In Face Your Fears, I ended by describing one of my most memorable pole-vaulting days, but there is more to that story.

That day was just a dual meet–our team against just one other. A vaulter from the other team matched me vault for vault until the bar reached 12′ 6″.

On my first attempt at that height, I started off to the right, but even going up at an angle, I soared far above the crossbar. Even though the bar was as high as I’d ever cleared in a meet, I shot way over it.

One coach said, “You had at least a foot on that bar!”

Jumping a foot higher than the bar off to the side means being even higher if you get everything lined up better.

My opponent, though, missed on three straight jumps, making me the winner. But I had three more vaults outside the competition. I’d just skied 12-6 by more than a foot–maybe going high enough to make 13-6, which was the school record, maybe even higher. But I put away my pole. For some reason, I didn’t even think of going for the record. Maybe I was glad to win the meet, and knew there’d be other days to vault higher.

That Saturday, our team traveled to an invitational meet. Knowing that the competition would be stiff, I passed to 11′ 6″–hoping to keep some strength for going much higher.

On my very first vault, though, I came up short. After years of vaulting, you can feel it. I didn’t get enough drive into the pole, and I knew that I was hanging short, 12 feet or so in the air, maybe not even over the pit.

As I fell, it seemed like I might just catch the edge of the landing pit, so I leaned back. It worked, sort of worked. My shoulders hit the edge of the foam pad with my feet high over my head. Like a pendulum swinging, my feet cut through an arc, and then a crushing pain ripped through my right foot. My fast-swinging right foot had smashed across the edge of the metal pole-planting cup in the ground at the end of the runway.

I stood up, then collapsed the second that I stepped on my right foot.

I didn’t know it then, but that hit on the metal cup split–nearly end to end–one of the bones in my foot.

I never vaulted for the school record. Instead, I got a cast. My pole-vaulting days were over.

As my dad drove me to the doctor’s office, my foot pounded with pain, but I could only think of one think: Just a couple of days before, the chance for the record stood right in front of me, but I didn’t take the shot.

I wish that I had.

That failure to act, though, taught me more than it cost me. I didn’t miss another shot. Since that day some 34 years ago, I’ve taken every intriguing shot that came my way, and I’ve made a few that made all the difference in my life.

–MY MONDAY MESSAGE–

“You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”
~Wayne Gretzky