34. Toby Stevenson

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What an honor to have this conversation with the one and only Toby Stevenson.  I was blown away with the uniqueness of Toby's story.  The way he grew up in the vault was so cool and fun to hear about.  Time and time again durning this podcast I was completely thrown for a loop when he would pull out another unique story or training method.  So cool to see where he has come from, the believe in HIS way of doing things, and now hearing about his work with the next generation.  Great people = Great podcasts!

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Transcript

Jake Winder (00:00:00):

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the One More Jump podcast by Rise Pole Vault, The New and Improved one More jump podcast. If you didn't see our announcement, we have a new face,a new logo for the podcast. And yeah, new branding and, just exciting to spice it up a little bit. Shout out to Amber O I don't know if she wants me,blowing her name up, you know, putting it out there, but she, she's kind of been help, or she has been helping us a lot with,the one more jump,Instagram stuff and branding and logo generation and all these different things that, go into it. And I actually really enjoy those things. I think it's cool. Ujust stories behind logos and, and branding and, all that stuff. I find that interesting and she's been,very, very helpful.

Jake Winder (00:00:59):

So thank you very much, Amber. We have merch with the new logo on risepolevault.com. We've got t-shirts and water bottles and Tumblrs and hoodies and yeah, yeah, all kinds of good stuff. So if you haven't checked that out, go ahead and check that out over at risepolevault.com. Today's guest is Toby Stevenson. Toby Crash Stevenson, as sometimes they refer to him. This was one that we've been trying to put together for a while and we finally made it happen. And I'm very appreciative to Toby for doing this. He's a busy, busy guy. But anybody who grew up, you know, in the two thousands watching things like Neo Vault and you know, those sort of of things know that Toby kind changed a little bit of the culture and pole vaulting and added a lot of excitement to it. And he used to do these celebrations and, and fun things after he would make a bar.

Jake Winder (00:02:11):

And I don't know, it added like a spice to everything that nobody had really seen that much before. And man, I'm telling you what the beginning of this podcast is nuts. The stories that he tells about him rigging up stuff for him to pole vault whenever he was a kid, him and his dad, it just like blew my mind. And there's all kinds of just random things in here, just tidbits of like, what, "That's crazy" type moments. Yeah. So I wouldn't, you know, I would've probably guessed that just judging him by his character and, and how he presented himself, he's just, just kind of a wild dude. Just, you know, very interesting person. So, yeah. So anyway, hope you enjoy this podcast with member of the Six Meter Club and Athens Olympic silver medalist, Toby Stevenson.

Jake Winder (00:03:24):

It's, it's legit. It's, it's the real deal. But yeah, so anyway, so we hop right in, I mean, really, really, you know, laid back and everything. So I guess we could just start with how you grew up in the pole vault where you grew up. I don't know a lot about your background. I, I you grew, you were a professional pole vaulter during the, you know, the time that I was coming up as like a high school vault, but I don't know much about your background.

Toby Stevenson (00:03:52):

Oh, man. Yeah. So I'm originally from Odessa, Texas, and that is famous for the Friday Night Lights stuff. The book, the movie, the series, I I went to that high school, so that was my high school, and I was kind of at all those games that the movie and the book is about. And there's plenty of funny stories around that and me and how it was called all intertwined and stuff. But yeah, no reason for Texas. Born and raised out there in the oil fields of Odessa. And the short story is I got into pole vault thing cuz of my dad basically. I didn't play football, skateboarder, tennis, soccer, anything you can imagine. And it was always doing kind of track camps and stuff. And then my dad was a pole vaulter and one day, you know, we were pretty, we're DIYers pretty handy. My dad's built two houses by himself and kind of grew up that way too. And I, he was building a chain link fence around our house and one of the iron top bar, I just kind of picked it up and was kind of screwing around with it. And he's like, Hey, you look like a pole vault. And I'm like, What is that? And he's like, Well, let me show you. And that's kind of where the, the, the rubber met the road for my pole vaulting career.

Jake Winder (00:05:10):

That's crazy. So like, so you took the, I'm, I'm imagining you took that big heavy top piece of, of the fence and started running around with it, and then he, what did he, did you get like a little backyard set up or something like that? You know? Oh

Toby Stevenson (00:05:26):

Man, yes. I mean, I was just, I was honestly just sticking it in a hole and jumping over rocks, I think or something with it. I don't know. I've also been fourth grade, fifth grade, who knows? Young, right. But yeah, I'm one of those guys that grew up, had a pole ball pit in their backyard That's Awesome. And so <laugh>, the, the story goes like this, basically it was, we are the quintessential redneck engineers Right? And so like, you know, you see, you see the videos these days, these kids have these setups and stuff and no, no, no, no, no. Let me, let me clear the air right now. It was nothing like that, man. Like my first pole vault pit was a trampoline.

Jake Winder (00:06:06):

Oh geez. <Laugh>.

Toby Stevenson (00:06:08):

Those old school just rectangular trampolines I grew up on it, had it my whole life. And so, yeah. I'm still pole vaulting and the trampoline, you know, four feet off the ground jumping up, landing on the trampoline. Well, the problem with that was once I started bending the pole, what happens

Jake Winder (00:06:28):

Go higher?

Toby Stevenson (00:06:29):

Well, no, it hits the trampoline.

Jake Winder (00:06:31):

Oh yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. It's too tall.

Toby Stevenson (00:06:34):

Yeah, it's too tall, Right? So, that was the problem. And then, you know, the first problem I ran into is I'm jumping, I'm landing on this trampoline and I'm bouncing off the thing.

Jake Winder (00:06:44):

Yeah.

Toby Stevenson (00:06:45):

And so to solve that problem, the next step was to, well, let's just take the legs off the trampoline. Right? Let's just lower it down to the ground. So now the trampoline's only about 12 to 18 inches off the ground. Well, you take a pole vault, you land on a trampoline, it's about 18 inches off the ground. What happens, Jake?

Jake Winder (00:07:03):

You hit the ground baby, you hit the,

Toby Stevenson (00:07:06):

You hit the ground hard <laugh>. So that was a a one time lesson for sure. Never didn't do that again. So the next thing was to pad the trampoline. So he went to probably the local Walmart and bought a bunch of old school foam foldable chairs they used to make back in the day. And we just kind of lined the top of it. Right. And it was great. And that worked for a while. Right? No big deal. But then again, I mean, that foam's only eight or nine inches thick, and I'm still kind of hitting the bottom.

Jake Winder (00:07:41):

Yeah, yeah. How high are you going like, I don't know, like eight, eight feet or so? Nine feet.

Toby Stevenson (00:07:47):

And I couldn't even tell you I four feet, who knows I don't know. I'm in fifth grade still and then, you know, whatever. And it's the most ridiculous thing ever. And so we had the brilliant idea, Let's make, let's build a real pole vault pit. Okay, let's do it. And so what my dad did is he built the two by four frame in the shape of an actual pole vault pit with the front buns mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and everything. So like the square and the two little front buns that come out and covered it in plywood. And then we drove around town and picked up all the old couches that we could find all over the city and just brought 'em home. We un we took all the covers off, we're putting all these couch cushions on top of this wooden frame right. Roped it down and my mom a vinyl cover for it. This

Jake Winder (00:08:42):

No way

Toby Stevenson (00:08:44):

Vinyl cover for it covered it. We had the PVC pipe standards and a wooden box in my backyard. So yeah, that was about as fancy as I, I got, when I say I had a pole vault pit in my

Jake Winder (00:08:57):

Backyard, that's the most elaborate like rig job I've ever heard. Probably like my dad grew up and he just cut a coffee can and, and used that as his box and then and then he, you know, chunked up tires or, or whatever. But that is an elaborate setup right there. Like you had the guys had to put a lot of thought into that <laugh>.

Toby Stevenson (00:09:20):

Well, my dad's an evil genius man. Like he is one of the smartest men. I know. He did that. And it's funny, right? Like I, when I think back to the evolution of how I started, and that's how I started me and my dad in the backyard mm-hmm. <Affirmative> trying to figure it out. Right? Well, and, and, and here's how the kind of, the progression went in our mind, Well, I'm running on dirt, right? So he goes, Well, let me build you a board runway. So we built a board runway Wow. Out of two by four, just like a standard board runway. You'd have the day right in the backyard. And so that was cool. So that helped a lot, right? We didn't put rubber on it, it was just wood. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And and then we started thinking about, okay, how do we, and this is back in 87, 88, maybe 1989, I don't remember. We had a, our pole vault box of made out of plywood. And my dad was like, Well, how do I teach my son how to get on bigger poles? And so what he did was he made the bottom of the box adjustable so I could adjust the, the depth of the box from eight to

Jake Winder (00:10:25):

Feet

Toby Stevenson (00:10:25):

Down to 10, down to 12. I could go two feet deep in this thing. Whoa. And so, like, whenever I was, whenever I was trying new poles out, we'd lower it down to probably 12 inches.

Jake Winder (00:10:37):

Wow. That's pretty cool.

Toby Stevenson (00:10:39):

And like, yeah, it was no problem. Then we would just kind of incrementally bring it back up to the normal depth pole vault box.

Jake Winder (00:10:47):

Whoa. That's pretty cool, man. That's awesome.

Toby Stevenson (00:10:50):

Well, and then this, and this is gonna sound silly to anybody listening to this, we were kinda like, well, how do we get your run right? You know, how do we know how far back you should run from? So instead of using a tape measure, what I did, I just cut a piece of string and I put it at the back of the box and I ran the string along the runway and I put tape around the end of the string where I was supposed to start. And so that's how I knew how long my run was.

Jake Winder (00:11:19):

Do you think that having that sort of background enabled you later on in life to not have to have like the best circumstances and things like that?

Toby Stevenson (00:11:32):

It was, we laugh about it all the time. The short answer is yes. I mean, I had two dogs, just two outdoor farm dogs. And like, I'd be running down the runway and they're crossing the runway. <Laugh>, I've gotta go down and yeah, my brother's playing tennis and the tennis ball kind of hits me, whatever. And yeah, it was interesting. And potentially I think that helps. You know, I mean, I've always grown up distracted and with stuff like that, and plus I'm jumping into this couch laden pole vault pit. But again, this was only until I was about probably seventh grade or eighth grade By then, I think I'm jumping like 10 feet or right. Let's say it's 12 feet. And I was jumping a little bit too high for that pit. So we actually made a deal with the high school. I could come up and actually jump there.

Jake Winder (00:12:23):

Right, right. Yeah. I think, but I, I do think that maybe just having that, that background probably does play somewhat of a role in like later on in life. It's just like, you know, you're, you're, you kind of get the red carpet rolled out for you, like whenever you were jumping in some of the meets that you were jumping in and, and then kind of makes you maybe appreciated a little bit more. And, and I remember we did a podcast with Greg Dolans and Greg was telling us about how he does not do well. Whenever people say you know, I can't go to the next poll. It's four flex points bigger. You know, he's like, I don't have any sympathy for you, for you doing that. He's like, cuz he, I mean, he had to jump, you know, jump up. Like his jumps in his poll progression were huge, you know? So, I don't know. I think that might, you know, subconsciously maybe play a role in some, some people's success.

Toby Stevenson (00:13:20):

Well, I think a lot of people back in the day, right, the resources were more limited. Same with me when we bought our own polls, but I had, I bought three polls, maybe or two polls mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, that's all we could afford. And so, yeah, I mean, we had no idea. I mean we're, I'm jumping on who knows what they are, but it could been, they could have been 10 pounds apart, Who knows. Right? Like two flex over the horse. Yeah. Like all these, I'm gonna sound like an old man now. All these bougie kids that have 15 poles on their bag and they're worried about a two pound flex jump. Right? Yeah. I'm, I'm kind of in the same boat as Greg. It's like, come on, you're okay. You're all right.

Jake Winder (00:13:56):

You'll be just fine. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's pretty wild. So did your dad, did your dad have any like success in the vault? Like did he bought in college or anything like that?

