For four years, Paul Panning has lived in the world of pole vaulting. Friday, his fruits were harvested into an eighth-place finish among the best collegiate pole vaulters in the nation in the 2003 NCAA Track and Field Outdoor Championships in Sacramento, earning the right to be called an All-American. In doing so, he became the fourth All-American in Ball State history.
To some, this would be reason to shout, but to Panning, it's just another step to continued progress.
"The whole goal all season was to get to nationals," Panning said. "Once there we would focus on placing. Everyone has been saying, 'Oh, you're an All-American,' but we've already focused on the next goal and the only thing left is winning the title."
The road to conference championship has been a strange occurrence, he said. He started in his junior year at Fort Wayne Accordia High School, where he was a distance runner in three events.
"I saw a pole vaulter jump about only nine feet and said that I could do better than that," Panning said. "It didn't look like they were doing anything extraordinarily impossible."
He reached that goal, clearing 10 feet before the season was finished. By the end of his senior year, he had jumped 14 feet. Already planning to attend Ball State, he said he wanted to continue pole vaulting and called men's head coach Jim Sprecher to sell himself.
"I told him that I pole vaulted 14 feet in high school, and I was going to go to Ball State, and would he be interested in having me on the team," Panning said.
Sprecher invited him to team tryouts, and from there Panning was on his way. His freshman year Panning saw another boost in his career best tries, clearing an inch less than 16 feet. That season, he placed seventh in the MAC Championships. His sophomore year saw minimal change in his success, but this season he improved enough to go all the way to meet the best in the nation.
"I got a little bit better (from my freshman year), but not where I hoped I would be," Panning said, "but I picked it up where I left off at the end of last year and continued to go with it and got to where I am now."
Panning advanced to the MAC Outdoor Championships this season by winning the MAC pole vaulting championship. That win, after placing seventh in the MAC Outdoor Championships two years in a row, was evidence of disdain of satisfaction, seeing it as a hindrance to progress.
"I look at satisfaction as something that shows progress is going to stop," Panning said. "I've never been satisfied with what I got. I just want a little bit more, to always strive for that next level, that next step."
Panning has big plans to improve on his eighth-place finish. He'll have another season because the 2003-2004 season was approved to proceed as planned, after being considered to be cut from Ball State's sports program. Panning had his own opinions in regards to the biggest news traveling through the Ball State campus this summer.
"Just for me trying to imagine myself without having this opportunity is just mind-boggling," he said. "It kills me to think that others might not have this chance. It hurts me as well as the rest of my team and the track and field community is in uproar about it.
"For the team, I just hope that we make it through this situation and come out a stronger program, and I hope the other programs come out of it, too."
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