Lake Hamilton Pole Vaulter Owns Second-Best Jump in Nation

Arkansas Vault Club Lake Hamilton’s Sam Ewing, shown in here in training at the Arkansas Vault Club, is chasing after the state pole vault record.

Sam Ewing looks up to former Bryant High and current University of Arkansas pole vaulter Spencer McCorkel.

Ewing even considers him a friend, but the junior from Lake Hamilton High School is gunning for one thing McCorkel owns: the state pole-vaulting record.

McCorkel holds the state record of 16-feet, 8-inches that he set on May 17, 2006, at the Class AAAAA state meet at Cabot.

The mark McCorkel broke stood for 17 years - held by Morry Sanders, a former Lake Hamilton pole vaulter and current Wolves assistant coach.

"My goal is to get 17 feet and bring the record back to Lake Hamilton," said Ewing.

Ewing and McCorkel became friends after training together at Sanders' Arkansas Vault Club in Black Springs, about a 40-minute drive from Lake Hamilton.

"He's an amazing vaulter, one of the most amazing that I have been around," Ewing said of his friend McCorkel. "I think that every pole vaulter has his own role model and he is mine."

Ewing, who has a season's best vault of 17 feet (the second-best jump nationally so far this season), won the state indoor title and is going hard after the state overall record, which can only be set at the state track meet or Meet of Champions. Ewing has an outdoor best jump of 16 feet at the McDonald's Relays in Fort Smith on April 26.

He got his pole vaulting start in the sixth grade (where he had a best jump of 8-6) and, despite sitting out his seventh-grade year, came back and jumped 12-2 as an eighth-grader.

Ewing recently discussed why, with any sport at his disposal in his developing years, he chose pole vaulting.