Kemp finds purpose as sixth year pole vaulter

Landon Kemp is in her sixth year of pole vaulting at South Dakota while working on a master’s degree thesis that will be taking an in-depth look at how athletes work with coaches and with teammates.

There’s a lot more to it, of course, but it promises to be a compelling study of the dynamics of how athletes handle themselves within the context of teams and coaches.

Kemp was drawn to the topic in part by her own experience as an athlete at USD, where she is closing in on the end of a career that has included a series of injuries that she, invariably, has overcome with a conspicuously positive attitude intact.

“She has one of those personalities where people want to be around her,” said USD pole vault coach Derek Miles. “She carries herself in a way where people are naturally attracted to her – they want to communicate with Landon. I don’t know to what extent others on the team are sharing their problems with her, but she has a way of calming people down.”

Kemp is a native of Greenville, Michigan, who has gone over 14 feet in the vault. It has been punctuated by the hardship of persistent injuries, however, that made vaulting much more difficult than it should have been.

None of those injuries – and it’s quite a list – kept her from wanting to be part of the team. For four years, that makes perfect sense. After six years, it’s a sign that you’ve made a decision about what is important to you and that pole vaulting is one of those things.

When Kemp decided to come back for another year she wondered what it would be like to be so much older than some of her teammates. Now she knows and she likes it.

“I’ve always hung out with older people and now I’m the older person,” she said. “It’s very strange because I’ve had to take on a different leadership role. I decided I wanted to be the kind of leader that would help these kids in the way I’d like to be helped.”

So what does that mean, exactly? It means being a friend to younger teammates who might be experiencing for the first time some of the disappointments that pole vaulters have to accept as part of the life.

“The pole vault is such a mental sport – everyone is already pretty tough on themselves,” Kemp said. “We all wouldn’t be here dedicating all this time to pole vaulting if we weren’t a little bit insane about it in the first place.”

When she sees a disappointed teammate, instead of leaving them to their own miseries, now she might intercede. With intention, she will have a conversation.

“I see younger kids get upset after a meet – and I still get upset, too, but I know exactly what they’re going through,” Kemp said. “I know how easy it is to focus on all the negative things. I try to be the voice that comes in and says ‘Okay, let’s look at the positive parts of this and see if we can learn from these negative things that will help us next time.’”

She has had teammates come up to her later and thank her for helping them through a rough patch. It makes her feel like coming back for another year is exactly what she should have done.

“It’s trusting that God put me in this spot for a reason,” she said. “I’ve had success and I’ve done some great things but it’s stuff like this that I’ve learned this year that makes it really cool. I feel like those things I’ve learned are going to be more valuable than jumping a really high bar. Learning how to overcome negative things and dealing with different personalities – that will help when I actually have to go out and get a real job.”

That last part got a big laugh from both interviewer and interviewee. There will be a day soon where this event that she’s competed in since she was 10 years old will no longer be an obvious priority.

She can’t see the pole vault disappearing completely, however. When she is no longer trying to clear bars she wants to help others clear them. The cool thing about that is that it could work in a literal sense but also metaphorically.

She is expecting that her next step is to become part of FOCUS, a Catholic collegiate outreach, that will enable her to work with students and athletes and become part of their support system. She would lead bible studies and help out with campus activities.

“My faith has been something that, when I came here, I was kind of practicing,” Kemp said. “But I’ve really grown in my faith since I’ve been here, especially with all the injuries I’ve had. You try to make sense of it all. What is God doing here? I think there’s such a need for that on college campuses and especially in athletics. If I didn’t have my faith to lean on I don’t think I’d have made it through six years.”

She will leave with a reverent respect for Miles, her coach. During her own maturation process in college she has come to appreciate and understand why the Coyote pole vault coach has accomplished what he has.

“There are reasons our pole vault teams have been No. 1 in the nation,” she said. “He puts an ungodly amount of time and energy into being here and texting us and calling us and asking us when we want to go over video. It’s been really cool seeing how he coaches.”

He still can’t be everywhere all the time for the Coyotes. There are always going to be circumstances where others with a calming presence can play a role in fixing things.

“I have older athletes on the team who take control of situations where they see someone in need of assistance and I’m not around or I don’t see what is going on,” Miles said. “She has done that so well. To me, that’s a defining characteristic of a leader.”