Jenn and Rick Suhr Give Back

By Adele San Miguel

When you hear the word ‘combine’, here in the U.S. we think of the opportunity for National Football League hopefuls to be measured on various standards to see if they have what it takes to succeed as professional football players.

The Combine at Suhr Sports outside Rochester, New York focuses on pole vault. It is a combine – ation of Jenn and Rick Suhr’s talents as a professional pole vaulter and elite coach who, now retired, wish to pay it forward. The Combine teaches next level technical aspects of the vault, and how to manage life on the pro circuit.

What does this wife and husband team know that they can convey?

Plenty. They are SME’s - Subject Matter Experts - on pole vault.

In her 18-year career, Jenn was a 3-time Olympian and 2-time Olympic medalist – silver in Beijing in 2008 and gold in London in 2012. She is a staggering 17-time U.S. National Champion. Her personal best is 5.03m/16’6”. As a World Champion (2016) and 2-time silver medalist at the World Championships (2008 and 2013), Jenn is the reigning world record holder for indoor competition. She broke barriers. Jenn and Rick pushed the edge of what is possible for women in the sport and advocated for better conditions. Now, they turn their attention to the next generation of vaulters with high hopes and lofty potential.

Until Jenn’s retirement in June 2022, professional pole vault was their life’s work. TAKEOFF sat down with Jenn and Rick to discuss retirement goals and the details of The Combine.

TAKEOFF: How did The Combine at Suhr Sports come to be?

Rick: We had a pastor once tell us, if you take your knowledge and keep it to yourself, it’s a sin. When you have something valuable for others, you must share it. So, that’s what we decided to do after Jenn retired.

Few people have existed at the pro level as long as Jenn. When we arrived on the circuit, no one was telling us anything, you know? The last thing you want to do is tell your competition how to beat you. We understood, but we had to learn many things the hard way.

At our combines, in three days we pack in all the knowledge we acquired. The athletes who really want to go after it will leave with the tools to reach their potential.

TAKEOFF: How do you determine who to offer a spot to? It sounds like you’ve had a lot of applicants.

Rick: This is designed for top 40 collegiate, top 40 high school athletes, top 40 post-collegiates, from anywhere in the world, trying to go pro. This is an advanced camp, not a broad-based one where we’re working with kids of all levels. We run a combine once a month and select four athletes.

The teaching part’s easy and the organization is difficult. Scheduling four athletes is harder than you think when they all come in on airplanes from out of town. There’s a lot of work around this.

TAKEOFF: What are your goals for the athletes in The Combine?

Rick: Our goal simply is that in three days we give the athlete more takeaway than they can get anywhere else. We watch every drill and every jump, and slow every video down to offer the best knowledge we can give them.

We don’t want them to hear any repeats. We want to give them the professional knowledge we’ve gained, plus technical cues on different parts of the vault they might not have worked on before.

We teach them how contracts work and how to work with an agent; how meet promoters choose athletes to compete; and, if an athlete returns for another combine, their coaching is going to go deeper than their prior visit. It’s truly about the takeaway.

TAKEOFF: You made a conscious decision to make The Combine affordable and to keep yourselves approachable. Can you talk about that?

Rick: It was simple. Jenn and I were talented young athletes, but we did not have money to attend camps. When I grew up, camps were something that wealthy kids did. My brother and I were really good wrestlers, but we had to do it on our own, and the same thing with Jenn. Her family did not have the means for her to attend track or basketball camps.

I’ve been offered crazy amounts of money to train young athletes. Pole vault is very technical and vaulters really need the guidance. We could charge any amount. This is about giving every athlete the ability to attend if they’re at that level. It is important to us that everyone can afford it.

TAKEOFF: And the goal is to do one a month?

Rick: We’d like to do one a month, especially when the weather is good.

In the winter, flying kids in and out of Buffalo and Rochester is a challenge. We may a do a few combines down south during those winter months. It depends on what’s going on in our personal lives. We are trying to get in a little retirement time.

TAKEOFF: Perfect segue into the next question, was it hard to decide to retire?

Jenn: I think I got to the point where I enjoyed the training and the challenge of it, but when you get to a certain age you don’t enjoy riding on a bus, flying across the world, being told what time you can train, what time you have to eat. You get to a point where that is hard to do and it took the enjoyment out of competing. I just want to live my own life and I don’t want to be told how to live it. It was 24/7 for us. We didn’t have an off switch. We looked at our life like, wow, it could be half over right now and we really need to get on with the rest of it.

