduate courses at the school to earn her master’s degree in education, early childhood and special education.
“The injury changed my path a little bit,” she said. “Hopefully, that was how it was meant to be. I was planning on vaulting after college (unattached) and Bradi agreed to coach me. So that hasn’t changed. I have hopes of making the (Olympic) trials but now that’s out of the question. I was just going to try my best and get as high up as I can.”