Maggie Vaults Over the Moon

By Ralph Hardy

In 2010, Wichita native Grant Overstake, journalist, pastor, journalist again, and masters decathlete, sat down to write a novel. He’d been a writer for decades, winning awards for his feature writing and long-form journalism, but he’d never written fiction. The resilience of the human spirit exemplified in his stories about people facing long odds, and athletes overcoming insurmountable obstacles, resonated with his readers, in Kansas, where he began his journalism career, and also in Miami, where he wrote for the powerhouse, Miami Herald.

Later, his pastoral work in rural Kansas and the hard streets of Chicago taught him that grace abounded, but in places where you least expected it. Grant wanted to spread that message, but not through sermons. He knew he had a novel in his heart and his head; he just had to find a way to tell it.

He also wanted it to be about sports. As an athlete himself, he knew that competing in sport at the competitive level was a crucible, a trial from which you came through a stronger person. Sometimes, anyway. But how do you tell that story? Can it be as simple as writing what you know? Because Grant knew a lot.

There was a time in the ‘60s when the eyes of the track world were focused, perhaps improbably, on the midwestern state of Kansas. There, a tall, wiry, running prodigy named Jim Ryun was burning up the cinder tracks, setting record after record. In 1964, still a high school junior, he broke 4 minutes in the mile. Ryun went on to break four minutes five times while still in high school.

Newspapers throughout Kansas, and across the country, covered Ryun’s exploits. Grant, ten years younger than Ryun, knew he was never going to be a great miler, but he loved track and field, particularly the pole vault. Still, you can only vault so high with a hoe or a rake. He saved his money, and one Saturday, Grant rode his Stingray bike to the local fishing supply store and rode back home, clutching their stiffest bamboo fishing pole. He marked his line, and clutching his new pole, soared over his homemade crossbar, landing on bales of hay. He was a natural.

He kept at it, running youth track on the same cinders Jim Ryun had run upon. Grant was also a quarterback, basketball player, and regional champ in track in high school, qualifying for the state meet three times. “I wasn’t great at any of the track and field events I competed in, but I was pretty good at all of them,” he laughs. And so, a decathlete was made.

Then Earl Bell came to town. Maybe you’ve dreamed of stringing Serena’s racquet or handing Usain his starting blocks. Well, in 1976, Earl Bell, who belongs on the Mount Rushmore of American pole vaulters, was vaulting at Wichita State, at the USATF National Championships. There to catch the breakable fiberglass poles? Nineteen-year-old Grant Overstake. Twenty steps later, Bell cleared 18’7”, a world record. Grant caught the pole so it wouldn’t break. Maybe, just maybe, a seed was planted that sunny afternoon. By then Grant was attending Butler Junior College where he became a USATF All-American decathlete, placing 5th at USATF Nationals, all while writing sports part-time for the Eagle and Beacon, Kansas’ largest daily newspaper.

In 1978, he married his high school sweetheart, Claire Brewer, who had been a two-time state champion high school sprinter and a record-setter at Wichita State. Together they transferred to the University of Kansas, where, as 20-year-old

Claire and Grant Overstake

newlyweds, they became the first married couple to compete on the Jayhawks’ track teams. As a junior, under the watchful eye of the late great coach Bob Timmons, Grant placed 5th in the KU Relays decathlon and was looking forward to his senior year, but was forced to give up track to fulfill his scholarship obligations at the journalism school. Now he had to tell the man who led Jim Ryun to world records and coached Kansas to three indoor NCAA championships that he was leaving his team. But Timmons, a former Marine, understood the burden of responsibility.

“Coach Timmons called me up in front of the squad to shake my hand. “Now Grant isn’t the greatest athlete,” he said to no one’s surprise. “But he could wind up writing for Sports Illustrated someday. He doesn’t want to leave us, but it’s time for him to do what he does best.”

Although Grant was heartbroken about leaving the team, that same year, a feature article he wrote as a reporter for The University Daily Kansan won the William Randolph Hearst Award, the college version of the Pulitzer Prize. He was on his way.

After graduation, Grant became the editor of The Johnson City Pioneer, where he not only wrote all the stories but also took all the photographs. It was there that he would begin to understand the hardships of Kansas farmers, lessons that he would use later in his description of Maggie’s life.