Toby Stevenson (00:14:08):

He, so he pulled vaulted in high school. I think he ended up going, he did go to college on for pole vaulting, but he, I mean, he was jumping 14 feet, 14 six. I mean, this was the time when the, this was just when, this was just the year or two before the fiberglass pole came out. But he ended up going to college for a year and then ended up getting drafted in the Vietnam. Oh. Never, He never actually finished his pole vaulting career, But no, he was, he's an insane athlete. I mean, some of the old videos and old pictures, I mean, he was a gymnast and a climber and a pole vaulter. And like, some of the stuff he could do was, it's insane. And then, and that's kind of what he brought into his coaching as well and instilled in me.

Jake Winder (00:14:51):

Yeah. So he was your main coach, like through high school or, or up until high school? Or how did that work?

Toby Stevenson (00:14:59):

He has been, he is the reason for my success basically. Wow. he's been an ever, he's been the north star of kind of what I've been doing. I, I've worked with several coaches for sure, but no, he coached me through junior high high school. He was there in college in a way. He wasn't a coach at Stanford, but he would fly out once or twice a year and kind of help me out. And then the volunteer coach we had and got named Casey wrote, which was more than happy to kind of work with us and do sort of what we thought. And then obviously in my professional career, I mean, the first person I called after I made the team in oh four was him and always given advice and always talking about it. But now he is a, he's an evil genius when it comes to pole ball coaching.

Jake Winder (00:15:43):

Wow. Yes. See, I never knew that. I never knew that your dad was, was your coach throughout like a lot, lot of your career. So, so throughout college well, let's go back to high school first. So you, you grow up jumping on these kind of rag tag pole vault setups end up, you know, enjoying it a lot. And then you get into like, high school. So how high are you vaulting going, let's say, going into your freshman year of high school?

Toby Stevenson (00:16:13):

Let's see here now. Yeah, the pole walk progression goes even more detail than that in terms of how ghetto we were. But

Jake Winder (00:16:20):

<Laugh>, well what's, what's your most get, what's the most ghetto rig you guys kind of had?

Toby Stevenson (00:16:25):

Well, it wasn't the ghetto, it was just different things. Right? So again, back to the back to when we were, I first started on fiberglass sucker rods. I'm from the oil field, and you know, those pump jacks rods that go well, you know those pump jacks you see? Yeah. They go up and down. They're just sucking oil outta the ground. Well, the way they suck it is they, they're fiberglas they're called sucker rods, 18 feet long, and they're just inch and a quarter solid fiberglass, and they have a little screws. They just screw 'em together and they can go down a hundred feet. Well, my dad was fishing one day and he found four of them, four 18 foot long fiberglass sucker rods. They were solid, fiberglass heavy as all get up, right? We go, those were my first pole vaulting poles, but obviously being an inch and a half thick, way too stiff for me to jump all when I'm 80 pounds soaking wet. So we put the, we put it, we cut it down to 10 feet, we put it between two drills and just sanded it. We took sandpaper and just like a lathe and sanded it down until it was maybe a half inch in diameter. And then I could jump on it. I pulled vault in junior high on solid fiberglass rods. They had no cell piece, no soft side, no pre bend, weren't even hollowed. And I think I jumped, I think I jumped 10 feet.

Jake Winder (00:17:48):

I'm getting, getting the chills right now. This is the coolest, Like this is the coolest pole vaulting come up story I've ever heard in my life. This is really interesting to me.

Toby Stevenson (00:18:00):

It was brilliant. I only steel pole vaulted for half a season. And that was in seventh grade. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So starting halfway through seventh grade, I was bending the pole, but this pole was just a fiberglass rod. Right. And we, since we had, what, 18 times? Four, nine times, and we had 72 feet of this pole. So I had a nine foot pole, a 10 foot pole, and 11 foot pole, and a 12 foot pole. And literally we would sand it down and dad would take it out and flex it a little bit. He would sand it down a little more, flex it a little bit, and go from there. Right. And so, yeah, that's how I started.

Jake Winder (00:18:42):

So you had like a series, you had like a series of stiffness too.

Toby Stevenson (00:18:46):

Hundred percent based on, gosh, you know, bed and different links and different sizes and Yeah. So those were the first poles. And so, God, I think I jumped six feet in seventh grade, maybe eight feet in eighth grade. I might have jumped 10 feet in ninth grade maybe on these poles. Well then back in the day I had to look at a sports catalog. Oh, there's some pole vault poles, Cat old sky poles, blue sky pole. Right. With the first pole I ever bought. Yeah. And it was a 12 foot, I don't, or I'm making this up, I don't know, a 12 foot or 14 foot, I can't remember. Maybe a 14 foot, one 40. Well, that's way too big for me. Right. Thing. I can't hold 13 feet. I weigh a buck 10 soaking wet, man. And so, and again, this is a real pole.

Toby Stevenson (00:19:44):

So what we did was, my dad's like, Well, it's too long for you. I'm gonna cut a foot off the bottom and I'm gonna cut a foot off the top <laugh>. So that makes it a 12 foot pole long. See, that makes it differ. So, hey, it worked for us before. So we took a sky pole, put it between two drills, started spinning it and sanded it down a real pole, sanded it down until he flexed it. And we got it down to about a one 10 or a one 15 or a one 20. And I jumped on it my whole probably 10th grade year. And I did that to three or four polls during that time, because we could only afford one or two polls a year, but we had to customize them to me.

Jake Winder (00:20:28):

I am like, my mind is blown right now. This is really crazy. So you sanded, so after you get through the sucker rods Yeah. So you're jumping on sucker rods. You got, you made yourself a series of sucker rods <laugh> Yep. For, for pole vaulting bowls. And then, and then you finally got a real pole, but it was too big. So you hacked off the ends of it. And then you adjusted the stiffness of that real pole vaulting pole too.

Toby Stevenson (00:20:56):

Yes. By sanding it down, Spinning it into spinning it between two drills and just like a lathe just taking fiberglass off the pole. And it were a hundred percent worked. I mean, I jumped on, I jumped on three or four poles like that probably from ninth grade all the way through sophomore year potentially, or all the way through ninth grade, and maybe partially through my sophomore year in high school. And then at that point probably getting a little too, finally getting big enough where we could actually get real poles.

Jake Winder (00:21:33):

Right, right. So did your school have like a set of poles or anything? Or like Yeah, a few.

Toby Stevenson (00:21:39):

Yeah, they had a few. I mean, it was, it was a li it was a pretty shady, shady mix. <Laugh>, it was a wild mix. But we would always, you know, my dad was again, my staunchest supporter and it was whatever it took. And so yeah, we would scro and dip the money and we'd order two poles and try to work it into their system and stuff. But the, the last bit about the standing it down, well, because we were poor and didn't have a lot of money, at some point the pole gets too soft,

Jake Winder (00:22:11):

Right? Oh no. So

Toby Stevenson (00:22:13):

It's like, so we're like, how do we make it stiffer? So what we did was instead of standing it down, we poured fiberglass resin on it, smoothed it out, and then wrapped it in fiberglass tape to add stiffness to it. And it made it stiffer.

Jake Winder (00:22:32):

Oh my.

Toby Stevenson (00:22:33):

And it worked. Gosh, Now I'm not suggesting anybody do this. And it was like, like I said, redneck. But it worked for what we did, what we had to do in order for me to be able to jump based on what our plan was. And it was just to try to jump, have some fun, and we just didn't have the money to buy a pole. So yeah, that's what we did.

Jake Winder (00:22:54):

That's insane. That is, that definitely goes down in our podcast history of the gnarliest come up, come up story. That is crazy.

Toby Stevenson (00:23:07):

All true. All true. And there's a lot more to it. But that, that was all the, like the engineering stuff and like the, we were just doing everything we could. And now that I think Mike on it, we were doing very sophisticated things, right.

Jake Winder (00:23:24):

Not

Toby Stevenson (00:23:24):

Really even knowing about it. I mean, my dad, I think my dad knew a lot more than he led on. He was a Right. He knew about materials and he'd been working with stuff his whole life. So

Jake Winder (00:23:34):

I mean, what did he do? What did he do for a profession?

Toby Stevenson (00:23:37):

So he was a chemical engineering like person at a chemical plant in there, but he was more on the safety side of things. And then again, went to Vietnam, came home and basically was retired most of his life until later on years. Now he's a double mastered almost PhD. He was an adjunct professor at the local university. Yeah, just he's in the same human being who is, I never really understood how truly intelligent he was until later in life. And it's unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. So now when I tell these stories, now I can kind of, I get it. I get what he was trying to do, and I get how he was doing it, and he was doing it. It sounds crazy, but he was doing it very intelligently.

Jake Winder (00:24:29):

That's, yeah. See, it sounds like a very interesting person.

Toby Stevenson (00:24:33):

He's, he's a, he's a, an amazingly interesting human being and one of the few men who can outsmart everybody I know. And just have some stories that like, it'll blow your stocks off. It's great. So,

Jake Winder (00:24:48):

Geez. Holy cow. He sounds like a good podcast guest <laugh>.

Toby Stevenson (00:24:52):

Well, I mean, and this is the last I'll, I'll move on. But the, the one thing we did was is like, we were like, he goes, How do I know your runs on? We now have your starting point because we have this piece of string. How do I know your starting? How do I know you're on? Here's what I wanna do. He washed a few of my runs and on top of the runway he laid a bead of silicone glue

Jake Winder (00:25:17):

Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>,

Toby Stevenson (00:25:18):

And I don't know where it was on the runway, just across the runway. And it was thick. I mean, it was half inch thick, quarter inch thick. And he goes, If you're running down and you feel that under your foot, you know you're on. So hit it

Jake Winder (00:25:33):

<Laugh>.

Toby Stevenson (00:25:34):

It was a mid mark base.

Jake Winder (00:25:36):

That is awesome.

Toby Stevenson (00:25:38):

It was a tangible mid mark that if he goes, if you feel it, you're good. Go.

Jake Winder (00:25:46):

If you feel it, then just hit it.

Toby Stevenson (00:25:48):

If you feel it, then hit it, baby. I mean, again, and I don't wanna, and there's so much about that, but I look back on that. I'm like, That's brilliant, man. I had a mid mark in eighth grade in 19, what is that? 1990?

Jake Winder (00:26:02):

Geez. Well, its just, you know, common sense stuff, you know, I think he was probably just looking at it and he was like, Well, what if we just put something down there and he like could tell that he was on, you know? Yeah.

Toby Stevenson (00:26:13):

I, I don't know. I don't know. But anyway, to give back to your original question, I think sophomore year I jumped 14 feet. My junior year I jumped 16 feet. And then my senior year I jumped 17 feet.

Jake Winder (00:26:28):

Okay. So we went from sucker rides to jumping 17 feet as a senior subject. I feel like we skipped over a couple things there. <Laugh>.

Toby Stevenson (00:26:37):

Well, by the time my sophomore year rolled around, we were ordering real poles. Yeah. And we were on spirit poles at the time. And it I couldn't tell you. I'm sorry. I couldn't tell you what poles I was on. I think maybe 14 footers my, my sophomore year. Cause I remember, I couldn't tell you when it is. I remember the transition from 14 to 15 foot poles was really hard for me. Okay. Really hard for me because I'm trying to transition on these poles. And we were trying to do it in my backyard. Now I was too big to really jump in the pit, so I wasn't getting upside down. But we lowered the box down to 12 inches and I'm at the back of the runway. And the issue is I'm backed up against our chain link fence. We didn't have enough runway. And so that's when we started using taps.

Jake Winder (00:27:33):

Oh, started tap, like your dad started tapping you. Yeah.

Toby Stevenson (00:27:36):

He would stand there and tap me. And that started probably sophomore year, something like that. Yeah.

