Chesterton junior Bryan Huseman skies all the way to sectional championship in the pole vault and goes a foot higher than the closest competitor

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Brooke Williams, a sophomore known as “The Academic Weapon” on Chesterton’s girls volleyball squad, does not limit her athletic brain power to that sport. She also appears to have the makings of an excellent track and field scout.
Brooke’s cousin, junior Bryan Huseman, was a high jumper in middle school until Williams suggested he think about taking his aspirations several feet higher.
“She said I had big muscles so I should try pole vaulting,” Huseman said.
It sounded good to him. So he joined the pole vaulters freshman year. Like most in an event that requires blending so many physical and mental skills to get the hang of such a demanding event, he didn’t encounter much success early. His best freshman vault was 8 feet. Then it started to click for him and he kept going higher and higher.
As a sophomore, he made it all the way to 10-6, earning the team’s most improved award.
The biggest proof of Williams’ scouting prowess came when Huseman won the sectional title last Thursday under less than ideal conditions at Portage, where a cold wind blew hard all night. He matched his personal best with a 12-6 and won the competition by a foot over his closest competitor, Valparaiso’s Rocco Novak. Chesterton’s Maddox McKinney also advanced to this coming Thursday’s Valparaiso regional by placing third with a 10-6 vault.
“It was a crosswind and it was blowing the whole time and it was pretty cold,” Huseman said of the conditions.
Huseman didn’t let the wind dilute his expectations, as evidenced by him passing at every height until the bar was set at 11 feet.
“Deep down I knew it would be a good night,” Huseman said. “Just a gut feeling. Some of my warmup jumps didn’t seem that good, but they started getting a little better.”
His confidence heading into the right direction, he knew he was safe entering at 11.
As a freshnman, he didn’t let a modest start at the new event discourage him because he knew “it’s something you’ve got to stick with to get better.”
As for why he stuck with it: “Seeing other people do it, it looked awesome.”
Now he’s one of the “other people” doing it and looking awesome. He even likes the view from the top.
“It’s like watching everything in slow motion, watching yourself go over the bar and hope it doesn’t knock down,” he said.
Huseman’s first hurdle to clear in picking up the sport was a typical one: fear.
“I was pretty scared,” he said. “The pole coming back and hitting you seems pretty dangerous.”
He explained how that hurdle no longer stands in his way: “I just don’t really think about it. I just set it and go.”
Technical aspects became better through reps.
“My run has gotten a lot better and I’ve gotten a lot stronger since my freshman year,” he said. “The farther back you go, the more force you can put into your run and you can transfer all your energy from the run into the pole and then the pole shoots you upwards.”
He’s running so fast now that he decided to run a couple of 4X400 relay races and encountered enough success without training for running that distance that he is thinking about adding the 400 meters to his plate as a senior. He said he ran a 56 split, which sends the mind spinning as to how much lower a runner can go in one year on the track when he went more than 4.5 feet higher in three years planting a pole and soaring.