Strange as it may seem, Nathan Stone had no concept of the pole vault prior to his freshman year at Lawrence North High School.
Stone played football at the time. Lawrence North football coach Patrick Mallory wanted his players to participate in another sport in the spring.
“I was thinking maybe hurdles or high jump,” Stone said. “Someone mentioned pole vaulting. I was like, ‘Uh, OK.’ I wasn’t sure about it. But once I left the ground, I fell in love with it.”
Stone took to pole vaulting like a fish to water – or, maybe in this case, a bird to the blue sky. Stone, now a senior, was last year’s state runner-up in the pole vault. It took a state meet record vault of 17 feet, 6 ¼ inches by Frankfort’s Colton Crum to edge Stone’s vault of 17 feet.
