A student of the process: Mooneyhan reaches first national meet

Personal records in track and field are the measure by which the sport monitors progress by its athletes. Few of these PRs are delivered with more drama and excitement than in pole vaulting, where every teammate, and in some cases even competitors from other teams, seem to have insight into the context of what has just taken place.

Ideally PRs are significantly better than previous best efforts and arrive at regular intervals, but either way works just fine.

Cassidy Mooneyhan, a sophomore pole vaulter in her third year at the University of South Dakota, can attest to the charms of doing what you have never done before.

“It’s the best feeling in the entire world,” said Mooneyhan, a five-time Arkansas state high school champion at Pea Ridge High School. “Everyone is happy for you. It’s why you do sports. It puts you on top of the world.”

Mooneyhan has fresh evidence to back up that statement. At the Summit League Indoor Track and Field Championships last week at the DakotaDome she cleared 14 feet, 2 inches, in the vault to move into the top 16 in the nation and qualify for her first indoor NCAA Indoor Championship.

“I wanted to qualify for this meet more than any other,” Mooneyhan said. “It’s been my goal for a really long time. I’m super excited but I also view it as something that I’m entirely capable of competing in. I’m going to go in there and do what I’ve done in every meet this year because that is what has gotten me to this point.”

She is one of three Coyote vaulters – joining high jumper Danii Anglin – who will be competing at the national meet, which is taking place this week in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Teammate Maureen Mülla, a sophomore, goes into the meet with the top college mark in the nation this year at 14-11 and Gen Hirata, a junior, qualified with the ninth-best height at 14-4.

It bears mentioning that at the Summit meet the top seven women vaulters were all Coyotes. On its own it represents a preposterous level of dominance and would be a bigger deal if not for all the nationally prominent vaulters who have advanced through the program during the tenure of coach Derek Miles, the three-time Olympian and bronze medal-winner who has led the program for nearly two decades.

Mooneyhan, for her part, is a student of the pole vault and the people who are good at it. Her father was Arkansas state high school champion and one of the top high school vaulters in the nation. He helped his daughter get started and then excel at a sport that otherwise doesn’t have too many seventh-grade devotees.

The culmination of that background – she remembers clearing 6-6 as a seventh grader and feeling pretty good about it – has given her a great appreciation for being part of a program that has produced four national champions.

It was all a little daunting at the beginning.

“I was definitely intimidated about coming into such a really successful program, especially after not being involved in my senior outdoor (high school) season because of COVID,” Mooneyhan said. “But then I got to meet everyone and see their personalities and the way they welcomed everyone. It was great to be part of that environment. It made it super easy to transition to college vaulting because I felt comfortable right away.”

The runway in front of the vaulting pit at USD is jammed up every day with an impressive array of some of the nation’s best jumpers. Ideally, when a younger vaulter enters this environment they make the best of it, but it can take a while to get to the point where the challenges of matching the efforts of teammates and past Coyotes does not seem overwhelming.

Miles, a late bloomer himself as a collegian at USD, understands how that works.

“Everyone comes in their freshman year with huge expectations,” Miles said. “You have a lot of kids who have just experienced a lot of growth and a lot of progress very quickly and then they think in college it’s going to be more of that, times 10.”

Mooneyhan was underwhelmed by her initial progress. Becoming a student of the process – rather than just the height of the bar – can take some time.

“It involves a lot of talks, a lot of communication and a lot of video sessions,” Miles said. “You have to tell them to just give it some time and we’ll get there.”

Mooneyhan gave it some time and is now getting there.

“Cassidy has the perfect perspective on the pole vault – the perfect personality,” Miles said. “She’s fun to coach, she’s committed and she works hard. It’s been exciting for me to see her venture into the NCAA top 16 and get to the national meet.”

Mooneyhan is a psychology major and perennial academic honoree who wants to be a sports psychologist. As a competitor in a decidedly mentally taxing event, she appears to be abundantly qualified for taking on that role.

“Being a psych major has pushed me to read a lot on visualization and stress management,” Mooneyhan said. “The things I have learned I’m really able to use on my jumps, especially the visualization. It has really driven me to have good performances this year.”

In the process of developing and sharpening her mental approach to her sport, she has grown increasingly appreciative of the way Miles goes about teaching his athletes how to get better at what they do.

The legacy speaks for itself of course, but there is more to it than that.

“The reason he has produced so many great vaulters is because he works with everyone on an individual level,” Mooneyhan said. “He really tends to each person and what that person needs. He knows how to support each person – he can coach every person differently, which I think is just an amazing quality. That impresses me every day.”