Morry Sanders Keeps Finding Himself in Pole Position

Morry Sanders had no one to blame but himself when his 17-year-old state pole vaulting record was broken by Bryant’s Spencer McCorkel in 2006.

Sanders, who set the record in 1988 while a senior at Lake Hamilton High School, helped coach McCorkel at his Black Springs residence (about 40 minutes from the Lake Hamilton campus).

It wasn’t a path that Sanders set out on. After vaulting for Arkansas State, Sanders received his degree in exercise science and started working in the fitness industry. While he didn’t see a pole for eight years, it was almost by accident that he got into coaching.

“Out of the blue, a guy named Billy Plyler calls me up and say his daughter’s [Brandie] starting to pole vault, and that he had heard that I used to vault and wanted me to come work with her,” Sanders said. “She had so much success so fast that I decided that this was my calling.”

He went back to college to get his teaching certification and, after completing that, coached at Caddo Hills for three years before returning to his alma mater as assistant track and football coach.

In the mean time, the 39-year-old rediscovered his passion for the sport and decided to create a vaulters’ haven on his property in Black Springs.

“We started [Arkansas Vault Club] in 1999 and didn’t have a facility or any equipment of any kind,” he said of the facility he operates with his wife, Christy. “We just had Brandi and couple of Lake Hamilton kids … before I knew it we had 20 kids and they started coming out on a regular basis.”

The non-profit club, which raises funds through clinics and selling vaulting equipment, has since taken over a larger arch-style building with two mondo rubber runways.

He has coached 61 state (indoor and outdoor) title holders in that span, and sent countless club members on to college, including schools such as Arkansas, Penn State, Ole Miss, Arkansas State and Princeton to name a few.

“I’m really excited with what we have got going on,” Sanders said. “Every year it seems to get better and better. Last year we had four 15-foot plus vaulters and this year we already have five [in March].”