Penn pole vaulting a one-man show

The average Penn men’s pole vaulter hails from Los Angeles, stands six feet and one inch tall and attended the same high school as Miles Cartwright. His high school team won three Division II California state championships, and he has his eyes set on breaking the 16-foot mark this outdoor season. As it turns out, the average Penn men’s pole vaulter is freshman Everett Hateley.

Due to some unforeseen twists and turns in the recruiting process, Hateley is the lone vaulter on this year’s track and field squad. By comparison, his squad at Loyola High School fielded a team of about 15 vaulters in his senior year.

As a captain, Hateley led the small legion of vaulters in workouts. Now, he works with just three other pole vaulters from the women’s team.

“It’s changed a lot going from high school with a huge team to basically being the only one representing my school,” Hateley said.

Though Hateley does not have pole vaulting teammates on the men’s side, he is able to rely upon the instruction and advice of three vaulters from the women’s team, including junior Davielle Brown, who ranks fourth all-time in the outdoor pole vault and is tied for third in the indoor vault at Penn.

The pole vaulters are coached by Samantha Crook, a 2005 alumna and the most prolific vaulter in Penn women’s history — setting records in both the indoor and outdoor events that still stand.

“It’s just been Everett and the girls for a year now,” coach Robin Martin said with a laugh.

Martin noted that Hateley has all of the physical attributes sought after in a pole vaulter: speed, strength and height. As it turns out, these are also some of the key traits of a football player. Not surprisingly, in high school, Hateley also competed on the gridiron as a defensive back.

In fact, he called his introduction to pole vaulting a “fluke experience” from his freshman year. Hateley had planned to run sprints or hurdles, but when coaches asked the freshman about pole vaulting, he decided to try his hand at it.

“It ended up going pretty well for the first couple of weeks, so I stuck with it,” Hateley said.

Just a year later, in 2009, Hateley traveled to the California Interscholastic Federation state meet for the first of three trips over the course of his high school career. That year, Loyola captured the first of three consecutive state titles.

Among the captains for that track and field team was Penn junior cornerback Justyn Williams, who was a senior at Loyola at the time.

In the fall of that year, Loyola alumnus and wide receiver Marcus Lawrence led Penn’s Ivy League championship team with 21.6 yards per catch. The following year, sophomore guard Miles Cartwright joined the Quakers’ hoops squad.

The tradition of successful Loyola athletes crossing the country to compete for Penn encouraged Hateley to do the same, unlike his two older sisters, who both attended USC.

According to Martin, Hateley has “all the tools” to make an impact at the collegiate level and should set his sights on joining what Hateley called the “16-foot club.”

“He’s been a trooper, even though he’s the only one out there,” Martin said. “I am just excited to see him get a chance to put it all together.”

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