Owen soars to new heights

SAN DIEGO - The road to becoming a world-class pole vaulter isn't an easy one. Polson High School Track and Field star Melinda Owen almost didn't start down that road. When the 2003 graduate was just a high school freshman, and still years from achieving collegiate and national greatness, she had a decision to make.

"I was undecided the day up to tryouts between track and softball," Owen said.

Clarity came in an interesting package. Since her sister, Becky Owen, was on the softball team and the two didn't get along at the time, Owen said she went with track and field.

"It was definitely progressive," Owen said. "I did as many events as they allowed. I didn't do the pole vault right away."

At her coaches' urging, she took to the pole vault. Problem was, they didn't have a pole. They had to borrow one from Charlo High School in order to get her up and running. Despite suffering a torn quad her freshman year and a broken foot her sophomore year, Owen finished sixth and third at state, respectively, in the event. It wasn't until a heart-breaking no-height at state her junior year did Owen really start to like the pole vault. Coming back with a newfound passion during her senior year, she cleared the 12-foot mark in the event which won her state and a national ranking for high school in the top ten.

"I had not really thought about going to college in pole vault until that," Owen said.

Owen had largely been focused on volleyball, but things changed.

She instead went to the University of Idaho on a full-ride scholarship, the same school where her cousin Tassie Souhrada was on the track team.

"My family is a very tight knit unit; we're very close," Owen said.

It was at Idaho where she said she met Vandals' coach Jason Graham. Except he wasn't a coach anymore.

"When I got there, he had stopped [coaching] because he had a full-time job," Owen said.

Owen said she struggled her first year and didn't receive enough attention for pole vaulting.

"I thought about changing schools," she said.

Another choice that may have taken her off that road was quickly averted as Graham, who had been

coaching Souhrada, agreed to come back to Idaho to coach Owen.

"He is one of the hardest-working coaches I have ever seen in my life," she said. "He would call other coaches to learn and try new things. I really came a long way."

Such a long way, in fact, that at the end of her senior year she had the highest collegiate jump in the nation - four meters, 40 centimeters - and qualified for the Olympic trials in 2008. Owen placed tenth at the trials and immediately attracted the interest of USA Track and Field coaches.

"I had an invitation to live and train at the Olympic Training Center," Owen said. "They want to bring people in that have a high chance of medaling in the Olympics."

Before she could pursue her dream in track and field, she had to finish her student teaching for the University of Idaho. Then she had to undergo foot surgery to remove bone spurs.

"I couldn't get in the running workouts in when I was in college," Owen said.

She didn't actually get to the 40-acre Olympic training center in San Diego until January 2009 and then she had to work on rehabbing her foot.

"My coach and I sat down and wrote out a four-year plan," Owen said. "I'm definitely on schedule. I'm close to being ahead of schedule."

Since Olympic athletes aren't paid, Owens said that she was living a very simple lifestyle with obvious help from her parents and the people of Polson.

"I've been super lucky, and when you are on [the Olympic training site] you don't have to pay for anything," she said.

Owens was able to train with Stacy Dragila, a 2000 gold medalist in the pole vault, and that has proven to be quite advantageous for the Olympic hopeful.

"Being her training partner is opening up a lot of doors to meets," Owen said.

Dragila's agent got Owen into a lot of meets that the gold-medalist was invited to, meaning that she got plenty of exposure and experience at a higher level. For a developing athlete who is looking to get in as many meets as possible, that was as good as gold.

Last year, Owens, also got the opportunity to travel to Europe to compete after an anonymous donor from Polson paid for the trip. She was able to go to countries like France, Italy and Germany for competition.

"They loved track and field in Europe," Owen said. "We were celebrities wherever we went."

Up to 60,000 people would cram into stadiums to watch the meets that Owen competed in, compared to the 20,000 that attended the Olympic trials in 2008.

Owen credited the traveling to her improvement as a pole vaulter.

"One of the big reasons I have progressed has been the travel. You have to learn the elements of traveling, you have to gain exposure," Owen said.

Things are starting to come together as all the practice Owen is putting in is starting to show up in competition. On May 18, she attended a Grand Prix meet in Osaka, Japan and posted the best height in the pole vault. It was impressive considering that Owen had to make a cross-Pacific flight. That pushed her to the top-five in the world rankings for pole vaulting.

"It's really well-respected when you jump well in those conditions," Owen said. "We spent more time in the air than on the ground."

At the USA Track and Field National Meet this year, Owen placed fifth. She also talked with her coaches and has decided not to travel to Europe this year for meets, and instead stay at the Olympic Training Center. She said she wants to work harder to get ready for a shot at making the World Championships U.S. track team and the Olympic track team in the upcoming two years.

While she still has a ways to go, she also hasn't forgotten where she came from. On June 5 she returned to Montana to help promote the sport of track and field. Along with other great Olympic athletes, Owens was part of an elite field events showcase at Dornblaser Field in Missoula. It wasn't the first time she'd been back though as her boyfriend lives in Missoula. However, she doesn't get to make it up to Polson as consistently since she needs the proper facilities to keep up with her running workouts. That doesn't mean she isn't thankful though.

"It's very hard in the economy to have a sponsorship, right now; there's no money," Owen said. "I'm very fortunate to come from a small town. I have so much help from Polson. It has kept me going."

With the Summer Olympics just two and a half years away, there is probably a lot of people that hope she keeps going.