Jake Winder (00:27:42):

I actually just recently started using that tool every once in a while with some young kids that are having, you know, just on the cusp of, of getting into the pit. Is that something that you still use today at all, or? No,

Toby Stevenson (00:27:57):

It depends on the kid. And I'm assuming we're gonna get into my coaching and stuff like that eventually. It depends on the kid. If I had my way, I would use taps for everybody. I would, I would not let them take a jump without a tap. I'm, but again, I'm, I'm, I'm in, I'm an intelligent coach and I, and I got, I I read the kit. Right. So if they've never used them, No, no. I'm not gonna force it on anybody. But like, no, I honestly, Jake, I pro in my, whatever my career was from 89 or 90 to 2009 in practice, whenever I'm going from long run, I maybe took 10 to 15 jumps without a tap. Wow. My whole career.

Jake Winder (00:28:45):

Wow. That is really interesting.

Toby Stevenson (00:28:48):

Yep. Never, never did it.

Jake Winder (00:28:50):

And you never like, found that you were addicted to it, like in a meat or anything? Like it never really caused you any problems?

Toby Stevenson (00:28:58):

Nope, never. Because when I was jumping long, run the pole, by the time I got to my professional career, I guess throughout my career when I got to the meets, I had been already been jumping on bigger poles in practice than I did in meets. Because it was one of those things that my dad was like, Hey, I know we're trying to get on 15 foot poles. Here's a 16 foot pole for you. I want you to hold at the top. I'll get you in <laugh>, I'll get you in. And so he taps me in and next thing you know, I'm sitting here leaving the ground, holding 16 feet when I'm in it. And then when I get that 15 foot pole in my hand holding 15 feet, it's nothing.

Jake Winder (00:29:42):

Yeah.

Toby Stevenson (00:29:43):

The same idea as a baseball player who puts the weight on their bat while they're waiting to hit you, take that weight off, boom. It's easy. Right. And then, yeah,

Jake Winder (00:29:51):

I think, I think that it, another good like synonym would be those over speed, like treadmills or like over speed, like downhill running and things like that. You're, you're overcompensating like you're, you're running way more than you naturally could run. And then the hope is that, you know, whenever you go back down to your baseline, your baseline is higher. And I think mentally, you know, if you're, if you get into the pit, whether it's with a tap or without a tap, I think mentally you probably have some sort of gain. You know, in, in your confidence probably a little bit if you're, if you're, you know, in your case you're nobbing at the end of a 16 foot long pole, and I'm assuming you're probably in like high school or something. And, and, and if he's, you know, tapping you in there and then you get a smaller pole in your hand, you're probably like, Oh dude, I can crush this thing. I don't have any problem.

Toby Stevenson (00:30:49):

No, that's exactly what it is. Now I'm a proponent of taps. If the coach is prepared to tap. And there's so much involved with that, it's not just muscle. It's not just using your arm to put somebody in. You gotta think about where you're hitting them on the back. You gotta think about the angle you're actually pushing them. You gotta think about when you're hitting them, do you hit 'em before their step hits the ground or after they leave the ground. There's so much to it. And like nobody thinks about the science behind the tap and how to really use it. They just think it's this false sense of confidence and it's really dangerous. But that's the user error and the fault of all the coaches who have been bad tappers. Because I think generally speaking, people use the tap to go from the bottom up. Hey, you've only been jumping on a 14, 1 50, let's try the 14 foot 60.

Jake Winder (00:31:40):

Mm-Hmm.

Toby Stevenson (00:31:41):

<Affirmative>, I didn't do that. I worked it from the top down. Like you said, it was a very safe environment. I obviously trusted my dad. I understood what his goal was for me. And so when he told me to hold the top of 16 foot pole, let's do it. I knew I wasn't trying to jump on that pole. I knew it was only an exercise to try to get on my 15 foot pole. So I was doing top down type stuff. And so I guess my attitude towards it was never one of this is helping me to do something I've never done before. This is helping me to do something I want to do type situation. Right. It was never fear, It was never this, I think it's quite the opposite. It gave me so much confidence going into a meet, because in the Olympic Games, the pole that I jumped my medal winning jump on, or even my six meter pole in Modesto, I've jumped on four or five poles bigger than that in practice. I felt them. I know what it feels like. And so when I'm holding my whatever, five 10, I guess 12.6, man, it's in my hands and I'm like, this is not okay. Okay. Yeah. It's just another Tuesday for me. You know, when it comes to that one poll,

Jake Winder (00:32:54):

That's a really good point because my brother Luke he made the world championship team this year and he, you know, has, has some poles that he hasn't jumped on yet. And so, like as his coach, I'm his coach. As his coach. I'm sometimes in a track meet hesitant to move him up to that pole because he is never felt it before. Yeah. You know, and, and I don't know if it's gonna twist or, or if it's, or if it's, you know, super stiff or he's gonna get in it to it super easy. And I don't wanna waste the jumps of him not finishing those vaults, you know, if he's never been on it before. So that I actually, that is a pretty good argument for tapping because then, you know for sure when you're going to that pole to jump six meters at Modesto, it's like, Dude, I've been on this bunch of times, you know, it's no big deal. I know what it bends. Like I know, I know all, all the nuances about it and, and I'm good. You know?

Toby Stevenson (00:33:52):

Yeah. No, and you hit the, you hit the nail on the head in my entire career. I never jumped in a meet on a pole that I've never touched or that I hadn't, that I hadn't taken 40 jumps on. Right. I mean, this wasn't a once in a month type thing. I mean, this was something that I've never, I've never been in a meet and had to do that.

Jake Winder (00:34:15):

Wow. Do you run into the issue when you work with athletes currently, do you run into the issue of people who have not been tapped and then they're like, Oh man, I, I don't, you know, they get uncomfortable with it or they are too scared, It's too weird having somebody that close to the runway or anything like that?

Toby Stevenson (00:34:34):

Yeah, for sure. I, I've brought the idea to several, several athletes that I've coached throughout the years. And some of them took to it really well. Because again, it's a thought out process. I'm explaining to them what I'm doing. I'm explaining to them why we're doing it, what the progression's gonna be. We start from two steps, one, two, boom, one and then three, and then four. But yeah, I've had athletes who one have flat out said, No, I don't believe in taps. I'm not gonna use them. Hey, that's fine. And I've had athletes who wanted to try it and they hated it. Yeah. Just hated it. And I'm like, Okay, fine. No big deal. Right. I can work around whatever it is. But yeah, it's for sure the, the whole gambit.

Jake Winder (00:35:18):

Did Olivia, does she use taps?

Toby Stevenson (00:35:22):

Does not as pervasive as I used them whenever I was an athlete. She came into me at Kentucky and she had never really used it that much and didn't particularly like them mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. But as she grew in the sport and as she got bigger and faster and stronger and jumping higher and higher, those jump days from long run became a little more serious. You know, cuz she's on 14 sevens, one 70 fives. Right. And I was telling her the same thing, I never want you to, if you're trying to turn pro, you need to do what pros do and they go hard. Right. But I can sort of ease that a little bit. You can be feeling 70% at practice, but jump at 120% because of the day. So no, we Right. We, we do use 'em. It's a pretty rare occasion that we use them, but no, she's totally comfortable with the idea now. And we, we do it sparingly, but yeah, we definitely use 'em and it's a tool.

Jake Winder (00:36:21):

People in Texas during the eighties and early nineties, it seemed like they were always experimenting with downhill runways and tapping and all sorts of kind of innovative ways of teaching people how to pole vault. Is was that something that was kind of common whenever you were growing up down there? People tapping or using downhill runways?

Toby Stevenson (00:36:46):

Honestly, I don't know. I, you know, my high school career was very subdued. I mean, it was, I didn't do any summer track meets. I never jumped the summer. I did my eight high school track meets and then I went off to lifeguard or whatever it was. I never, I didn't know AAU existed. I didn't know summer track existed. I didn't know any of this until the summer after my senior year in high school. So I really can't answer that question. I've heard it too. Obviously I know all the coaches and the guys that grew up in the area. But no, for me personally, I didn't experience any of that because I was in a bubble, man. I'm in West Texas and Right. The furthest I would ever travel would be to maybe to Austin to go to the state meet. Right. And then I'd come back and my season was done.

Jake Winder (00:37:28):

Right. Right. So how did you end up at Stanford?

Toby Stevenson (00:37:33):

So I think we, we, we made a decision early on, I think when I was jumping 16 feet. I was getting letters and, you know, we started thinking about pole vaulting in college and I think my dad and I were talking about it and we were like, Listen, if you're gonna do this in college, well why don't you go somewhere that's gonna help you out in life. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And so we actually reached out to Harvard. So in my junior year, reached out to Harvard. Cause we were like, Okay, what's the best goal in the country? Harvard. Right. You just think about that. Right. And so for two years was talking to Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, let's go, applying visits, everything. I get to that one track meet after my senior year and it was, it was called the Golden West Classic. Mm-Hmm.

Toby Stevenson (00:38:18):

<Affirmative>. And it was in Sacramento, California. And they flew me out and I was jumping with all the guys. Well, we took a bus trip to go tour San Francisco and I saw signs that said Stanford and I got home from that trip. I'm like, Dad Stanford's pretty good. Right? And we looked it up. Yeah. It's pretty good. And so we sent them a recruiting tape. Right. And on this tape I've got, Yeah. Me jumping, I'm buny jumping in a Stanford shirt. You know, just crazy stuff. <Laugh>, this is back in the day when he sent VHS tapes. Right, right. Had to mail it and they got back. Well, yeah, starting my senior year Stanford started recruiting me and yeah. Ultimately went on both of those recruiting trips and chose Stanford because it was just beautiful. Loved the west coast. I wanted to be in the PAC 12, or I guess Pac 10 back then, or pack 11, whatever it is now. <Laugh>.

Jake Winder (00:39:16):

Right, right.

Toby Stevenson (00:39:16):

Anyway, really had whole other, whole other podcast on that. But yeah. Got in and immediately chose Stanford and never looked back.

Jake Winder (00:39:25):

Right, right. So how, how was your collegiate career was? It was pretty smooth. Successful.

Toby Stevenson (00:39:33):

Yeah. It was. I really had a great time. Stanford is this magical place Right. That I've fallen in love with more and more throughout the years. But yeah, I, I came, well before that, I actually took a year off after high school and I went to a JUCO year. Yeah. So it was actually during that JUCO year that I applied to Harvard at Stanford. I was only doing part-time. So it didn't use any of my eligibility. It was just kind of part of the plan. My dad and I talked about it and I wanted to be ready for college. So I wanted to take some college classes and I was already in high level math and chemistry and stuff like that. But took a year off, didn't touch a pole for 18 months. I didn't jump not one jump in that year off. Wow. got into Stanford, went to Stanford, and yeah, my first meet at Stanford, I pr about like two inches jumped 17 two or 17 three, whatever it was. Right. Whoa.

Jake Winder (00:40:32):

That's crazy. But

Toby Stevenson (00:40:33):

Yeah, I had a great collegiate career. I mean I, I, I made NCAAs my freshman year unfortunately couldn't go because I broke my collarbone and a in a dumb bicycle stunt that I was doing. But I think I jumped 17 eight my freshman year. So that was a really good increasing performance. I, I jumped 18 feet my sophomore year and then one NCAAs outdoors that year. Wow. So I'm pretty fired up about that. And then I think junior year jumped maybe again, 18 two. So I really didn't improve much. And the senior year jumped 5 72. So 18 nine I believe it was. Right. And so, yeah, I mean I had a great career. One ncaa, he's got second two or three times to Russ Buller that did one guy

Jake Winder (00:41:24):

<Laugh>,

Toby Stevenson (00:41:25):

Well, he had my number in college, but yeah, man, like, and then Jacob Davis obviously another legendary Paul Walter was there too. Right. But no, I loved it. Had a great time, met great friends and Stanford is this great place and I loved my college career.

Jake Winder (00:41:40):

Right. So at the end of college, was it clear to you that you wanted to continue like as a post-collegiate pole vaulter?

Toby Stevenson (00:41:50):

Definitely not. I, I had no plans on jumping post-collegiate. I mean, I was, I was interviewing for internships and IT companies and consulting firms and stuff. But then my senior year came and yeah, jumped really well, you know, 18 nine and then that was the Olympic trials in 2000. So that was for the Sydney games. And went to that, went to the Olympic trials, I made it to the final and then I think I know hide in the final and who knows Right. But then the coach at the time was like, Hey, like why don't you just keep going? A man named Edrick Floreal who is still a mentor and a coach of mine that I still have today, it was kinda like, Hey, why don't you give it four years? Think about it. And I thought about it for about six seconds and was like, Yep, let's do it. I'm in. Let's keep going. Why not?

