Vaulting to New Heights

Batman needs Robin, and for head track coach Nathaniel Kenne, he needs a team of Robins to help manage such a large team. One of his secret weapons is assistant coach Jeremy Walters. Walters has gained notoriety within the track coaching community for one specific skill: pole vaulting. For most of the 2024 track season, both boys and girls pole vaulters locked down the top spots from early season invitationals to the section finals.

While track and field showcases a variety of skills, pole vaulting combines athleticism, skill, and a dash of danger as students gallop like medieval jousters ready to impale an enemy before deftly defying gravity with heights capable of launching over a castle wall. How does Walters find his recruits? “I look for a strong, smart, fast athlete. Sometimes they don't have to be strong, but if they're fast, I can make it work. Sometimes they don't have to be strong and fast. They just have to be smart.” Some of his athletes could stand out in any event, like Lauren Mutschler and Tyler Hollerich, who advanced to state in hurdles and sprints respectively. In other cases, pole vaulters are sent to Walters when no other event seems to work. Exhibit A: Reid Hansen. “He was not the fastest, he couldn't jump, and he had hip issues. We tried him in all different kinds of events and finally got to a point that (Norm)Preston said, ‘You need to go see coach Walters.’ And I made him into a pole vaulter.” With novices, Walters spends his practices making sure that the new athletes don’t hurt themselves or others and relies on his veterans to push the bar by coaching each other during jumps. For much of the season, underclassman and veteran jumper Julius Schneider took top honors at event after event, yet his peer and senior teammate Tyler Hollerich topped in with a personal record and school record at section finals. The result: jubilation from Schneider. Early in his coaching, Walters adopted the motto: vaulting to new heights. With this mantra,his team measures success in personal improvement. “It's something that I want to instill into the vaulters because it's not only something that they could use for pole vaulting: it's also something that they carry on in life.”

(Caption: Assistant Coach Jeremy Walters poses with three pole vaulters that recently advanced to the 2024 State Track Meet).

Walters was born and raised in the area and attended Mankato East, where he first learned pole vaulting. He credits his cousin, Jeff Weibold, for suggesting pole vaulting and credits coaches Helling and Spanos for mentoring him. Like his current vaulters, Walters immediately began teaching others and coaching while still a student-athlete, yet instead of pursuing coaching or teaching, he entered the military after graduation. Coaching once again found him when his three sons grew old enough to participate in sports. After working with the wrestling program, Walters followed an indirect path into coaching pole vaulting. “I had coached (Mitch Stoltzman) in wrestling, and he's good friends with my son. (Jeff) Soma was here, and he was busy trying to do high jump, pole vault, and relays. I gave Mitch a couple pointers here and there. And he's like, ‘dude, just come and coach me.’” Walters found quick success, yet credits Jeff Soma and Norm Preston for helping his coaching along the way. It didn’t hurt that Stoltzman ended up having a miracle run to state. “He barely made it out of subsections. I mean, he tied and he advanced because he had one less miss than another. Insurance round and takes second and PRs at sections and then goes up to state and PRs up at state and takes 9th.” To date, Stoltzman is Walters’ only athlete to compete at the collegiate level.

Walters’ success in pole vaulting is a combination of philosophy and preparation. “I try to advocate that: One–get into camps. You cannot have enough time on a pole. Two: hit the weight room. You got to be in the weight room or at least some kind of strength training because if you ain't strong, you're not gonna handle the poles. Three: trust, They gotta trust me. I'm not going to steer them wrong.” Having found success in coaching both boys and girls, Walters believes that the girls are “very patient” and the guys “sometimes they want to fight you on some tips. They want to be a little stubborn. Which is fine because sometimes they need it explained a little bit more in depth.”

During a meet, Walters will provide immediate feedback between jumps, and during the season, he’ll provide his athletes with video footage to analyze the jumps. “I always try to pull a plus out of there. I was always told if you're gonna pull a negative, make sure you pull positive out of there because too many negatives could hurt the spirit of the athlete.” Walters says after the season ends, he’ll give himself a one month break before finding ways to make himself a better coach. “There's one YouTube guy that I follow. His name is Shawn Francis. The technique has changed from the time I vaulted to now. I'll take a month off, and then I'll be back at it again because I'll be watching videos trying to find new techniques out there, the way to teach it, and the way to coach it because the sport advances so much.” For Walters, he believes his coaching season begins in about December since “pole vaulting is 85% mental.” Why does he give up so much of his free time? “For the kids,” Walters states, “for the kids.”

(Caption: Recent protege Tyler Hollerich took only two years to break the Maple River pole vaulting record, leading Coach Walters to praise,”he was so coachable.”)

(Beginning with Mitch Stoltzman in 2012, Jeremy Walters has been working with Maple River pole vaulters.)

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