La Salle Vaulters Article (OH)

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http://www.communitypress.com/ColerainT ... e=6/1/2005

Pole vault tradition continues at La Salle
By Ben Walpole Sports Editor
It was a familiar scene.
Two more La Salle High School Lancers graced the awards podium to claim medals for pole vault excellence last Thursday in the Division I regional track and field meet at Dayton's Welcome Stadium.

Junior Patrick Tenbrinck finished second to qualify for this weekend's state meet. Junior teammate Patrick Greve placed eighth.

"We've had just an outstanding tradition in the pole vault," said La Salle head coach Frank Russo. "Our expectations every year in that event are for our athletes to compete for a league, district and regional title, and then advance to the state tournament."

Consider La Salle has had 12 Greater Catholic League champions in the event. Ten district champions. Four regional champs. And three state champions - Mark Arlinghaus (1991), Bryan Bosse (1993) and Mike Chia (2004).

The man behind the scenes for most of those accomplishments is pole vault coach George "Toby" Dirr. He's coached at La Salle for more than 30 years, now serving as an assistant under head pole vault coach Mike Albrinck.

"Toby's been really the catalyst behind that," Russo said. "He's the individual that started the tradition."

Russo, Dirr and Dan Flynn have been coaching track together at La Salle for 22 years. Albrinck, a state qualifier in 1989 in the pole vault, has been coaching with the Lancers for 11 years, too.

"Pole vault's a very technical sport," Albrinck said. "They say it takes eight years to develop your full potential. So without a coach most high school athletes don't know anything about it. They have to know the basics. But hard work is what it takes to be good."

Dirr shows no signs of slowing. He up off the bleacher in a flash, pumping his fist in the air after a successful vault by Greve last week.

"There's always somebody coming along, and you want to see how much better they can get," Dirr said.

The double scoring in pole vault Thursday night was a nice start for La Salle to the regional meet, which wrapped up Saturday, after early Press deadlines.

It had been a difficult postseason up to that point for the Lancers, who finished second to St. Xavier by one point in the GCL meet, only to lose the district title in bizarre fashion on a disqualification in the 4x400 relay a week later.

"It's probably the two toughest weeks we've had, I think, in our program's history," Russo said. "We're one point and a blink of an eye from being undefeated against Cincinnati teams this year.

"If that doesn't teach us that every second, every inch, every last bit of effort - how important that is, then nothing's going to.

"All we can do is use that as motivation and a life lesson in our program."

bwalpole@communitypress.com