Jake Winder (00:42:34):

Right, right. For sure. So how, how did you manage, like what did you do for your living situation and how did you manage to like survive those four years to the next Olympic games?

Toby Stevenson (00:42:46):

Well, it was tricky for sure. Cause I stayed two years at Stanford and the first year I actually broke my ankle pretty bad. I landed the typical land, I got up, got caught in the pole, landed on my feet, and the pit rolled it. Evulsion fracture. Right? Oh. So yeah, I was volunteer coaching at Stanford. And then when I came back from that, that next year, same idea. It was, I, it was like everybody else. I'm doing whatever it took to survive so that I could pull vault. Right. So I was getting up in the morning and I was doing private personal training. And then I would go to practice and I would train, obviously do my training. Then I would stick around and I would help volunteer coach at Stanford. And then I would go into the evening and I would go to a, a club and do personal training at the club. That was kind of my way of surviving and making money was just to train people. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> being in the Bay Area. I had a few really great private clients that were wonderful people. Helped me out in that. But then at some point, I'm two years into my pro career, I'm a professional athlete, as silly as that sounds. Right. That's right. That made dime I'm training and cut off jean shorts and living on can spaghetti. Right.

Jake Winder (00:44:05):

<Laugh>.

Toby Stevenson (00:44:05):

And I'm sitting there and, and this was part of my problem when I came out is that man, I'm jumping against Jeff Hartwig and Ty Harvey and Chad Hardy and Lawrence Johnson and Nick Heung and oh God, I forget Derek Miles and oh God, I'm forgetting eight or nine people. Lawrence Johnson, whatever, Tim

Jake Winder (00:44:29):

Mack. Tim Mack. Yeah.

Toby Stevenson (00:44:30):

That guy <laugh>. But you know, I'm sitting there, I'm still, I'm still like the 10th best guy in the country, man.

Jake Winder (00:44:38):

Right. As a good, as a good group. As a really good group.

Toby Stevenson (00:44:42):

Yeah. It was a great group. I came outta college and I think I was ranked 13th and that was behind two college kids, Russ Buller and Jim Davis who had joke higher than me. Right, Right. And I'm like, Man, those Arkansas boys and you got all these people, they're not working, they're not doing this. They're not living in the Bay Area trying to pay rent and do this. So that's what I decided to move down to the Olympic Training center.

Jake Winder (00:45:06):

Yeah. So I'm obviously you're, you're ex living expenses where we're gonna be way more expensive in the Bay Area. So you, you, you know, probably were able to reduce a lot of your expenses by moving down to the Olympic training Center

Toby Stevenson (00:45:22):

For sure. But those, those two years at Stanford under Edrick were definitely very vital to my development. Okay. And it was, some of the stuff he put me through would be deemed almost torturous actually. Oh

Jake Winder (00:45:35):

Baby.

Toby Stevenson (00:45:35):

Joking. I mean, it was right. I never worked harder, but it was the best thing I could have done. You know, it was, he truly taught me, if you're gonna be pro, this is the mindset, this is what you gotta be willing to do physically, mentally, emotionally, in order to get there. Cause he was an Olympian and had coached many, many people. And that base of training, both physically, mentally and emotionally, really stuck with me over the next two years as my training got a lot more fine tuned, shorter, faster type stuff under a coach called Todd Hanson.

Jake Winder (00:46:12):

Mm-Hmm.

Toby Stevenson (00:46:13):

<Affirmative>, he was the coach at the training center. But yeah, I moved to the training center no rent, I'm not paying for food, I get free medical. It was basically an all encompassed like cruise. I lived at the training center, I ate at the training center. I had free medical care. I mean, it was like being on full scholarship at a top level D one college.

Jake Winder (00:46:36):

For those who don't know, how were you able to qualify for that sort of, you know, program?

Toby Stevenson (00:46:44):

It was based on height. They, they changed their qualifications every year. But I think then it was based on how high I jumped. And at that point I had jumped 5 75 mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, so like 1810 or whatever it was. And I'd made it to Olympic Trials final. So I was sort of a develop one of those developmental guys Right. That had jumped high enough and was kind of competing at a level. They were like, Yeah, you're more than welcome to come down. But in 2002 when I moved down there, it was the place you went to die.

Jake Winder (00:47:14):

Really?

Toby Stevenson (00:47:15):

Yeah. Because there was nothing there. Yeah. I remember that first year it was me, Russ Buller, Jim Davis and Kurt Hannah.

Jake Winder (00:47:24):

Mm-Hmm.

Toby Stevenson (00:47:25):

<Affirmative>, a bunch of Texas boys and Louisiana boy thrown in there. And so we kind of started it all, but there was only one coach. There was one coach for the entire facility and he had an assistant named Todd Henson. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And then the head coach, he left to go coach overseas. And so it was just Todd and Todd to Sprint hurdles guy.

Jake Winder (00:47:48):

Yeah.

Toby Stevenson (00:47:48):

But I don't know, I, I, thinking back on it, it was kind of crazy, but I just knew it was the best thing for me to not have to work and pay bills.

Jake Winder (00:47:56):

Right, right. So did you guys just kind of like coach and train each other? It doesn't sound like you had a, like a specialized pole vault coach down there. That is, that was that guy you're talking about. Was he like a, a pole vault coach or did you guys kind of just manage that yourselves?

Toby Stevenson (00:48:15):

We, we sort of did it ourselves. I mean, there was no pole vault coach. It was a guy named Randy Huntington who was an amazing coach and he sort of started developing our runs a little bit. But then, like I said, he left, he found a better gig and left. And so I'm left with Todd and Todd was a one 10 hurdles coach.

Jake Winder (00:48:33):

Yeah. Right.

Toby Stevenson (00:48:35):

Hurdle. But he's this guy, he had zero ego man. Zero ego was like, Yo what do you want? I go, I want you to film every jump. I want to see it. I want you to learn how to tap me. And he did. I want you to do this and I want you to work with my dad. Right. And work with Edrick when it comes to training. And dad with, he is like, Yep, of course. No problem. So I spent two years under his two lit training and it was very specific at a great lifting program, but I was sort of coaching myself, you know, obviously reviewing film on a weekly basis with my dad and going over training with Edrick and doing myself. Yeah. It was pretty much all on my own. I was on my own with my support staff that I had, that I trusted. And then the other three guys, we, we would just jump together and hang out together and train together. It was just a training group at that

Jake Winder (00:49:24):

Point. Right, right. So what was the biggest obstacle during that time that you had to overcome in order to get to that next like, tier of athlete?

Toby Stevenson (00:49:37):

That's a great question. I don't know if I had any,

Jake Winder (00:49:43):

Was it like speed or oh, or strength or like what, what do you think? Like, so you say you're a 5 75 guy at the training center and then, and you said that was in 2002? Was that in 2000? I

Toby Stevenson (00:49:59):

Moved, Yeah, I moved down at the end of 2002. So the 2003 season was my first full season at the training center.

Jake Winder (00:50:09):

Okay. And then, and then two years later is Athens.

Toby Stevenson (00:50:15):

Yeah.

Jake Winder (00:50:16):

So what changed from 5 75 guy to a six meter guy to silver medalist at the Olympics.

Toby Stevenson (00:50:25):

I got faster.

Jake Winder (00:50:26):

Got, How'd you do that? <Laugh>

Toby Stevenson (00:50:30):

<Laugh>.

Jake Winder (00:50:31):

Give it a secret buddy.

Toby Stevenson (00:50:33):

That's a paid subscription. Jay

Jake Winder (00:50:36):

<Laugh>.

Toby Stevenson (00:50:38):

No, what it was was the two years that I had spent with Edrick at Stanford was building a really strong base. He taught me the run, the power that this and that. And then the two years at the training center was very specific slip pool, flying thirties. The lifting was going great. I'm not a super powerful guy. I don't have a grid vertical, I don't have explode. I don't have huge prs in my weights and all that, but I was just fanatically, insanely competitive. I was just wired to not wanna suck, I guess. Right. And like, I sort of, I had a chip on my shoulder the entire time because I was the 12th best guy and all these really good guys. Like I never put anybody on a pedestal. They were my competitors. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, I loved them. I respected the hell out of all those guys.

Toby Stevenson (00:51:35):

And I still do, but I never looked up to 'em. I mean, I wanted to be them and see if I could get to that level. Right. Cuz they were the ones traveling the world and doing all that. But I did that by being a very specific, with my training and just relying on the last four years. But my technique didn't change all that much. I was just an animal. And at that point I had sacrificed two years of wealth and, and my Stanford degree is getting rustier and Rustier and dustier as I'm moving away from my graduation date. And then the next thing again, now I'm 24 years old living in a dorm with three other guys. Like I'm a freshman in college again and I didn't care mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, it was, this is what I'm doing, I've decided to do it and I'm gonna, I'm gonna go for it. So it was more of a physically, I just got faster.

Jake Winder (00:52:28):

Just got faster. Do you have any metrics, any metrics on that? Do you know how fast you're running? Like on the runway count for a second?

Toby Stevenson (00:52:37):

I've got, I mean obviously Peter McGinnis is a good friend of mine and a great scientist when it comes to that. I, and he has all that data. I think my fastest ever was like a 9.677. I, I was fast, don't get me wrong. Like you can't

Jake Winder (00:52:54):

No, that is, yeah, that's fast for

Toby Stevenson (00:52:56):

Sure. I was averaging nine four. I know that in my very last year, in oh nine, I hit a couple of nine fours. So I mean, it was fast. It's not, it's not where the guys are today, but like, I was only able to kind of hit that speed because coming into the box the last probably 20 feet of my run or from my midpoint in hearkening back to that piece of glue that goes across, I knew that if I was here, if I was anywhere close to where I should be, I'm running into a brick wall and I am not stopping. I'm not gonna win. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna tighten up. I'm not gonna be afraid. It was, I'm, I am bat crazy. Let's go. And I can just run,

Jake Winder (00:53:49):

Just attacking, attacking that box. You did. That was, that was your kind of, was it, you think that was probably the strongest part of your vault?

Toby Stevenson (00:53:59):

I don't know. It was one of the strongest parts. The, my, my final approach velocity was obviously high enough where I could jump the bars that I did. The attitude I had was probably one of my biggest strengths in terms of just the not caring about yourself. Like just do it right. Grip, grip it and rip it type. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, but also the gymnastics awareness that I've had. Like I said, I grew up with a trampoline. I lived on that thing 24 hours a day from the time I was in second grade until high school. And I was a gymnast, a competitive, not, not uber competitive, but a competitive gymnast. And I was surfer and a skateboarder and all this stuff. I just knew where I was at. I could tell what was going on and could just, once I knew the poll was in far enough, I just had an innate ability. And I don't know where it comes from to use the poll.

Jake Winder (00:54:58):

Yeah.

Toby Stevenson (00:54:58):

I really used the poll. Well,

Jake Winder (00:55:01):

Yeah. Just time it up and, and catch it.

Toby Stevenson (00:55:04):

Yeah. And, and it lasted, Yeah. Two or three years. And I, I don't know, it's hard to put into words. I don't know. I don't, I don't really consider myself that good at anything except for I was fast. I had the numbers, I had the science behind me. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and I had just this internal thing. I think Jeff Cooper at one time asked me, Why were you so good? Like, why were you so good? And I, and I laughed. I go, because I think I'm mentally ill <laugh>. During, during the period that I was an athlete, I really sort of sacrificed things probably people shouldn't sacrifice

Jake Winder (00:55:43):

Right. In

Toby Stevenson (00:55:44):

Order to do what I did. I mean, if I'm being real about kind of why I was able to do kind of the things I did. Cause I wasn't really, I'm a pretty talented guy, but I'm not uber talented, you know what I mean? Right.

