Pole vault pioneer Gassen enters Hall

Six-time all-American pole vaulter Marci (Miller) Gassen is headed to the Henry Heider Coyote Sports Hall of Fame. 

Gassen, a 2005 graduate, is joining three other track individuals in the 2023 Hall of Fame class, along with the 2006 men’s track and field team coached by Dave Gottsleben. 

Gassen is a very decorated individual, both athletically and academically. She graduated with honors in four years, double majoring in psychology and communications sciences and disorders. In 2005, she was named a first-team Academic All-American, the NCAA Woman of the Year for South Dakota and was USD’s female scholar athlete of the year. Gassen was one of 29 individuals to earn the prestigious NCAA postgraduate scholarship. She went on to earn a doctorate degree from USD in audiology in 2009. 

She took the bronze at the NCAA Indoor Championship meet in 2004 and placed in the top-six five other times throughout her four years of competition. 

From her freshman to her senior year, Gassen’s mindset at national meets stayed the same. She strived to do well and to win or place at every national meet in her four years of competition.   

When Gassen graduated she held both the indoor school record with a vault of 12-feet-6-inches and the outdoor school record with a jump of 12-feet-8.5-inches. In 2004 she won the NCC outdoor pole vault championship and took silver three times. 

But Gassen almost didn’t do track at all. In middle school Gassen decided to give track and field a try. She didn’t love track, but she turned out to be pretty good in the long jump and hurdles. In the eighth grade, she got pulled up to compete for Rapid City Central’s high school team. 

After running and jumping her eighth-grade year, Gassen was bored of track. Much to her coach’s dismay, she decided she did not want to continue the sport into her high school years. 

“The coach started calling me saying ‘Please, please can you just try track? You don’t have to do anything further than 100-meter hurdles and you won’t have to run further than 200 meters,’.”

Gassen was still hesitant, but after additional prompting and pleading, she decided to give track one last try. 

After beginning track as a hurdler, Gassen’s coaches asked her to try pole vaulting in the first year that it was offered in South Dakota. She picked the sport up fast and her coaches agreed that she should stop hurdling in order to focus on the vault. 

Gassen’s young niece, now in the eighth grade, competes in the pole vault just as she once did. However, Gassen acknowledges that a lot of things have changed since her first time on the runway. 

“We were looking at poles for my niece and now there’s a pole exchange where you can buy and rent poles from companies and there’s not only carbon, but multiple pole materials. That kind of stuff just didn’t exist when I was younger, I just feel like the sport has evolved so much…When I was in high school, we had one pole for me, and it was a boy’s pole that we were just cutting to fit me. It was just one pole to figure it all out.”

In some ways, Gassen was a pioneer of the sport, especially for women. The first Olympic year for the women’s pole vault was in 2000 and the first year the sport was offered in the NCAA was 1998. 

Following her high school career, Gassen was recruited heavily by the University of Nebraska and USD. 

“I love, love my family and loved every little part about growing up, so the idea of leaving home for college just frightened me,” said Gassen. 

Ultimately, she decided she wanted to stay closer to home and the rest is history. 

“I knew USD had a good pole vaulting program and a good history.” 

Gassen was recruited by Derek Miles, current USD pole vault coach and three-time Olympian. However, Miles left USD’s vault program during Gassen’s freshman year to train in Jonesboro, Arkansas, for the 2000 Olympics so she did not get the opportunity to train with him. Instead, head coach Lucky Huber stepped up and filled the role of pole vault coach. 

Gassen’s first memory from arriving on campus was an interaction with fellow teammate Emily Fox. Fox was a 400m sprinter for the Coyotes from 2000-04. 

“This blonde, 5-foot-5 girl knocks on my door and says, ‘Hey, you’re on the track team. Do you want to go for a run?’ And I remember thinking, ‘I hate running, here we go again.’ But I got my running shoes on, and she was a runner, right? So, we ran everywhere that day. And I remember thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I have to keep up. I can’t look weak,’ and so I bet you I ran further than I’ve ever ran in my life.”

This interaction helped form a team dynamic that Marci was proud of. All the athletes pushed each other to be their best both on the track and in the classroom.

“The team dynamic was great and there was an expectation to be great at school. I think that’s really neat, that all these students wanted to excel and that’s what the expectation was.” 

Of course, academics were very important to Gassen, but they’re not something that came naturally to her. She worked hard throughout college, deciding early on that she wasn’t going to let herself fail. 

“All these people were naturally smarter than me, so I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to have to dig deep and just outwork everyone. I’m going to outpace everyone with my work ethic.’ And that’s exactly what happened.” 

Gassen was one of few student-athletes to receive the NCAA postgraduate scholarship. Receiving the scholarship reassured her that people believed in her academic excellence and that she belonged in her doctoral program. 

“The scholarship just gave you another step of hope and confidence that you were capable of bigger things.” 

On the track, teammate and fellow Coyote Sports Hall of Fame member Sam Pribyl helped push Gassen to higher heights. 

“Sam Pribyl had a lot of success and he was with my class, so just watching him and being able to compete and feed off of each other, that was wonderful.” 

Huber was also one of Gassen’s biggest supporters in her time at USD. She said that Huber has and always will care a lot about his athletes.

“It wasn’t just about winning for Lucky, it was about you as a person.” 

After competing for four years and completing her undergraduate degree, Gassen married her high school and college sweetheart, Josh Gassen, who played football at USD. She received her doctorate in audiology and went to the South Dakota School for the Deaf, planning on working as a deaf educator cochlear implant audiologist, helping kids within the pediatric setting. 

However, Gassen’s plans were put to a temporary halt when she had her first baby. 

“I held our first baby and I looked at him and thought, ‘I’m never going to work again,’.” 

After a year off work, Gassen returned to the field, working at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Sioux Falls. Gassen still works with the Veterans Affairs Hospital but also focuses a lot of time on her four young boys, who are all getting into sports. 

As her boys grow up, Gassen thinks athletics are increasingly important in teaching them life skills such as time management. She believes that being an athlete in her youth allowed her to become a more productive, organized adult. 

Gassen’s advice to incoming freshmen student athletes is to study very hard and treasure every second of their time at USD. 

“My time at USD was full of so much joy and happiness. I recognized that in the moment and tried to soak it all up then carry it through the next stage of my life.”