I knew I was done when I couldn’t get the adrenaline up anymore. One day I just didn’t care what pole I got on or what bar I made. Plus, I wanted to end on my terms and I did. I didn’t have an injury ending me. I didn’t have Adidas dropping me, I ended on my own and I don’t have any regrets.

TAKEOFF: What will your work be as ambassadors for pole vault going forward?

Jenn: We definitely have different roles in going forward. He’s the coach, the one that can see what’s happening, and what to work on with vaulters. I enjoy learning who these athletes are as people and being able to root for them. I’m excited to see their results. I can follow along and enjoy their accomplishments without the stress of competing myself. I’m looking forward to just being a fan of people.

Rick: For me, the ambassadorship is the open line. So many times, as a coach, I would plateau and there was nowhere to go.

Whether it’s physical, mental, or technical, if you don’t know where to go, call me. Every vaulter plateaus. I’m going to give you the best advice or Jenn’s going to, no matter the topic, the advice that we could never access.

It is amazing how kids will not pick up that phone and call. And I get that it’s hard to pick the phone up and call an Olympic champ or a world record holder. But that opportunity is there. We will give you our time. It’s the open line for us. I think that’s the most important thing.

(Editor’s Note: We have called Rick since our daughter attended The Combine. He got right back to us, while we were still at practice.)

TAKEOFF: What are some things you have fought for over the years that this next generation of vaulters will benefit from?

Rick: We’ve had to advocate for a lot of different changes in the Olympic Trials, and the U.S. Championships. One thing is starting heights and wait time.

We waited three hours in our first Olympic Trials to jump three hours in the Olympic final. It was so bad that Jenn won the Olympic Trials and actually could not complete the victory lap with the flag because she was dehydrated and exhausted. There had to be change.

Jenn: Back when I started, you had to make teams, and there was a standard, but they took everyone who had the standard. So, if they put the standard low enough, you could get up to 28 people in a meet, but they really want the top three. We kept telling them to push high increments at the beginning and then go to the top three. And that’s one thing that they have changed. If you go back in the day and look at the height progressions compared to now it is completely different. They worked with us with shelter too. I complained about not having shelter and they said we can’t have shelter because it looks bad on TV. And I’m like, no, no, this isn’t about TV, this is about us. You have to provide shelter out there for the athletes.

Photo provided by Rick Suhr

TAKEOFF: Can you tell us a crazy story from your competition days?

Rick: First of all, there’s probably fifty of them. In 2015, we were taping up poles in the garage preparing for the World Championships in Beijing. Our big dog at the time got into an all out fight with a skunk. I intervened and got into a wrestling match with them, and Jenn came out to help. In the end, I killed the skunk. Then I realized the skunk had acted weirdly.

We were three days out from getting on an airplane to China. At the last minute I called the veterinarian clinic to check if the skunk had rabies. They told me I had to cut the head off the skunk, put it in a cooler, and bring it to them. Long story short, I put the whole skunk in the cooler and paid the vet $100 to cut the head off. He laughed at me and said these things never come back positive. In the meantime, I had scratches on my legs from the fight. Well, don’t I get a call at six in the morning confirming the skunk tested positive for rabies. Jenn and I needed globulin, the same day we were leaving for Beijing.

I had to get clearance from everybody to take these rabies vaccines all the way over to Japan to the trial camp, and then to China. We had to be on a plane for 13 straight hours and had to keep the booster at an exact temperature the entire time.

Jenn: I wouldn’t take it because I didn’t know how it was going to affect my performance. And they’re like, no, you have no choice anymore so I ended up taking it. In the qualifying round, I cramped in my groin and I was like, well, that was weird. Then, warming up for the finals, I tore it. I competed with a torn groin and I’m telling you it did something with my body.

Rick: It dehydrated both of us quite a bit. Jenn ended up making 4.70m and tying for fourth, which is a phenomenal performance. She couldn’t even get down the runway. But when I tell you we probably have fifty more stories like that, it is just crazy things.

TAKEOFF: Jenn, you’ve pushed out the edge of what is possible for women’s pole vault. What do you think your legacy is?

Jenn: The legacy. When I look back, what I am proud of is that there are a lot of ways to shortcut it and I didn’t shortcut. When I ended my career, I ended with the same agent, the same shoe company and the same coach. It took patience and loyalty. For me it was important that I stuck through things when it was bad and didn’t change my coach, sponsor, or agent. I just kept fighting. I think the legacy is the resiliency.