Jake Winder (00:55:59):

Well that's a really good point because I think people don't realize that part of being a professional athlete and trying to be at the best, you know, place that you can be is that sacrifice. So, you know, without going into too, too much detail and whatever you're comfortable with, would you mind sharing some of those things that you had to sacrifice in order to get to that silver medal and that

Toby Stevenson (00:56:27):

Yeah. No, I, it, it's the same stuff that everybody sacrifices, right? I mean, you sacrifice family and I didn't, and I don't mean I got cut 'em off, but like, yeah, I'm living this dream out in California and my mom was a little bit sick and my dad, I'm away from my coach. But it was just kind of one of those things that pole vaulting was everything. Mm. It was kind of everything, right? And again, the situation I was in was, I'm still, I'm still, I'm fighting for those top three spots amongst nine guys.

Jake Winder (00:56:55):

Right?

Toby Stevenson (00:56:55):

Right. And so I knew what had to be done, I knew what they were doing and I know I had to do at least that in terms of performance. I just kind of did it in my own way. But I'm living in a dorm by the time oh four rolls around. My degree is four years old. I've got friends who are making $300,000 a year as, as lawyers and people are graduating medical school. And I go back to my five year reunion in oh five and I had my medal. It was great. But like all my friends are like, I'm like, wait, wait, wait. How many zeros are in your paycheck? Right? Like, what, what, what are you doing? Like, you know, so it's that, it's the physical sacrifice. It would be, I would lift so hard. I get physically sick. I lifted the mouthpiece.

Toby Stevenson (00:57:47):

I used to wear a mouthpiece, like football players wear it when I lifted because I just, I gritted my teeth so hard. And it was, I was just trying so hard that I would get physically ill for the first six weeks cuz I mean we were doing squats and cleans and stuff. And so it was just, I don't know, I look back on it and it wasn't a conscious decision. Like, I'm not telling you this to say, Oh, I was extra tough. And man, I made a conscious decision during the time. It was just Tuesday. Yeah. And then it was Wednesday and then it was Thursday. Oh, I gotta meet coming up. Let's go jump with the mount sac relays. Right? Yeah. I look back on it now and I'm like, man, that was wow. Like you, Yeah. I'm glad you did it for sure. Cuz it paid off. I got the Olympic medal and I got this. But like, if it didn't, I don't know if the sacrifice would've been worth it.

Jake Winder (00:58:39):

Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask you is if it was all worth it.

Toby Stevenson (00:58:42):

A hundred percent. Oh yeah. I mean, come on. Like, co vaulting in and of itself is just this insane thing. It should be in the circus, Jake. It shouldn't be in track and it should be in circus. But like, I mean, look what we're doing. I mean, I've got best friends from pole vaulting. I, I met my wife pole vaulting. I laughed, I was talking to Ty Harvey just last week or two weeks ago about this. I still think I could couch surf through Europe.

Jake Winder (00:59:12):

<Laugh>

Toby Stevenson (00:59:13):

45 years old man. I could still couch surf through Europe. Yo man, I'm in Germany just for the night. Can I sleep on your couch and be like, Yep, come on over till, and these are guys I haven't seen in 20 years. And they're like, Yep, no problem. Let's do it.

Jake Winder (00:59:26):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It does create a, a really, the community's very tight, you know, there. It's, it's really, it is very, something very, very special. But I, I just remember from my, my career trying to get to the, where you were at. That was re it was really hard at times because I had, like you said, I had other things that I kind of wanted to do. Like I wanted to get married to my wife and I wanted to like, have a house and a car and like stuff like that. So I was always battling back and forth with like, you know, am am I, what am I doing this all for? You know, like, especially those years after college, it was pretty difficult. But if you hang in there long enough, you know, even even, you know, in your situation, you got that metal and you got that six metered bar and, and then, you know, for me, you know, kind of spun back around and then, you know, I'm using my pole vaulting knowledge for, for other things too. So I think it all is worth it in the end. But it's fricking tough after, after college.

Toby Stevenson (01:00:31):

No, and you're right, it's definitely tough. And I think that, to be honest with you, the difference in me, anybody, not just me, anybody who's made it right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> versus somebody who didn't make it potentially is maybe that Jake, Right? Like we all sacrifice and every sacrifice that individual makes is tough because it's your sacrifice, right? So I didn't sacrifice anything more than somebody else, but to me it was very personal. But I'm telling you right now, I only think about that now from, from the year, from 2000 until 2007, there was nothing else on my mind.

Jake Winder (01:01:14):

Yeah.

Toby Stevenson (01:01:14):

Nothing not,

Jake Winder (01:01:16):

It is like a sickness, like you said. It's, it, it really, it is like a sickness. It just grabs a hold of you and can't stop it. <Laugh> there

Toby Stevenson (01:01:24):

Was literally nothing else I wanted to do. No, I didn't want to hang out. I didn't wanna do anything. We had, we were very social, but it was, I woke up, I wanted to lift,

Jake Winder (01:01:34):

Yeah.

Toby Stevenson (01:01:34):

Wanted to eat, I wanted to run, I wanted to do this right. I, there was nothing else I wanted to do. I didn't have any aspirations. I didn't have any dreams. I didn't have any career goals, family goals. I didn't care about cars. There was nothing else. Everything I did was that until oh seven when I met my wife <laugh>. Right. And those last two years of my career, other things creeped in. Yeah. Like love of my life thinking about sponsorship and advertising and marketing and finance and economic stuff that I had done. Right. And so by the time, oh, I came to oh eight, I was, was injured, didn't make that team, which was fine. I came back in oh nine and I kind of knew, I never verbalized it, but I kind of knew this is gonna be my last year no matter what, because I'm distracted because a, a good distraction, very positive distractions in my life. But when before I didn't care about anything but pole vaulting, now I'm letting other stuff creep in. And so at the level I had to compete at, because at the end of my career it was Reno was there, Brad Walker's jumping out of his mind all these guys that were coming up, I wasn't willing to do what they were willing to do.

Jake Winder (01:03:00):

Right, Right.

Toby Stevenson (01:03:01):

And so I sort of knew at that point I knew I'd been to the dark side in a way. And I'm coming into the light and I'm like, I'm not going back. I don't, I don't wanna do that anymore.

Jake Winder (01:03:10):

Yeah. Did you struggle mentally hanging them up? And did you like for the years, you know, after you were done with your career?

Toby Stevenson (01:03:18):

No, never. No. I mean, I went out on my tour like, don't forget, my last meet was the World Championships in Berlin. Right. And I was like, No, I don't wanna retire on German soil. I wanna retire on US soil. So I called up the chapel guys over at Spirit. I was like, Hey, can I retire the Pole Vault summit in 2010? And and yeah, and that's a great story. But like, yeah, I retired how I wanted to and I did it. And I haven't even felt a twinge of anything since I stopped.

Jake Winder (01:03:53):

Wow. That's awesome. Good for you. That's yes. I just you know, in my own career I had a lot of my identity wrapped up in that in pole vaulting and, and be in the ath being the athlete side of pole vaulting. And it was just tough afterwards cuz I was like, I, I didn't know, you know, I'm still like searching for something to kind of fill that sort of void of being an athlete and stuff like that. I keep bouncing around to all kinds of different things. You know, the other day I was skateboarding and now I was just like, What am I doing here? <Laugh> like's going on <laugh>. I fell really, really hard and I just laid on the ground and I was like, What, what am I doing, man? Anyway so

Toby Stevenson (01:04:40):

For me,

Jake Winder (01:04:41):

What's that?

Toby Stevenson (01:04:42):

That's the coaching for me. I

Jake Winder (01:04:44):

Got Yeah. And that's for me too. For me too. It, it is, it that fills my bucket up a lot. The problem is, is that that athletic piece, man, feeling strong, feeling fast, You know, that's something that's hard to let go of. Man, that's

Toby Stevenson (01:05:05):

Hard. You're, you're a young buck. You're still that young bull out in the field. I'm the old cow who's been put out pasture, man. It's like, I I like to kind of stay in shape just so I can go wakeboarding with my friends and snowboard with my wife. But like, no. Hey. Yeah. How, how old are you?

Jake Winder (01:05:25):

34.

Toby Stevenson (01:05:25):

Oh, you're a baby

Jake Winder (01:05:28):

<Laugh>.

Toby Stevenson (01:05:28):

I wonder you still feel that? When I was 34 I felt it too, but now I'm 45. No way now. Yeah.

Jake Winder (01:05:34):

Okay, good. So there's light at the end of the tunnel that'll eventually fade off

Toby Stevenson (01:05:38):

<Laugh> and give me elevators and escalators all day long. Jake,

Jake Winder (01:05:44):

That's, I don't pop

Toby Stevenson (01:05:44):

Up stairs anymore like I used to. I I'm gonna hold the handrail and just sit on that escalator and let it ride there. I'm gonna let it ride.

Jake Winder (01:05:51):

That's hilarious. So we've heard, actually, I'm trying to figure out which one I want to do here. So why do they call you Crash Toby? Crash Stevenson?

Toby Stevenson (01:06:03):

They called me Crash because I wore a crash helmet.

Jake Winder (01:06:07):

Okay.

Toby Stevenson (01:06:07):

And so the story, the story goes, Dwight Stone gave me that name because he was a big time announcer for Track and Field. I think he still is. And yeah, I think at the NCAA championships in 98, he called me Toby Crash Stevenson.

Jake Winder (01:06:25):

Really?

Toby Stevenson (01:06:26):

Yeah. So he's the one that gave me the name. And <laugh>, it's funny, interesting. I'm, we're we're over in Athens and Dwight Stone is interviewing me because I was obviously one of the favorites that were there. And he goes, Hey Toby, how'd you get the name crash?

Jake Winder (01:06:42):

No, <laugh>.

Toby Stevenson (01:06:44):

And I go, Dwight, I go, Dwight, you gave it to me buddy, like it was you. He's like, Yeah, I know, I know. I love, I'm like, Come on. What

Jake Winder (01:06:52):

Kinda

Toby Stevenson (01:06:52):

Question is that, Dwight? I got love Dwight. He's fantastic. We're like, Come on, Dwight. Really?

Jake Winder (01:06:57):

That's wild. So I thought that it was from, I forget what podcast I was doing, but somebody was like telling me a story about you just bing really hard somewhere, maybe in Europe and, and like it was really bad, really bad B Is that? Yeah.

Toby Stevenson (01:07:18):

Oh, I got her bad in Europe. A hundred percent. But no, that's

Jake Winder (01:07:21):

Not, I think it was Brad Walker's podcast that he was telling me like, Yeah, Toby, who took a bad one? Oh,

Toby Stevenson (01:07:26):

I took a big old dinger and

Jake Winder (01:07:28):

He told, he told me to whoever it was, I think it was Brad. Anyway, the person told me, it was like, if you ever get Toby on, he's gotta tell that story.

Toby Stevenson (01:07:36):

<Laugh>. Well, I will for sure. No, the term, the term cr I didn't get hurt at all. I broke an ankle right in 2000 whenever I graduated. But man, my career was easy, easy, easy. That's awesome. We're I get my first European meet and it's an Oslo, Norway, the Bisit games one of the biggest, it's a Diamond League meet now, whatever. Right? And I'm over there and there's four Americans. I think it was Brad and me and Tim and somebody else. And the big joke back then, this is a lot funny. Like, everybody's like, Oh, you're gonna know height in your first meet a hundred percent. You're gonna know height in your first meet, just talking garbage. Right? I think Dean Starky started that. Those old timers, man, they had it ripe, man. They hazed the hell out of you. Jake <laugh>. So I get over there, it's a long travel day we warm up and then it starts raining so hard, it's blurry.

