Hogue jumps high despite losing rib (Tennessee)

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Vols pole vaulter aims for SEC outdoor title

Photos courtesy of the University of Tennessee

Tennessee pole vaulter Michael Hogue got his start in track and field at Houston High, where he became a state champion.

Despite missing a rib that was removed to treat a vascular disorder, Hogue has won two SEC Indoor pole vault titles. He's looking to add an outdoor title to his resume this week.


By Ron Higgins
Contact
May 10, 2007

Yes, that is a rib that sits on Michael Hogue's dresser in his apartment in Knoxville.
Not a barbecued rib from a takeout meal, but a human rib.


No, this isn't "CSI Knoxville." It also isn't something that Hogue, a nursing major at the University of Tennessee, needs for one of his classes.
"It's my rib," Hogue said with a laugh. "It was mine to begin with, so I figured I'd hang on to it."

The rib, removed from Hogue in December 2005 when he was diagnosed with a blood clot in his right arm that threatened his life and vaulting career, is a reminder that every day is a gift to be opened and enjoyed.

And right now, life is pretty good. Hogue, a former state pole vault champ from Houston High, is a two-time Southeastern Conference indoor champion going after his elusive first outdoor title this weekend during the league championships in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Blessed with his healthiest year to date in college ("Knock on wood," he said) and a new pole vault coach that pays attention to detail, Hogue, a fourth-year junior, is enjoying the finest season of what had been an already impressive career.

On Tuesday, he was named the SEC's Field Athlete of the Week after he finished his outdoor regular season undefeated with five straight wins. The indoor all-American leads the conference outdoors by almost four inches with his season-best height of 17-41/2 . He has cleared at least 17 feet in eight straight competitions, dating back to the SEC Indoor Championships on Feb. 25.

But after finishing second in the conference outdoor championship as a freshman and tied for third last season as a sophomore, winning an SEC outdoor title and getting a shot at outdoor all-American status are two of the immediate frontiers Hogue wants to conquer.

"If I pull that off, I can't imagine the year being any better," Hogue said. "Even if it doesn't happen, I've had a great year. I've already had way more than I should've, with the stuff I've been through.

"I'm not satisfied, but it's like (singer) Jimmy Buffett sang, "If it suddenly ended tomorrow, I could somehow adjust to the fall."

Love at first vault

You'd figure a pole vaulter would quote a Buffett song titled "Changes in Attitudes, Changes in Latitudes." Most pole vaulters have a little bit of crazy in them to do what they do.

Dave Hogue remembered the first time he saw his son vault. His boys, Michael and Will, had always been football and baseball players as kids. So when Houston High track coach George Gibson convinced Michael to try track as a freshman and then told him he'd be a great pole vaulter, ol' Dad was naturally skeptical.

"I knew nothing about pole vaulting, which is why Michael probably liked it, because I didn't know enough to screw him up," said Dave, who lives in Germantown. "Michael used to ride unicycles when he was a kid, and he has never been afraid to do anything up high. But pole vaulting seemed to be a really good way to get hurt."

Gipson spotted Michael in one of his physical education classes. Hogue had played football that fall, but was trying to decide in the spring whether to play baseball or run track. He chose track, figuring the running would keep him in shape for football and improve his speed.

But when Gipson determined Michael wasn't fast enough to become a sprinter, he put a pole in his hand and introduced him to the event.

"In four years with us, he never missed a practice, a weight workout or summer workout," Gibson said. "He never missed anything."

Even though his first two meets ended with injuries -- he got stitches for cleating himself in his first meet, then for biting through his lower lip in his second -- Hogue was convinced he had found his sport.

"When Coach Gibson came up to me one day and said out of the blue, 'Hey Hogue, you need to run track ... I'm going to make you a pole vaulter,'" Hogue said, "I kind of took it as a sign. I went out to practice, and it was fun.

"By the end of my freshman year, I was fairly confident in my ability to control it and know where I was going to land. But you've got to be a little bit crazy to run as fast as you can, stick a stick in the ground and see how high you can go."

Hogue won the state championship as a junior and set a state record at a meet on the Tennessee campus, where Vols' coaches saw him. They never backed off him, even during his senior season, when he tore a hamstring and failed to qualify for the state meet.

Hogue spent a redshirt year at UT as a true freshman in 2003-04. By the end of his first year of competition in '04-05, he had improved his lifetime best by five inches.

It seemed all his work in the weight room was paying off. He opened his sophomore indoor season in December 2005 with a vault of 17-03/4 in a meet at Clemson, but on the ride back to Knoxville noticed his arm swelling. It happened to him a few days earlier after a weight workout.

