Stiles Captures Pole Vault at NCAAs

What do Ma's apple pie, Geoff Stiles, John Chafee, Adam Dixon, hot dogs, Thad McNulty and John Murphy have in common? They are all All-American.

Stiles' first-place performance in the pole vault, along with the two-mile relay team's third-place effort, boosted Harvard to an awesome seventh place overall finish at the NCAA indoor track championships at Detroit this weekend.

Villanova, with 52 points, squeaked by the University of Texas-El Paso to top the field of about 75 colleges. Auburn Tennessee and Kansas (ties), and Maryland followed (in that order), while Harvard settled comfortably in the seventh slot with 16 points.

All five Crimson representatives received All-American honors for their outstanding performances.

"It was a great day for Harvard track," associate coach Ed Stowall said yesterday, adding that Geoff Stiles "did a remarkable job at competing."

Stiles' winning vault of 17-ft. 3-in. bested his IC4A record-setting jump by two inches and established new Ivy League, New England and Harvard records.

"Geoff is a very level-headed consistent performer in an event categorized by erratic performances," Stowell said.

Stiles, however, had his share of erratic vaults. After clearing 16-ft. 8-in. without any difficulty to qualify on Friday, Stiles missed his first two attempts at 16-ft. 6-in. in the finals the next day.

"I panicked, I really panicked," Stiles said, adding that he had to revert to a vaulting form he has developed in practice over the year which concentrates on speed and aggressiveness.

The third try was successful, and the bar went up to 17-ft. even. Once again Stiles waited until the third shot to sail over and become one of the four remaining competitors at 17-ft. 3-in.

Stiles cleared in his first attempt and watched as Brian Goodman from Washington State and Brian Kimball from Indiana dropped out while Jeff Buckingham made it over on his second try.

"The pressure was off at 17-ft. 6-in. since I knew I would come in either first or second," Stiles said yesterday.

Both Stiles and Buckingham failed to make the next height, and before 10,000 people, the California co-captain who had cleared 17-ft. 3-in. in fewer tries became the first Harvard student to win an event at the NCAAs since 1970.

NCAA Top 20

1. Villanova 52; 2. Texas-El Paso 51; 3. Auburn 27; 4. (tie) Tennessee and Kansas 24; 6. Maryland 22; 7. Harvard 16; 8 (tie) Dartmouth, Wisconsin, Missouri, Indiana 14; 12. Texas A&M 12 3/5; 13. (tie) Houston, Southern lllinois, Nebraska 12; 16. Washington 11 3/5; 17 (tie) Florida, Mississippi College, Prairie View A&M 10; 20 (tie) Middle Tennessee, Eastern Michigan 9.

"It's mind-boggling to have an NCAA champ from Harvard in the pole vault," coach Bill McCurdy said yesterday.

Another mind boggler was that at the same time Stiles was clearing the bar on his winning jump in the pole vault, the two-mile relay team was tearing up the track. This same coincidence occurred the previous week at the IC4As.

"McCurdy was right when he correlated my doing well with the relay team doing well." Stiles said.

The two-mile relay team of Dixon, Chafee, McNulty and Murphy blazed to a 7:32.0 finish, .1 seconds behind Western Michigan and .7 seconds away from Nebraska, which captured the dramatic event.

The race began routinely as Dixon, who later became the first Harvard freshman ever to receive All-American status in track, led off.

Dixon handed off to Chafee, who moved up to take the lead for a lap or two before losing it, passing the baton and a second-place spot to McNulty.

"Chafee was just brilliant in the trials and the finals," McCurdy said, adding, "He put us where we wanted to be."

The race continued smoothly until the University of Texas-El Paso runner caught the right leg of Notre Dame's runner, who fell down on his hip in front of McNulty and forced next year's cross country captain to hurdle over the body.

As a result of the jump, McNulty found himself by the walls in lane 4, but he quickly moved back into the running before handing off to Murphy, whose hands were already full with the task of catching Georgetown's Kevin Byrne.

"I hadn't trained in three weeks because of my sore knee, but the euphoria of the moment took over," Murphy said.

Murphy overcame Byrne and held him off with a 1:51.2 split to finish fourth in the event, while Texas-El Paso was later disqualifed for tripping and Harvard wound up with a bronze medal.

"It was all-out racing," Chafee said.

"The schools had some classy runners, but we held our own," McNulty said, adding, "Now we really have something to be cocky about."

Coach McCurdy, looking at the race from a statistical point of view, said, "You take five people to the Nationals. They all qualify for the finals. They all score. And they all become All-Americans. How the hell can you do any better than that?"

"It's too bad the stock market was closed today or else I'd have bought some shares," McCurdy added.