Toby Stevenson (01:08:29):

So they stop to meet. Anyway, the bar goes to five 41st attempt. I make it cool. I'm in the meet and it, the wind's terrible. I make it. Yes, all right. I'm fi I'm not the American that goes over and does that. Right. Or I goes to five meters, 51st attempt, I, I went up a pole, didn't make it no big deal. Second attempt, I'm at the back of the runway and Tim Mack of all people is helping me get the wind. And you know, he's standing there and he's just pointing right at me straight headwind straight, headwind right at me. And the the minute clock is running down, running down. And at this point, I'm young, I'm dumb. I'm like, you, I'm that bull. I'm that young bull. And I'm like, man, screw this. I'm gonna gr I'm gonna hit this and I'm making five 50.

Toby Stevenson (01:09:19):

I run down I take off a little bit out. Ooh, the pole sinks on me a little bit. And I, I didn't complete the jump. I, I, I bailed on the jump, but full bend of the pole. I bailed on the jump. And for some reason I let go of the pole and I am right over the box and I land on my right side, right in the box. My head hits the mat, no big deal. I hit, I bounce up and I immediately start coughing up blood. Like I am coughing up just, oh, lobbys of blood. And I'm sitting there and my thing is like, I thought that, I thought that I had like bitten my tongue or something. Or, or maybe no, the paramedics in Norwegian or trying to figure out what's going on with me. And I'm like, they go, Did you bite your mouth?

Toby Stevenson (01:10:13):

No. And I'm pointing to my chest. Right? So anyway, I stood up off the pit. I did somehow make it back to the back of the runway. I got my spikes off. And at that point I couldn't put my other shoes back on. My back had locked up because I had hit right on the edge of the box. So they carried me into an ambulance, took me to a hospital and I didn't, I didn't get outta the hospital for 10 days. Whoa. Yeah. I had, I had fractured my scapula. Not bad. Just a hairline, just a hairline fracture. No big deal. I had contused a kidney. So not only was I spitting up blood, I ended up peeing blood. Eventually. Forgive the graphicness of this. That's all good. But then I, but I had partially collapsed the bottom lobe of one of my lungs. And that's where the blood was coming from. And so this

Jake Winder (01:11:16):

Was the impact on, on like the edge of the box or like your pole.

Toby Stevenson (01:11:20):

Just imagine landing. No, on the box. Imagine landing 90 degrees just on your right side on the box. And so my back had hit my kidney, my right kidney hit one of the edges of the box. Right? Right. I get put in a hospital and like they're telling me my lungs collapsed or partially collapsed and like, yeah, you broke your scapula and your kidney almost ruptured and you know, I'm there for two or three days and then all of a sudden I get an infection and I'm in there for six days. And then finally they put me into like this kind of wing of the hospital where I'm fine, but I couldn't fly home because I had air pockets in my lungs. And they were worried that when I get in a plane and with the least pressure, the air bubbles are gonna come out and collapse my lung, right? Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And so yeah. Like it was a hell of a D right? Like I, I biff it pretty hard because I was going like, I was going. Right.

Jake Winder (01:12:17):

That's crazy.

Toby Stevenson (01:12:18):

Yeah. And like, this is my first European meet. The next day everybody leaves, my manager leaves. I'm all alone in a Norwegian hospital by myself in pain getting fevers and stuff. And it ended up being, honestly, when I look back on it, a really great experience. Cause I met some great people. Yeah. Obviously the, the staff of the BIS games took great care of me. One of the meat promoters came to the hospital and in my eighth or ninth day I could actually walk. Took me to the strawberries and cream festival in Oslo. And like That's awesome. I got to fly first class home. I was on the upper deck first class, my manager helped me out. But like, and I got invited back the next year.

Jake Winder (01:13:03):

There you go. And I, there

Toby Stevenson (01:13:05):

We go. I got invited back and I'm checking into the hotel and they're like, Oh no, I'm checking into the meet. And the meet promoter goes, Hey can we not do what you did last year, please,

Jake Winder (01:13:15):

<Laugh>. Yeah, I bet. Holy cow. You used to wear a, Well actually, you know what, I'm gonna go to this first cuz I really don't wanna miss this. So we, we got, we were able to talk to m on the podcast and got to talk to him about his perspective of Athens. Can you give us kind of your perspective of what happened and, and just, you know, everything that, that went on during that day?

Toby Stevenson (01:13:44):

Yeah. And it's funny, it's probably gonna be the exact opposite of Tim, right? We were very different competitors.

Jake Winder (01:13:49):

Yeah, yeah, for sure. That's why I was curious cuz you guys seemed like kind of different personalities and just different, different vibes and everything. So it was kind of interesting,

Toby Stevenson (01:14:00):

Man, there is more than one way to skin a cat, right? I mean that's kinda like, and I just wanted to enjoy it. You know, I, my dad was there, he was in the stands and like I remember walking out to the prelims and I'm looking up and around in the stands trying to find my dad. And yeah, I see him in the upper deck. He's got a sleeveless cutoff Texas shirt on, got a USA hat like, and it's like, alright, cool, he's there. We're good. I kind of remember again, and Tim will probably say the same thing. Anybody who's on will say this. I wasn't super nervous. I was kind of like, I was go just another day at the office, right. But I was, I was gonna have fun. I was, I was really enjoying it. Yeah, really having a fun time. I I, I remember I ran so far under, at five 50, my top hand almost came off the pole. So my hand, my, my fingers outstretch a little bit, almost make it, but like made a second attempt. Same thing at five 60. I almost came off the pole, right? Like were you just running fast or Oh man, I was geeked up on mountain dude, Jake, right?

Toby Stevenson (01:15:23):

My dad should have, my dad should have snuck down and put some glue on the runway. See I was so used to that if I, my right. But no, 50, 60, 70, I think 75 rolled through the prelims. No big deal. No big deal. Right. Cool. Did it felt good? At that point, 50 60, 70, 75 was really kind of no big deal. I mean I had to work but no big deal. Made it 17 guys make it the day in between. I felt terrible did, I woke up and like hamstring was sore and I'm warming up in the Olympic village on the day between like, oh this is bad, right? This is real bad. But they had the final comes and it's the warm up track was about an 800 meter underground tunnel walk from the actual stadium. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So hold on. 800 meters, 800 meters, like the warm up track over here.

Toby Stevenson (01:16:28):

They took you underground through a tunnel and you popped up in the Olympic stadium. That was Wow. So you warming up over here and the indoor facility and an outdoor track and all that. And so part of my plan and preparation was I did all my warmup jumps out there, my little three step warmup. I even got back to 10 steps. Okay. Because what happened was during the prelims, we get out and I did it for the prelims too cuz we get out, they gave us 60 minutes to warm up and before we get out there they go, all you guys need to transfer your poles from your pole bag to the Olympic pole bag. Well our pole bags are, the tubes are whatever, eight inches in diameter. The Olympic pole bags were six inches in diameter.

Jake Winder (01:17:18):

Oh wow.

Toby Stevenson (01:17:19):

But not all of our poles fit right at that point. And again, little flustered, but really didn't care. Whatever. Right. Okay, cool, cool. Put the poles on the rack cuz I was going long run, boom. Immediately hitting long run. And it was an absolute nightmare because the way they were warming us up was ridiculous. They were put in the bar, they go five meters 30, whoever wants to jump at five 30, get on the runway and we're gonna raise it up to 40. And we're like, no, that's not how it works. But so during the Olympic games, all the vaults and every different language is arguing with the Greek officials and how to do this. We get that solved. Fast forward to the final. Yeah, I'm out there. I long run Tim and I had a little to do with the Italian guy just cepi because he was cutting in line. I don't know if Tim told you that story or

Jake Winder (01:18:16):

No, no, I didn't.

Toby Stevenson (01:18:18):

We're waiting in line and just Cepi would always come and get right in front of Tim. He would just, No, he'd cut the line, take a jump, come back, he would cut the line and Tim goes, Just py, you can't do that. And then all of a sudden Tim just shuts down. He's like, Nope, nope. I gotta stay focused. I gotta stay focused. Then I'm like, Yo, Cepi, we're next brother, we're next. We're in line. But yeah, like I would do tricks. Like, it's like I was, I was sort of known for my celebrations and sort of, you know, I kind of had a lot of fun pole vaulting. I think a lot of people saw that in me. Right. And the bar was at five 50 and I go, I'm going to spin over the bar that first jump. And I did it as an homage to my dad cuz he always told me, if you can do that, you relaxed and you can do it. So I cleared the bar and I did a 360 before I hit the Mac.

Jake Winder (01:19:13):

Oh, cool.

Toby Stevenson (01:19:15):

A little bit. What? look, but it was done on purpose. I'm over the bar and I just spun.

Jake Winder (01:19:22):

Yeah, I know where you're talking about. Yeah.

Toby Stevenson (01:19:24):

Full vault pit. Right. And so like, so that was cool. 60 rolls around, make it, and I'm having, I'm on the grass. I'm sitting next to Derek Miles and I'm watching the events and I'm looking up in the crowd and I'm really kind of taking it all in. Right. but yeah, it, it just kind of, the bars went and the bars went and the bars went and then it was 80, we cleared it or 75 or something 80 for some reason I really liked 5 85.

Jake Winder (01:19:54):

Did you struggle up to that point at all or were you clean? I just forget, it was a long time ago.

Toby Stevenson (01:19:59):

I, I couldn't tell you if I had missed this. I don't think

Jake Winder (01:20:01):

I really, Oh wow. Maybe

Toby Stevenson (01:20:04):

I think I missed once at 75 or 80 or something and was behind on the count. And the only, the only words I ever said to Tim that day was, Are you passing 85 or are you passing 80? And he said, no. And I go, Yeah, me neither. And so bar goes 85, make it first bar goes to 90, make it first a attempt. And I'm in the lead bar goes to 95. Tim misses I missed, Tim missed, I missed. Tim makes it. I hate that guy, but he made it. Oh. And it was a good jump, man. Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, I've got one, I've got one jump left. Right. I make it. I I'm still in it. I miss it. I get silver. Right. So I'm, I remember I vividly remember I'm at the back of the runway and I told myself, just go for it. Absolutely. Go for it. Don't wimp out. Don't try to make it. Try to be as high as you can over it. And so I hit it and I rolled and I was, it was a great jump, man. It was a

Jake Winder (01:21:11):

Jump. A little short.

Toby Stevenson (01:21:12):

Just, I just came Yeah. Came up a little short and the bar fell and then, yeah.

Jake Winder (01:21:19):

So like Tim, Tim said that he had a lot of like cue whenever I was talking with him about it, he had a lot of cues stay up and hit your hands, you know, these sort of cues and things like that. So like during, during that type of clutch situation, you know, that you're, you got a lot of pressure on you. Literally, if you make it, you continue on to your quest for a gold medal. If you miss and you get silver. Are there any specific cues that you're thinking about during these times that helped you?

Toby Stevenson (01:21:53):

No, I, my athletics and kind of the way I coach, I think in broad strokes. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't wanna think very detailed in my jump. It was blow, blow and go, man, hit it and go. So

Jake Winder (01:22:05):

You're just like a feeling, a feeling vault kind of just really I feeling Yeah.

Toby Stevenson (01:22:10):

I get Yeah, a little bit. I mean, I do, you got, you have to have cues, you know, you have to think about it. But at that point the famous Derek Miles, the hazing, the barn man, Right? Like, so I picked the pole up, I'm running down and I'm just, I'm moving, Oh, I'm moving. Good. And maybe looking back on it, I probably could have held the bottom a hair longer Right. And gotten in a little further maybe. But I mean, I missed it because I did, if I would've gotten in another two centimeters, I would've rolled right over it. Right. So it's kinda like, I don't know, the margin of error when you get to those bars is, is pretty small. And so to beat yourself up over two centimeters, right? Like, I didn't crash the bar. I almost made it. And like,

Jake Winder (01:22:53):

I was so close. I remember watching that as a kid on TV and just like, oh my gosh, that was such a good jump too. It wasn't like you just like had a bad jump at it. You know what I'm saying? Saying it was a, it was a solid attempt. And yeah, it just came up a little short. What, what pull and grip were you on? Do you remember?