The next day, after he showed it to a UT trainer, he was immediately taken to the UT Medical Center and diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS), a painful disorder affecting the nerves that pass from the neck into the arm and armpit. When someone suffers from TOS, the arm continues to swell. Left untreated, the disorder could become so severe that a person might lose his arm or hand.

Before Hogue knew it, he was having three surgeries in four days. He had bulked up so much that muscles had constricted blood flow in his right shoulder and arm. The problem was alleviated when Dr. David Cassada, a vascular surgeon at UT Medical Center's Heart Lung Vascular Institute, removed one of Hogue's ribs and some of his shoulder muscle.

For the Hogues, the nightmare grew even more complicated. Younger son Will, who is a right fielder for Austin Peay in Clarksville, had driven to Knoxville to check on Michael coming out of surgery, then drove back to Clarksville.

Before he got back to school, his car was hit by an 18-wheeler on Interstate 40 and flipped over five times. Unbelievably, Will walked away with just a few cuts that needed stitches.

"We went from euphoria to almost not having any children," Dave Hogue said. "It was horrible. It was the hardest, then the greatest week of my life. God protected us. That's all we can say about it."

But there was another miracle yet to come.

What goes up again, must come down again

Doc Cassada told Michael that his injuries would take six months to a year to heal, and that there were no guarantees he'd ever vault again.

"All of it crosses through your mind," Hogue said. "I consider myself a religious guy. I don't necessarily fear the idea of dying. I thought, I hope I make it and I hope this isn't the end, because I really thought I could do a lot more with this track stuff."

Stunningly, he did. About two months after his surgery, after constant consultation with Doc Cassada, Hogue picked up a short pole at practice one day, held his breath and vaulted.

But he also made sure he did it with none of the coaching staff in sight.

"Some of my teammates were out there, and some of the volunteer coaches were out there," Hogue said. "But (head) Coach (Bill) Webb wasn't there because I was afraid he would be mad at me.

"I kept it a secret until I was confident that I was able to do it. Then, I did it in front of Coach Webb."

When Hogue cleared 16-6 3/4 in his first competition to finish second at the Tennessee Indoor Classic in mid-February '06, Webb cleared him to compete nine days later in the SEC Indoor Championships in Gainesville.

Even now, Webb admits he didn't expect much out of Hogue that day.

"I was really, really scared," Webb said. "I know Michael talked to the doctors and they'd said it was OK. I just wanted him to have a regular, normal life, and he's out vaulting. I was holding my breath."

The Hogues flew to Gainesville with just one hope -- their son rolling out of the pole vault pit in one piece.

"We're thinking, 'Man, if this injury flares up again, we've got big problems,'" Dave Hogue said. "We were nervous, but it's what Michael wanted to do. We had to trust him to make his own choices."

But then ...

"I still haven't figured out how I pulled off winning it ... everybody gets lucky," said Michael, who cleared 17 feet to give Tennessee its first indoor SEC champion in the pole vault since Rocky Danners in 2002.

In the stands as their son climbed on the victory platform, Hogue's parents stood with tears streaming, marveling at their son's indomitable spirit.

"He's a driven, most determined kid I've ever seen," Dave Hogue said. "Sometimes, it's a good thing and sometimes it's not very smart. In this case, I don't know if it was very smart.

"We were just there (in Gainesville) praising the Lord that he was jumping. Then for that to happen, for him to win, it was just too sweet."

Added Webb, "That day when Michael won ranks up very, very high of the amazing things I've seen in my career. I still get a little emotional thinking about it."

Icing on the cake

From that point, all the Hogues -- Michael, Will, Dave and his wife, Sheri -- agreed that any athletic success is a mere bonus.

"The opportunity is the gift," Dave said. "We learned that it can be taken away at the snap of the finger. So you take what you've got and enjoy it."

Michael has enjoyed this season. It's his first with no major injuries, and he's been helped considerably by new volunteer vault coach and former UT great Russ Johnson.

And of course, if there's something that Michael can't figure out, Coach Gibson back in Memphis is just a phone call away.

"I have my regular Dad who I love and look up to more than anyone in the world," Michael said. "But if I had a second Dad, if would be Coach Gibson. He mentored me, he worked with me one-on-one, he stayed late after practice with me.

"He's the reason I'm doing what I'm doing now. When I now have trouble that I can't figure out on my own, if my vault coach hasn't encountered it, I give Coach Gibson a call."

Regardless of what happens this weekend or the rest of the season for Hogue, Gipson is sticking by something he told Hogue one day in his junior season at Houston.

"I said, I'm going to ask one thing of you ... when you go to the Olympics, I want tickets,'" Gipson said. "I still believe that. I know he's going."

No bones -- or one less rib -- about it.