A Determined Bangser Wins Titles (CT)

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A Determined Bangser Wins Titles (CT)

Unread postby rainbowgirl28 » Thu Sep 06, 2007 3:18 am

http://www.westport-news.com/sports/ci_6812377

A Determined Bangser Wins Titles
By Eliot Schickler
Article Launched: 09/05/2007 11:47:03 PM EDT

Click photo to enlarge

Ben Bangser had a stellar career pole vaulting for the Staples High boys track and field team. Before graduating in June, he won FCIAC titles and the Class L outdoor track pole vaulting title. During the regular season, he won his event in almost every meet he competed in.
"Ben has good speed and he was very good at learning the technique," says Wreckers head coach Laddie Lawrence. "Pole vaulting is difficult to learn. He's a gutsy vaulter."

Developing into a stellar pole vaulter took a lot of work and dedication for the soft-spoken champion. He worked hard in the weight room to develop his muscles, which led to his scoring points for Staples.

"[Wreckers assistant coach] Andrew Lawrence [Lawrence's son] was a pole vaulter before me and he helped bring us pole vaulters up to the next level," says Bangser. "The event involves a lot of upper-body as well as lower-body strength."

Freshman year, he went out for the track and field team. Choosing the pole vault as his event was easy for him.

"I hated running," says Bangser. "I did the 50-meter dash [when he first did track] and I did well in it in FCIACs, but I realized I wasn't that good in it. I'm not a big guy and the shotput and discus are dominated by 200-pound guys.

I needed something for my body type."
At 5-foot-9 and 145-pounds, he saw that the pole vault was tailor-made for him.

To perfect his technique, he did a lot of workouts with bungy cords. He also did speed interval training even though he did not like to run much because he knew he needed a good running start when he performed in his event.

"I saw I wouldn't jump as high if I didn't run properly," says Bangser. "I'd see how much I needed to run before the event and I'd get into a rhythm."

Executing his steps in vaulting became second nature for him.

"The coach would give you something to work on and focused on correcting one thing at a time and then move on to the next thing," says Bangser. "A lot of it is muscle memory, like riding a bike."

Getting in the air can be challenging psychologically as well as physically. Someone who is afraid of heights would definitely struggle with this event. For him, it's not a problem, even when he's 13 feet in the air which was his best-ever vault.

"It's [being in the air] more relaxing," says Bangser. "The scariest part is the takeoff because anything can go wrong, but once I'm in the air, it's relaxing because I know the bags will do the job. It's not like being on the edge of a building. I think about the importance [for the team] of being up there and it's more like being on a trampoline. You gain trust with the pads. By the time you are high, you are over it and it's all about the takeoff for me."

Mastering the takeoff was a challenge he faced and met, and he was able to do it through time.

"It's definitely not easy," admits Bangser. "It's [a matter of] doing it a lot and muscle memory. You also see the progress from freshman to senior year vaulting."

After winning the FCIAC pole vaulting title in indoor track this past February, he suffered his worst landing ever during a practice. That landed him in bed for two days, which threatened to derail his chance to compete in the Class L championships. But he was determined to compete and scored two points with a fifth-place finish. If he was 100 percent healthy before the meet and didn't suffer the mishap, there's a good chance he would have won it.

"The team aspect got me to recover because they needed me in their quest to win States," says Bangser. "It's more about doing it for the team."

Lawrence says, "He had a lot of guts to come back from it."

Remaining poised while vaulting also contributed to his success.

"I sort of take it lightly and I just go and vault," says Bangser. "When I do it, I relax. I take one or two practices and if I feel good, I wait for my turn to vault."

Freshman year, he played tennis for Staples but saw it wasn't for him even though there's a tennis court in his house. He also played soccer for a longer time in his formative years. Unlike tennis and soccer, he liked track.

"I had friends doing it," recalls Bangser. "I went along with it, went to practice and I took it from there."

Academically, he's an outstanding student and took AP economics. Balancing his schoolwork with track was never a problem for him.

"I'm pretty relaxed about everything, which is my personality," says Bangser. "If I enjoy it, I do well in it. If I don't have fun with it, I don't do it."

This fall, he's attending Syracuse University, so the Wreckers will need to find another consistent pole-vaulter. Laddie Lawrence won't have fun trying to replace him because he was a reliable pole-vaulter, who consistently delivered clutch performances.

"It's going to be a big loss," says Lawrence. "We have to work hard to replace him. Every meet he was in, he was assured of scoring points."

At Syracuse, he will major in either industrial design or production design. He hopes to have a career in which he has a hands-on job working for himself because he said he is independently minded and doesn't want to work for someone else. Metal sculpture is one thing he's considering.

One thing he won't do at Syracuse is join its track team. Lawrence feels he could vault at most schools. While at Staples, he received many recruiting letters and certain track programs offered him a scholarship, but he wasn't interested in it.

"I'm busy with a lot of other things," says Bangser. "I loved it when I did it but I have other interests. If I got a scholarship, they own you, so I decided to do the regular college life."

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