Toby Stevenson (01:23:13):

That was a five meter 10, 12.6. And I'm gripping probably 5 0 5. So 16 five maybe. That was kind of my effective grip at the time. Again, a poll I had been on a thousand times a run that I had done a thousand times. And up until the Olympic games, those two jumps I was talking about that I ran under my run was within four inches every single time. Wow. So I didn't have to think Yeah. About cues. I didn't have to think stay up, hit it tall because I was just on,

Jake Winder (01:23:53):

Just dialed,

Toby Stevenson (01:23:54):

I was just dialed and I came up a centimeter short because I was just, I just came down on it. Right. And so, Right. But my perspective is one of just, I really enjoyed it. I was very obviously serious and it was kind of, we were there for business, but like, man, I wasn't gonna let that take away from what I was doing, man. I'm, I'm in the, I'm in front of 80,000 people and I'm in the Olympic games and my dad's in the stands and like, you know, I'm battling it out. I I, I was in the medals already and I'm sitting there like, Oh, this is great, man. Like I'm, I'm just real. I I just thoroughly enjoyed it and yeah, the, the, the funny story actually comes well I'll get to that in a second. But it was, it was, it was awesome to be able to be there with Tim.

Toby Stevenson (01:24:45):

We had the American flags around us. We're doing a, a victory lap. We got an American flag in one hand and, and a Greek flag in the other. And I didn't even, it was a three hour long competition and I talk about enjoying it, but I also didn't realize half the stadium had left. It's 1130 at night, the meet's over. Wow. And I didn't even realize that half the stadium stayed just to watch me and Tim jump and, and just all these guys jump. Right. And it was finally when it was over, I, I think I was looking around trying to take it in during the games when it was going on, but I wasn't seeing it because I was kind of, my mind was still in the jump mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and what was going on. And finally when it's over, I looked around, Oh, that half of the stadium is gone. Here's all these people still here and just started celebrating. Right. Like just having, it's a, it's a euphoric experience winning a medal Olympic games.

Jake Winder (01:25:43):

Yeah. It's insane. I would, I would imagine it's everybody's dream. Everybody's dreams, go Olympic games and, and be able to stand up on that metal stand. That's pretty, pretty fricking special man. What, this is a more technical question. It just popped into my head. Do you remember where you were taken off at generally? You said you were about four inches, you know, you were pretty dialed in. Do you remember like what your takeoff mark was?

Toby Stevenson (01:26:09):

13, six, maybe

Jake Winder (01:26:10):

13. Six ish. Okay. Gotcha.

Toby Stevenson (01:26:12):

Right around there. My mid was, I used the 40 foot mid, I was 41 6, 41 8, whatever that, whatever that is. And 13, six, something like that. So. Right. I was always sort of on or under a little bit. I will, I will tell you this though. No. Me and Tim had the two lowest takeoff ankles of anybody in the entire games. Yeah. Tim was the lowest. He got a real flat jump. Right. I was the second lowest. Right. Well, the next year, Vital Petro comes to the pole ball summit and he's talking to all of us and he goes, you know, who had the most efficient takeoff of anybody in the games? And he said, Toby Stevenson.

Jake Winder (01:26:53):

Really?

Toby Stevenson (01:26:54):

Yep. Yep. I, I'll never forget it. Cause I'm like, that doesn't kind of make sense because you're more of the petro model. Right. Free takeoff. And he was, and it was just like, Oh, okay, cool. I mean I, yeah, I was obviously very flattered that he thought that, but like yeah. Yeah. I was like, okay, cool. I guess Sure. I had the most efficient take.

Jake Winder (01:27:13):

What was his reasoning? I, I'm curious what his reasoning was.

Toby Stevenson (01:27:17):

I don't know. I I couldn't tell you. This was back, this was 15 years ago. I'm not a hundred percent,

Jake Winder (01:27:23):

But, Right, right. Yeah. That's insane.

Toby Stevenson (01:27:27):

Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt.

Jake Winder (01:27:29):

No, you're good.

Toby Stevenson (01:27:31):

Really. I was gonna tell you the really funny story was the two day, or a day later was the metal ceremony. And Tim and I are there and you know, it was kind of a, it was a weird, it was a bad time that they, they didn't really have the infrastructure to hold the game. So we're in the Olympic Village, it's 45 minutes from the track and me and Tim are trying to get on this bus. That's the last bus we could catch or we were gonna miss our ceremony. Right. And I remember we're we're standing in trying to get on this bus, it's about to leave and I think it was Michael Phelps, the swimmer was like, Stop the bus. These boys gotta get on it. It's their metal ceremony. So we get on the bus, the bus is late. So that 800 meter tunnel I was telling you about before the bus drops us there, man, we are 15 minutes from our metal ceremony. And me and Tim, we are sprinting down this 800 meter hallway, man. We're both running 10 meters a second. High knee

Jake Winder (01:28:28):

<Laugh>,

Toby Stevenson (01:28:29):

You know, and we get to this, we get to the ceremony, we're sweating bullets and we gotta put our jumpsuit on. Right. And then all of a sudden, like you get walked out into the stadium and the lights are on and you're sitting there on the metal stand and you know, you got Tim and me and Cepi and next thing you know, Serge Bku is walking up to you with this metal and he puts it around your neck and he puts the, the olive ring on your head and then you stand there and I'm looking up in the stands and I see my dad and he's just crying. Right. And like, and I think back on it now and I got very blessed that Tim won because I got to hear my national anthem.

Jake Winder (01:29:14):

Right. Yeah, that's a good point.

Toby Stevenson (01:29:17):

And so I got to hear it and like sitting there and I'm just like, that was the most surreal moment was standing on the stand, looking up at the flag metal around your neck in front of 80,000 people. And and just going through that, that was more of the out of body experience than the actual competition.

Jake Winder (01:29:38):

Yeah. Yeah. Because the competition, you're just doing your thing, you know, you're, you're just in your mode and you're just doing your thing. And then Yeah. That I, that's just what everybody dreams of right there is, you know, hearing the American National anthem and, and getting that. And the cool thing too is that Athens one was kind of special just because of where the Olympics originated and the history behind it. It's kind of, it was a pretty, pretty special place that your Olympic games took place at. You know, cuz you don't get to really choose kinda where your Olympic games is at. But that, that's pretty cool, the history behind all of that and everything.

Toby Stevenson (01:30:21):

Yeah. Pretty, You made it special. The, the original modern Olympics and the Greek people were amazing and there was some political turmoil going around and they even told me specifically, Hey Toby, you need to tone down your celebrations.

Jake Winder (01:30:37):

No.

Toby Stevenson (01:30:38):

Yes. Because they said they, we don't want the fans to think you're taunting them.

Jake Winder (01:30:45):

Oh

Toby Stevenson (01:30:46):

Wow. And so, and of course I completely ignored that. I wasn't, I mean I wasn't doing anything but flexing muscles and, you know, shooting. Cause I used to shoot pistols in the air like old cowboys. Right. <Laugh> and like, and then it ended up being this amazing thing because I've said it before and I'll always say this, man, listen, the people in the stands, they don't particularly see country. What they see is a bunch of kids living their dream man. And like when Tim and I were running our victory lap and we had a Greek flag in one hand in the American flag in the other, there wasn't one person who wasn't happy for us and we weren't crossing, you know, And it's, it's just this, I think about that all the time. It, it, it's, it's bigger than country.

Jake Winder (01:31:30):

Yeah. And to go from where, from I'm trying to remember the term of from sucker rods. Is that what it was? Sucker rods.

Toby Stevenson (01:31:42):

Yeah.

Jake Winder (01:31:42):

Yeah. To go from sucker rods to standing on the podium at the Olympic games, that's pretty, pretty crazy. So where, where do your celebrations come from? Like is that something that just kind of comes out or is this something that you, you dream up before? Or, you know, cuz that's, that's one of the things that you were known for is just your energy and your enthusiasm and, and you had a really cool vibe back then that nobody else had. You were in. From what I can remember as a kid, I never saw anybody do those types of things in pole vaulting. And then you came around and I was like, that's really crazy. He looks like he's having a blast out there. Where did, where did that come from?

Toby Stevenson (01:32:31):

It, it, it was fun because it was fun. It started my senior year. I was at a home meet at Stanford and I, I got off the pit. I think I did the Running Man or something, just, I was just being silly. I'd won the meet, whatever. And then the story goes, I was at Pac 12 championships and I'm jumping against a guy named Bevin Hart. He was at the lead for Cal where at the Pac twelves. He was a great pole vault. He was a five 40 guy. Right. Well, he takes the jump at the championships and does the gun salute and then points at me like challenge, you know. Great. No, we're great friends. It was totally kindhearted, really fun. Well, I took a jump, I made a bar. I did some sort of weird dance, then I pointed at him. And so we actually had a dance off kind of, we, we did a break dance fight, you know, while we were at Pole Walton.

Toby Stevenson (01:33:23):

And that's, that's sort of where it kind of flourished from. And then I'd get to a meet and I would sort of plan out some, some of my celebrations on the earlier bars. Right. at the Olympic trials. Somebody came up and said, Hey, do this one. So I did that one after a bar. And then as the bar got higher, it just kind of became, they were just natural reactions to what I was doing. Right. I mean, we're heaven's sake. We're, we're using a stick to jump over a stick. Right. And it's just this amazingly fun thing. And we all know jumping high is really fun.

Jake Winder (01:34:01):

Absolutely. Yeah. So what role do you think back whenever I was growing up, Neil Vault was a huge, a huge thing whenever I was growing up and we had the Neil Vault guys on here and they kind of talked about everything. What role do you think that getting those videos made and everything played in your career? Because they, they started to, I feel like you were kind of one of the guys that was kind of the, the face of it a little bit. Everyone looked forward to seeing parts, your parts in the neo alts. Do you remember those?

Toby Stevenson (01:34:37):

Oh yeah. No, listen. What, what Sean did, and then I think later with a Pole Vault's Dream Bubba and I'm forgetting there, there was another whole series done. And then, you know, these podcasts, you know, kind of what you're doing, I think what it is, it was such a phenomenal thing. What a, what a great way to drill this sport. What you, what they did. And then what you are doing is just a testament to the pole vault community. And that it's such an exciting event and we're so interconnected that people just wanna know. And yeah, I was fortunate enough to kind of be coming up and getting good right when Sean Brown was just really getting interested in videoing and putting this together. Cause obviously he's super passionate about pole vaulting and him with the music and the, the way he edited it. And he just made it fun.

Toby Stevenson (01:35:31):

He made it cool. I, I hearken it to the, the first few skateboard videos and surf videos and stuff like that that just really, these underground kind of things that people bought and they watched. And it, and it really gave people an insight into sort of what pole vaulting was for me. And it was the camaraderie and the friendship and the competition and the fun. And he made it light. He made it fun, he made it energetic and he showed the excitement of it. But he also did like these funny behind the scenes kind of things. And so I think it was a real turning point when it comes to kind of pole vault popularity that it was finally getting out there in a way that was way accessible for things. I mean, I, I talked, I'm a, I talked to Pat Manson all the time. He's a great coach in Colorado, One of the best jumpers ever. And he still shows Neil Vault at all of his camp and stuff. And it's just, it's, it's, it's just a hype video. That's what it was.

Jake Winder (01:36:29):

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. If you haven't seen those, you gotta check those out. I wanna respect your time cause I know we've been going here for a little bit, but there was something that you did one season, I don't know if it was for a whole season, but I wanted to see why you wore a uniform that said uniform

Toby Stevenson (01:36:50):

<Laugh>. Yeah, it was, well it was, I was just coming outta school and I didn't have a sponsor and it was just kind of a, a funny thing. I mean, I wasn't, I wasn't really good enough to get a sponsor, but it was just kind of funny that I'm this pro I'm quote unquote pro athlete. And it was just a way, I don't know, maybe it was advertisers. I thought it was funny. Right. Blank thing. And instead of wearing a jersey just uniform <laugh>, it was just no brand. It was just kind of this obvious kind of almost, it's almost like the office sense of humor Right. Where it was just so obvious and it was just these fuzzy letters that I glued to my shirt. Right. I did it for fun. It was just kind of a funny thing to do. Right. To Cause I'm jumping against all these guys in Nike and Reebok and all these things and I'm, I'm in a, I'm in a uniform and at least it was a uniform. Right?