From western Kansas, the restless journalist leaped to the Miami Herald where he chased stories day and night for the precious byline. But the long hours kept him away from Claire, who was teaching school, so after four years Grant left the paper to sell health insurance. Three children in five years followed, so prioritizing home and family, they moved back to Kansas in 1988, where he continued to work for Blue Cross & Blue Shield, and where Claire and he volunteered at a Salvation Army soup kitchen.

Serving the poor and needy opened their eyes to a greater good that they could do, so they sold their possessions and entered The Salvation Army seminary in Chicago for an intensive two-year training program. They devoted five years to the Salvation Army before returning to Kansas, where Claire went back to teaching, and Grant spent five more years as an itinerant minister serving in Methodist churches sprinkled among small Kansas towns, including the tiny farming community of Hiattville, in southeast Kansas, the setting for Maggie Vaults Over the Moon.

But journalism called him back, and after their youngest child graduated from high school, Grant dove back in as editor of The Hillsboro Star-Journal, where he wrote 56 weekly newspapers in a row, winning a dozen writing awards from the Kansas Press Association, and two Golden Wheat Awards from the Kansas Farm Bureau. Capturing life on the farms of Kansas further cultivated the seeds for Maggie.

Then Claire won the Presidential Award for Excellence as a science teacher, the highest award in the nation, so they moved back to Wichita to be closer to their kids and Claire’s parents. But the restless journalist was ready for his next move. They downsized so they could afford to live on Claire’s income, and Grant began to plot out his novel.

For a decathlete, technique is the key ingredient to success, but what was the technique of writing a novel? Grant approached the problem with his characteristic preparedness and midwestern parsimony.

Instead of getting an MFA, he read nearly every book written on how to write a novel. And then he sat down and did it. And it was good. Everybody said so. But who would publish a novel about a teenage farm girl in Kansas who likes to pole vault? After all, she wasn’t even a vampire, and rural Kansas was hardly a dystopian hellscape, which is what all the kids were reading, right? The literary agents--gatekeepers to the publishing industry--passed. So Grant did more research and decided to self-publish his novel. Amazon CreateSpace was designed for just that thing, and soon he had a paperback and an e-book for sale.

Ever the salesman, Grant reached out to pole vaulting clubs and camps all across the country. Would they help him promote his book? They would and they did, Earl Bell included, as well as other Olympians and coaches. The story of a Kansan farm girl who picks up pole vaulting as a means of coping with a family tragedy and overcomes setbacks and challenges to compete at the highest state level resonated with readers across the country. Maggie picked up steam. And awards: Battle of the Books, “National Book of the Week” and “Too Cool for School” mentions by Publishers Weekly. Then Audie Award-winning voice actress Tavia Gilbert earned top reviews for her audiobook performance of the story from AudioFile magazine.

But Grant didn’t stop there. Seeing a need in school for role models, even a fictional one, he began to attend school assemblies with a presentation called “Don’t Quit, Use Grit!” using pole-vaulting and Maggie’s resilient character as a jumping-off point to talk about “famous failures” like Edison, Einstein, and Oprah, to encourage youngsters to get back up and try, try again.

Grit is a topic that Grant likes to talk about. Can grit be taught? Can it be transferred from one domain, athletics, for example, to another, such as academics? Can it be nurtured, fostered, expanded? He thinks so. And he wants to help do that. Now, after a pandemic where life was disrupted for millions of school kids, Maggie is needed more than ever.

Seeking more control of his sales, Grant started his own publishing company, Grain Valley Publishing Company, and wrote another novel, The Real Education of T.J Crowley, a gripping YA novel about race relations set in Wichita during the turbulent sixties. Still active in athletics, Claire and Grant won the Couple’s Spirit award last year by doing decathlons remotely for the World Masters Games in 2020 during the pandemic. Having Claire as his life companion, Grant attests, has been the most fortunate aspect of his life.

And Maggie, too, has a second act. Just in time for the Olympics, and with pole vaulting gaining popularity across the country, Grant has re-released his cult-classic under his own imprint, with a foreword by Olympic gold medalist Katerina Stefanidi and group discussion questions by mental performance consultant and Doctorate in Sport Psychology, Dr. Melissa White. Teenage readers need someone to root for and learn from. She’s right there, waiting for the swirling Kansas wind to die down before she begins her approach.

And yes, Maggie still uses a bamboo pole.

Book cover design by YoungJu Kim