Lance Arietta - Tappan Zee 1976
There’s something about contorting your body upside down in midair that tends to make pole vaulters different than the rest of us. Call them eccentrics or daredevils, but there’s no denying some of the best athletes in track & field wind up with a pole in their hands and an urge to go soaring over the rainbow.
Is there any doubt Lance Arietta fit the mold of a classic pole vaulter? Here’s a guy who hitchhiked along the Palisades Parkway to West Point – in a blizzard, no les – with 15-foot poles on each shoulder, just to get in his daily practice session. A guy who lived under the bleachers at the Abilene Christian track for six months, again to find some quality training. A guy who ran nose-scraping hills with Kenyan elites in Texas and Mexico to build leg strength and endurances for his specialty. And how about walking on his hands up hills at Tappan Zee, with his brother Rudy holding his legs up, to strengthen his shoulders for vaulting?
“The only person crazy enough to do these things was me,” says Lance, a left-handed vaulter who personified the southpaws’ reputation for flakiness. “You find different ways to train so it doesn’t get boring doing the same thing day after day. I went wherever I could go to jump and train.”
Life as a vaulter was anything but boring for Lance. What started as a way to one-up his brothers playing high jump in their Blauvelt back yard turned into an infatuation with vertical lift that thrust the Flying Dutchman to unprecedented heights. He won the New York State outdoor crown as a junior and the State indoor title as a senior. In 1976, he broke both the indoor and outdoor New York State records. His outdoor clearance of 15 feet 10 inches toppled the previous mark of 15-4 ¼ set in 1974 by Andy Pintus of Half Hollow Hills, and still ranks tied for No. 12 on the all-time state list (as of 2010). His indoor record of 15-4 ¼ eclipsed the prior standard of 15-0 set in ’74 by Paul Flint of James I. O’Neill in Highland Falls.
Lance was Eastern States outdoor champion his senior year, finally getting the better of archrival Bill Hartley of Southern Regional (Manahawkin, N.J.), to whom Lance had finished second two straight years. “That was a beautiful moment,” says Lance, who vaulted 15-10 that day. He also placed second (to Hartley) at the Penn Relays, and qualified for the 1976 Golden West Invitational in Sacramento, Calif., where he tied for fifth with Billy Olson, who set the world indoor record at 19-5 ½ a decade later.
Lance came a long way from the 9-year-old who competed against his older brothers Rudy and Wayne in a crude high-jump setup of sticks for standards and crossbar. One day he impulsively grabbed a larger stick from nearby woods and “vaulted” over the stick crossbar, thus christening his pole vaulting career. “Whenever I went over and it didn’t fall off, it was a good feeling,” he remembers. By eighth grade he was clearing 10 feet with a metal pole, then came the fiberglass pole and improvement by quantum leaps – 13 feet as a sophomore, 14 feet as a junior, and 15-10 as a senior.
Lance pursued his specialty with a passion, watching a videotape of Olympic champion Bob Seagren “till it broke” and attending vaulting camps by Seagren and Steve Smith – the first U.S. vaulter to clear 18 feet – for two summers in Maryland. He also found guidance and support from Tim St. Lawrence, the former state record-holder from Suffern and coaching guru, and brother Rudy, who studied the event and imparted invaluable advice on technique.
Pole vaulters need to be fast and strong, and while Lance would not win many footraces, he was exceptionally strong at 5-foot-9 and 145 pounds. Walking up flights of stairs on your hands will get strong in a hurry. When he went to college at the University of Texas at El Paso, gymnastics and trampoline work were integrated into his training routine, and the hills he ran in Texas and across the border in Mexico kept his legs strong when he wasn’t doing vaulting-specific training. “I never had an off-season,” he says.
Lance attended UTEP for a year, followed by one-year stints at Miami Dade Junior College in Florida and Sacramento Junior College in California. He returned to UTEP to train and compete but knee and back injuries ultimately derailed his vaulting odyssey. He retired with a best of 17-6.
Today (as of 2007) Lance lives in Coconut Creek, Fla., with his wife of 15 years, Carmen, and their son Brandon, who turns 13 on May 11, 2007. The Ariettas have lived in Florida since 1989. For the past 14 years Lance has been a transportation coordinator for the Iron Mountain records management company, supervising a fleet of 20 drivers.