Jake Winder (01:37:47):

Yeah. 100%. No, I enjoyed it. I just was like, whenever I was a kid, I was like, I don't get, I don't, He's wearing a uniform that says uniform <laugh>. And and now, you know, now I get it. But what, what was, Cause you had, did you eventually get a Nike contract?

Toby Stevenson (01:38:02):

Yeah, I, so I was very, I think my second year out, my first year out I wore the uniform thing and then the second year out I was on an equipment deal. You know, just the, the the baseline stuff. You know, they give you equipment and bonuses and then, you know, in oh four when I jumped six meters, they finally put me on a contract and it was ridiculously low, but like, whatever. At that point, yeah. I was making money and jumping high and having a great time. So yeah, I, I I was with Nike my whole career.

Jake Winder (01:38:37):

Right. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I was just curious about that. So now you are the pole vault coach at University of Washington. And how has, how is that going and how is the experience there and, you know, how are you in liking the coaching side of things at University of Washington?

Toby Stevenson (01:38:57):

I've always, I I kind of got lucky and got pulled into the coaching world. I wasn't sure I wanted to do it. Instantly fell in love with the competitiveness of it and it, it was kind of the only thing that fueled my fire, like competing. Did been several places. No, the University of Washington, it's, it's an amazing place. I mean, they, they truly care about the pole vault. I am fully supported here. It obviously has a, it already had a very rich tradition in pole vaulting and I'm blessed enough to be able to kind of take that over and I'm trying to keep it growing. But no, it's a fantastic, I love the kids. I love interacting with them. I love the type of kid that comes to UDub. It's an absolutely wonderful place to coach at in terms of just pole vaulting, right? The amount of resources, the number of poles that I've got, the, the support that the staff and the school gives. It's, it's really nice. Like it's a, it's just a really fun place to coach.

Jake Winder (01:39:53):

Yeah. Yeah. Are there any like, core principles, Like if you were to really distill down your coaching to a couple, like, core things, Some people are big on speed, some people and they, and they train speed like super hard or, or some people are big on like, we need to get strong in Olympic lifts or we just need to pull vault all the time. Or, you know, are there any kind of core principles that you would, could describe your coaching with?

Toby Stevenson (01:40:25):

Yeah, I, I coach on several levels and I, and I put it this way, I coach the athlete first, the circumstance second and the technique third.

Jake Winder (01:40:37):

Okay.

Toby Stevenson (01:40:37):

So I don't really have a direct answer for you because obviously I believe in speed. You know, the faster you run, the higher you can potentially jump. And there's a lot of factors around that. You gotta be gymnast aware, you gotta be this and you gotta be that. There's a couple of basic truths that a lot, it's hard to agree on a lot in the pole vault, but there's a couple of things that I kind of think everybody can kind of believe in mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. But I'm all about the athlete first, right? It's, it's, is the athlete capable of getting faster? At what rate are they capable of getting faster? So yeah, I'm, I am a, I'm a, I'm, I'm a run and takeoff kind of guy for sure because that sets the tone for almost everything else. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and, but you have to do it within the athlete and then you have to do it within the circumstance, right?

Toby Stevenson (01:41:26):

Like every day at practice they're feeling different physically, mentally, emotionally Right. Where they're at. So you have to kind of meet them where they're at and then you can start applying those principles of strength, speed, power, gymnastic ability, which are sort of there for everybody. But every day is different. You know, you could come in and you have a jump day, you could be a little flat mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. So, you know, you have to immediately be able to pivot and kind of move to the, the next thing. Cuz you always, I always wanna get something done. I, I I believe in purposeful work, right? Where Right. Just come in and have a purpose today. Now that purpose may change because, you know, a kid may have had a test or they may have stayed up too late or they may just be tired. Right. but my general idea is yeah, get the athlete right, get their circumstances right. And then you can really move on to technique. And potentially it's a little controversial, but if you look at Mondo or anybody, any jumper Mondo's jump is very similar to like it was when he was 10.

Jake Winder (01:42:32):

Yeah. It is

Toby Stevenson (01:42:34):

Very similar. My jump, very similar in the Olympic games. So when I was 10, you know. Yeah. And so technique changes are hard to do. There are definite technique things you have to work on for sure. But ultimately if you're going to invest, I want a high rate of return. Right. And, and increasing your speed by 0.1 is a better return on your investment than pointing your toes over the bar or thumbs down, you know, thumbs down over the bar. Right. I think you're gonna get a lot more return on your investment there. And so you, you invest in those blue chip stocks that give you a high rate of return and then you can move on to the more risky ones. And the ones that don't quite do it, because everything is, as the run increases, your takeoff changes, as your takeoff changes, your swing changes, as your swing changes, your top end changes. As your top end changes, your kind of clearance over the bar changes. So you gotta work to order mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, there's a sequence to things,

Jake Winder (01:43:42):

Right? Yeah. 90% of the vault is run and takeoff, you know, that, that little bit that's off the ground or that, you know, when you leave the ground that, that it's like less than two seconds, you know, that you're executing moves in the air. But if you dial that, that run and that takeoff and, and you increase, you know, your speed and and strength there, then there's gonna be a big, big returns. And we always, we always like to say that we're looking for things that are gonna improve you by feet, not by inches. You know? And if you're, if you're really harping on like little tiny details that are gonna give you that one extra inch or whatever, you know, where not not really interested in that. Once you get later on in life, you know, where you were at then that one inch becomes a big deal. But Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. And I was gonna ask you last, last question, two, two questions here is number one, if there is an athlete that wanted to be a division one pole vaulter at, at a really nice school, you know, like the University of Washington, what, what type of things are you looking for when you're recruiting athletes?

Jake Winder (01:44:55):

Physical, mental you know, kind of everything.

Toby Stevenson (01:44:59):

Yeah. I mean obviously we're, every coach in the country is kind of doing the same thing, right? Like we're, we're, we're gambling in a way because very few kids come outta high school jumping 19 feet Right. Or 18 feet, you know, there's very few of them. And so you're really kind of gambling on what it is. And so yeah. You're kind of looking for those things. I, to sum it all up in really as short as possible, the first thing I look for is do they have a V8 engine?

Toby Stevenson (01:45:25):

Right? I I would rather a coach a poorly running V8 engine than a very souped up in line four type thing. Right? Right. and that comes in all various shapes and sizes and kind of what that looks like. And then yeah, generally speaking, how is their jump, you know, how does the jump look? Right? Like are they, do they kind of know what they're doing? Right? Because again, their technique is not gonna change all that much. We're gonna change some of it and say, and maybe how to think about it and all that. But generally by the time they get to the collegiate level there are gonna be certain aspects of their jump that are just sort of ingrained in what they do. And so that goes back to meeting the athlete where they're at. If you look at the last three record holders, Buka, Reno, and now Mondo, they have three very distinctly different jumps mm-hmm.

Toby Stevenson (01:46:15):

<Affirmative>. So there's obviously more than one way to do it. Right. Right. I don't believe in, I don't believe in models. I don't believe in placing a model on somebody. I believe in creating a model around the individual. So when I'm looking at a high school kid Yeah. Do we have a VA engine or the potential for a VA engine mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and just general aspects of what they're doing. Right. Like if, you know Yeah. What size poles are they on? What is it a grip, what does their jump look like? Cause I have to, all the college coaches, we have to calculate how much meat is left on the bone. Yeah. Right. In terms of where, where can they get to, not where they're currently at.

Jake Winder (01:46:56):

Right. Yeah. And what would an athlete need to do in order to get themselves in front of somebody like you or somebody like a Derek Miles or, you know, some of these more elite vault coaches at these bigger schools.

Toby Stevenson (01:47:13):

I think most of the kids these days are doing it. You know, the social media makes it really easy to put yourself out there. If I give advice to high school kids coming up take as much video of yourself in practice and in competitions and then just bother the living daylights out of the coaches <laugh>. Right. Cause honestly, you're not, they're not bothering us. Email us, text us. Yeah. Call us. It's no big deal. Right? Like, just keep advertising yourself, keep talking about it. Keep keep us informed as to how you're doing, but also realize that any power five D one down to mid-major program that there's, I mean, there's a thousand schools that are all D one and no matter what the size of it is, we all still have to compete against each other. So the measuring stick becomes nationals,

Jake Winder (01:48:08):

Right?

Toby Stevenson (01:48:10):

All those guys, no matter what school they go to, the measuring stick is that national conference slash National Championship measuring stick. And so for the high school kids that come out, you kind of, you kind of gotta realize, right? Like what is the, what's the true measure of success, Right? And what, what that is is being competitive mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And so if you're a, a guy jumping 15 feet, you're just not gonna be competitive at the NCAA division one level. Right. Because you're not gonna have a, you're not gonna be winning, you're not gonna be traveling, you know, stuff like that. So in that case, find that level that makes you competitive. There's a level out there, every single pole vault where you can be successful, you can be competitive, you can get a lot of reward for what you're doing. There's good coaches at every single level in college, from division one down to naia, down to juco. There's great coaches all over the place, but for high school kids, find that spot where you can really be successful. Cause that's what's fun. Jumping higher being competitive, you know, getting in that top six at a competition, you know? Right. Being laughed is no fun. Right.

Jake Winder (01:49:28):

Right.

Toby Stevenson (01:49:29):

So that's my biggest advice is, is think about what's, think about what at, think about what you're looking for and really get down to the nuts and bolts of what success is. You know, what do they want? Do they wanna be competitive at the NCAA division one level? Well, you can research that. You can look at the last 10 years of NCAA championship division one competitors, and here's what it took to get there and here's what it took to score. Here's what it took to get top three. It's pretty black and white.

Jake Winder (01:49:59):

Right, Right. Yeah, that's great advice. Yeah. That's that is very good advice. And you just gotta put in a little bit of time, you know. All right. Last question. This is one that we ask at the end of every podcast. It is, if you had to choose three exercises that you could use exclusively, we'll say as a coach. As a coach, so your athletes can pull vault as much as they want. But you have to choose three exercises that you would exclusively use in order to make them the best that they could be. So an example like, okay, the power clean 30 or 10 meter flies, pole runs, bukas, things like that. So you get three choices and they can pull vault as much as they want.

Toby Stevenson (01:50:54):

Let me, Okay. Oh, that's a great question, man. I'm gonna screw this one up for sure.

Jake Winder (01:51:00):

<Laugh>,

Toby Stevenson (01:51:01):

Let answer, let me answer it a little bit differently. If I could choose three things that I would have to have, and I can only use those three things for the rest of my career, you're saying Okay. And no matter, and no matter at what level I would want a trampoline, I would want, I would want a high bar and I would want a rack of 20 med balls.

Jake Winder (01:51:32):

Wow. Okay. Very good. All right. So I'm assuming trampoline's gonna be for more air awareness stuff. And then the med balls are gonna be just kind of dynamic movements. And then what was the middle, what was the other one?

Toby Stevenson (01:51:50):

I went a high bar.

Jake Winder (01:51:51):

A high, and then high bar. High bar is a staple man. High bar's a staple. Yeah. Very good. All right. Well, I, we've been on here for a long time and I know you got stuff to do and I, I just can't thank you enough. Toby. This has been an interview that I've always wanted to do, and you're awesome. You're a force force of nature. You're, you're incredible and you're doing incredible thing. You did incredible things as an athlete and doing incredible things now as a coach. And just wish you and your family the best. And then also good luck to you and the UW Vaults this year.

Toby Stevenson (01:52:27):

Well, hopefully I did. Thank you. Of course. Thank you. Absolute pleasure. Loved every minute of it. I got plenty of time for you. Don't worry about it. Absolutely flattered that anybody out there would even give a about what I say. It's such a great community. And yeah, keep doing what you do, man. This is fantastic. I love hearing from it. And yeah we'll go from there.

Jake Winder (01:52:52):

Awesome. Thank you very much to appreciate it. This is the one more jump podcast. See you guys later.