Mondo (Duplantis) is a great jumper and he’s making it look easy. He’s winning every fight. He’s very blessed with what he does because it’s not easy.

For someone like me, with so many ups and downs, there were many times I wasn’t going to get re-signed because they thought I was done. Then, I made a comeback even better. There were times when people on the internet said I needed to retire because of my age. Next thing you know, I have the world indoors and world record.

When people count you out, that’s when you have to focus in. Look at who’s in your circle, and build off of that because the outside people can bring you down fast. My career was such a personal thing and we kept it close. Many people give up or make huge changes. I just kept fighting.

Rick: Jenn had nine lives as a pro. There were probably four distinct times where she was done. You’re allowed to have one bad season at the pro level; if you have two, you’re not around anymore. Jenn is one of the only pro track athletes I’ve seen have two bad seasons and come back and make it to the very top level. It’s unheard of. They give up on you.

Jenn: It’s the injuries. Once they see Achilles, they’re done with you; once they see lower back, they’re done with you. You go through technical stuff where all of a sudden it looks like you’ve never vaulted in your life. You have to come back from that mentally and physically. There’s always something that you’re battling. I’m proud that I just kept fighting.

TAKEOFF: Rick, you mentioned that you’ve coached many more athletes to 10’6” than to 16 feet. Do you coach anyone regularly now?

Rick: I do work with some people now, but not a lot. Since 2006, I have primarily only coached Jenn. I have worked with some really talented kids who have done well, but I’m not their primary coach, I’m a secondary coach.

It is a lot easier coaching high school level pole vaulters. Coaching at the pro level was never enjoyable to me. It was a job under the spotlight where there was a tremendous amount of criticism and everything we did was magnified. I’m a secondary coach now and anybody can come work with us. My job now is to help the athletes, and I love being a part of cooperative coaching with the primary coach.

Photo provided by Rick Suhr

TAKEOFF: What advice would you give a coach whose athlete has plateaued?

Jenn: Usually I see that when someone plateaus, it’s because they’re fixated on one point of the vault and stuck there. We had a girl up here and she and her coach were just stuck on her run and no other part of her vault. Once we actually looked at it and got her to focus on other phases, and encouraged her to just do it, progress was made. Sometimes coaches get fixated on one specific thing that they want their athlete to do better and they want it to look like another person’s vault. Well, maybe that’s not their strength, you know? Maybe that’s just how they’re going to do it. Work on everything else too, and try to enhance it in the background. Many times, there’s too much focus on one thing.

Rick: There is no best coach in the world; there are just coaches who mesh with you the best and are open enough to get you to where you want to go.

If your athlete’s plateauing, have another coach take a look at your vaulter or have your athlete talk to another athlete who does well. A coach’s insecurities will affect the athlete. A coach has to be open to ideas. When I couldn’t figure something out, I sent Jenn to another world class vaulter and some European coaches for feedback.

There are a lot of different ways to do this. All our technical models now kind of merge three or four models together. There is no one way. Some coaches will obsess that every little phase has to be perfect. That’s not true. Jenn has had great jumps where she was off on some things by quite a bit, but the other seven or eight things were on and that matters.

Also, I never, ever say that an athlete is a head case. If I see an athlete struggling technically, that is nothing but a challenge for me to break through and figure out how to make it work. You’ve got to be positive. I’m a hard coach, no question. But if the coach builds confidence through what they know, their ability to develop drills, to teach, the issue is to get the athlete to execute. If you do that in a step-by-step process, once that confidence rises, it takes off and progress is made quickly.

TAKEOFF: Jenn, how did you handle the mental perspective throughout your career?

Jenn: Prior to 2017, I never understood how someone could be afraid of a pole, or run through a pad. I was like, just run and hold on to the pole. Then in 2017, I started to overthink things and that anxiety manifested and I was like, oh, that’s how they run through the pad. I had to work through it, which I’d never had to before.

At first, I thought I’m just going to tough this out and it didn’t work like that. It became something I had to train, just like I trained technical and trained my diet. I had to work on the mental by breaking down things step-by-step, building confidence on short runs and smaller poles, and backing up according to when I was ready. Because when you push it, it doesn’t come.

I never would have been able to answer that question if I hadn’t gone through it. And then once I went through it, I knew what I did to come out of it. I think that experience allowed me to be able to help athletes, because that’s a big question I get in my Instagram DM’s. And now I know how to assist an athlete get through it.

Photo provided by Rick Suhr

Photo provided by Sofia San Miguel