Lance turned 50 on April 16, 2007, but when his mind drifts back to the sport of his youth, he’s like a kid again. He issued a playful challenge to the graybeards who retired their poles long ago: “We should give all the old pole vaulters a year to get in shape, then get them together and see who wins.”
Is there any doubt Lance Arietta fit the mold of a classic pole vaulter? Here’s a guy who hitchhiked along the Palisades Parkway to West Point – in a blizzard, no les – with 15-foot poles on each shoulder, just to get in his daily practice session. A guy who lived under the bleachers at the Abilene Christian track for six months, again to find some quality training. A guy who ran nose-scraping hills with Kenyan elites in Texas and Mexico to build leg strength and endurances for his specialty. And how about walking on his hands up hills at Tappan Zee, with his brother Rudy holding his legs up, to strengthen his shoulders for vaulting?
“The only person crazy enough to do these things was me,” says Lance, a left-handed vaulter who personified the southpaws’ reputation for flakiness. “You find different ways to train so it doesn’t get boring doing the same thing day after day. I went wherever I could go to jump and train.”
Life as a vaulter was anything but boring for Lance. What started as a way to one-up his brothers playing high jump in their Blauvelt back yard turned into an infatuation with vertical lift that thrust the Flying Dutchman to unprecedented heights. He won the New York State outdoor crown as a junior and the State indoor title as a senior. In 1976, he broke both the indoor and outdoor New York State records. His outdoor clearance of 15 feet 10 inches toppled the previous mark of 15-4 ¼ set in 1974 by Andy Pintus of Half Hollow Hills, and still ranks tied for No. 12 on the all-time state list (as of 2010). His indoor record of 15-4 ¼ eclipsed the prior standard of 15-0 set in ’74 by Paul Flint of James I. O’Neill in Highland Falls.
Lance was Eastern States outdoor champion his senior year, finally getting the better of archrival Bill Hartley of Southern Regional (Manahawkin, N.J.), to whom Lance had finished second two straight years. “That was a beautiful moment,” says Lance, who vaulted 15-10 that day. He also placed second (to Hartley) at the Penn Relays, and qualified for the 1976 Golden West Invitational in Sacramento, Calif., where he tied for fifth with Billy Olson, who set the world indoor record at 19-5 ½ a decade later.
Lance came a long way from the 9-year-old who competed against his older brothers Rudy and Wayne in a crude high-jump setup of sticks for standards and crossbar. One day he impulsively grabbed a larger stick from nearby woods and “vaulted” over the stick crossbar, thus christening his pole vaulting career. “Whenever I went over and it didn’t fall off, it was a good feeling,” he remembers. By eighth grade he was clearing 10 feet with a metal pole, then came the fiberglass pole and improvement by quantum leaps – 13 feet as a sophomore, 14 feet as a junior, and 15-10 as a senior.
Lance pursued his specialty with a passion, watching a videotape of Olympic champion Bob Seagren “till it broke” and attending vaulting camps by Seagren and Steve Smith – the first U.S. vaulter to clear 18 feet – for two summers in Maryland. He also found guidance and support from Tim St. Lawrence, the former state record-holder from Suffern and coaching guru, and brother Rudy, who studied the event and imparted invaluable advice on technique.
Pole vaulters need to be fast and strong, and while Lance would not win many footraces, he was exceptionally strong at 5-foot-9 and 145 pounds. Walking up flights of stairs on your hands will get strong in a hurry. When he went to college at the University of Texas at El Paso, gymnastics and trampoline work were integrated into his training routine, and the hills he ran in Texas and across the border in Mexico kept his legs strong when he wasn’t doing vaulting-specific training. “I never had an off-season,” he says.
Lance attended UTEP for a year, followed by one-year stints at Miami Dade Junior College in Florida and Sacramento Junior College in California. He returned to UTEP to train and compete but knee and back injuries ultimately derailed his vaulting odyssey. He retired with a best of 17-6.
Today (as of 2007) Lance lives in Coconut Creek, Fla., with his wife of 15 years, Carmen, and their son Brandon, who turns 13 on May 11, 2007. The Ariettas have lived in Florida since 1989. For the past 14 years Lance has been a transportation coordinator for the Iron Mountain records management company, supervising a fleet of 20 drivers.
Lance turned 50 on April 16, 2007, but when his mind drifts back to the sport of his youth, he’s like a kid again. He issued a playful challenge to the graybeards who retired their poles long ago: “We should give all the old pole vaulters a year to get in shape, then get them together and see who wins.”