NEW HEIGHTS
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NEW HEIGHTS -
NEW HEIGHTS -
Three images of Cordale Knapik pole vaulting at the area meet– left focusing, center bending the pole and right, flying over the bar. Photos by Jeff Wick
flown higher.
The La Grange senior picked the perfect time to have his best-ever meet, soaring to personal records twice at the Region III-4A meet in Bullard two weeks ago to win the regional title. Knapik had never cleared 13-feet 9-inches in competition before, but he did it on his first attempt at regionals.
Then he did the same thing at 14-feet.
“It was the best meet I’ve ever seen him have, and he put a lot of work into it,” said La Grange pole vault coach Kevin Pittman.
That performance a regionals punched Knapik’s ticket to the state track meet, where he will vault this Thursday at the University of Texas at 1 p.m. He’s the only LHS state track qualifier this year.
“Going to state means everything,” Knapik said. “Every year I tried to get there and every year I got stuck at regionals.”
Knapik’s trip to state is the culmination of years of work.
He remembers as a seventh grader watching the Truss brothers excel in pole vault for the Leopards.
“I was like, how do they go that high?,” Knapik said.
“He was looking up to people when he was young, now people are looking up to him,” said Pittman, a collegiate pole vaulter himself who has turned the LHS pole vault program into one of the area’s best. “That’s what’s great about having a strong program. They have built off each other.”
After doing pole vault in middle school, Knapik stepped away from the sport as a freshman only to return his sophomore year, and the rest is history.
Cordale is the son of Tracy Knapik and the late Michael Knapik.
His dad died last May. “He always liked watching me pole vault,” Knapik said of his dad. “He would go to as many meets as he could, This is another way to honor him.”
Meanwhile, his mom was a very successful former softball coach at La Grange “She likes to see me succeed. She yells at all my games and you can hear her from everywhere,” Knapik said.
This trip to state caps what is a stellar high school athletic career for Knapik, who was an all-district football and basketball player as well.
“I’d go back and do it again if I could,” he said.
But bigger challenges await. Knapik is among the top students in his class and plans to attend the University of Arkansas to study engineering, and leave pole vaulting behind. But first he’s got one more meet.
“I’m hoping to medal, at least a PR (personal record),” Knapik said of his goals for state. “It will probably be the last time I pole vault ... just want to go out on a good note, can’t leave anything out there.”