Mike Lawryk has turned the art of pole vaulting into a cottage industry with a group of eager disciples yearning to drink from the guru's Kool Aid.
A 43-year-old Bethlehem resident and a 1981 Liberty High School graduate, Lawryk is the director of operations at Vertical Assault Pole Vaulting Club. He dispenses his wisdom and technical expertise to about 80 disciples at his indoor facility just south of Bath off Route 512.
In just six years, Lawryk has controlled high school pole vaulting -- particularly the girls -- not only in Pennsylvania but in New Jersey as well.
"About 65 percent of the kids in our club are girls," says Lawryk, a serious but relaxed vaulting pied piper who became a student of the event while a coach at Sebastian City (Fla.) High School in 1996-99. "Most of the girls come to us with a gymnastics background, so that helps."
Lawryk started the Vertical Assault Club in 2000 after returning to Bethlehem from the Sunshine State, but his workouts were conducted outdoors either at Liberty, where he's served as an assistant coach under Bill Ruth for the past seven years, or Moravian College. He realized he would eventually need a facility to call his own.
Eighteen months ago, he finally got one -- a 5,200-square foot former warehouse that features a pole vaulting area, warmup surface, hurdles to aid the vaulters in pre-routine drills and bulletin board space that serves as a de facto scrapbook for his vaulters' exploits.
Nearly 200 poles of varying strength, flexibility and length line one of the walls. The art of pole vaulting, for better or worse, is more of a gymnastics event than a track exercise, and the sport has a sub-culture that stands apart from the rest of track and field, much like kicking specialists on a football team.
Lawryk, a carpenter by trade, is a jack-of-all endeavors when it comes to the club. He's constructed most of the vaulting area and even periodically scales a 30-foot ladder to replace the air conditioning filters high above the room.
"I told Mike if he falls, he doesn't have insurance unless he dies," laughs Chelo Canino, the club's coordinator who was an All-American vaulter at both Princeton and the University of Florida as well as the Ivy League women's record-holder (13-6¼). "I can't believe he climbs up there to do that."
Lawryk's vaulters have enjoyed spectacular success, to say the least. Of the 24 competitors in the PIAA Class AAA girls field this past May at Shippensburg University, 14 were members of Vertical Assault. This included the top six medalists led by two-time champion, state record-holder and UCLA-bound Lindsay Regan of Easton.
Two-time runner-up Beki Finn and fourth-place medalist Becky Frey of Liberty and fifth-place finisher Abby Schaffer of Easton are all Vertical Assault members. All are tied for the No. 2 all-time spot in the region behind Regan (13-6), by clearing 12-3.
So is recent Warren Hills Regional graduate Kristen Hafford (12-0), a 2005 NJSIAA Meet of Champions winner who is joining Whitehall's Brooke Borso, a 12-3 vaulter also of Vertical Assault, at Northeastern University next month.
Of the top 13 girls vaulters in Express-Times region history, 12 are either Vertical Assault members or graduates. That group also includes PIAA champion Courtney Regan, Lindsay's older sister and currently a vaulter at Princeton; and Katie Regan, another Regan sibling who was a top Ivy League vaulter at Cornell.
Jacque Meissner, a recent Saucon Valley graduate, tried pole vaulting for the first time last July at Vertical Assault and in just 10 months, made the climb to the PIAA Class AA gold-medal podium.
All told, Vertical Assault vaulters have captured 19 state championships and have turned out four U.S. Olympic Development vaulters.
For his part, Lawryk does not actively recruit vaulters and spends little effort, if any, marketing his club. His list of disciples grows entirely by word of mouth or through the success of other vaulters.
The club charges $425 for a 10-week membership and his instruction periods are broken down over four seasons. In today's mid-summer workout at the club, about 10 vaulters are following Lawryk's workout plan, which follows a loose but somewhat disciplined practice.
Rarely, if ever, do the vaulters vault for height in workouts. Most of the practices are spent doting on some aspect of mid-air mechanics or other technical aspects of the vault.
Lawryk videos the vaulters in both workouts and meets.
Though Lawryk's in-season obligations lie with Liberty, he, Canino and Mike El-Kazzaz, a former Easton High and Moravian College vaulter who now works for the club, get out to as many high school and college meets that their schedules allow to lend technical support to their members.
Lawryk, too, negotiates a tricky mine field with high school coaches, many of whom are a little sensitive about getting involved with a potential taffy-pull over the loyalties of their vaulters. Instead, he's managed to forge many positive relationships with other coaches.
"Mike's laid-back about it," Lindsay Regan says. "I probably spend more time with Mike than with my high school coach (John Kerbaugh) but it has nothing to do with one coach is better than another. I'm involved with hurdles and the sprints, so if my normal track workout is focused on that, there's just not enough time to vault at the high school. So, if I need work on vaulting, I'll often go out to the indoor facility."
Lawryk, for his part, defers to his vaulters' high school coaches during the indoor and outdoor seasons.
"I always tell my vaulters to vault as much as possible at their schools because you want them to deal with outdoor variables," he says. "Vaulting for height indoors under pristine conditions is not going to help prepare you much."
After laying down their entry fees, club members do gain some financial benefit from their association. Vaulters get discounts on poles, which run upward to $375, that are ordered through the club.
"I'd say the elite-level vaulters use three or four poles in the course of a competition," Lawryk says. "Lindsay (Regan), for example, has eight or nine poles but she probably uses no more than four in a meet."
It's a well-known axiom that it takes a village to raise a child. In Mike Lawryk's village, it's the children that keep raising the bar in their corner of the world.