Caitlin Eberly '11 Recruiting Profile

Throughout elementary and middle school I participated in gymnastics for eight years all together. Gymnastics has taught me many things about being a good sport and has also allowed me to excel with my new current sport of pole vaulting. Although I am no longer doing gymnastics, my strength and determination derived from this sport has carried to track and field and my pole vaulting career has taken off amazingly right from the start of freshman year at Mechanicsburg High school. To start off with, I am five foot four and I weigh 115 pounds. I am very fast and strong for my size. I weight train and attend personal training anywhere from two to four times a week along with weekend pole vault practices with my private coach, Lance Atkins. During the track season, I attend all practices and meets and I usually stay after with my jumping coach to do abdominal, plyometric or other workouts with him. I am hardworking and have great determination. Many people find me to be very outgoing and I would say that I can be both a leader and a follower. I do not try to overstep my boundaries but I can definitely motivate people to do their best. My freshman year of high school was my first year that I began pole vaulting. Right away, I realized that I had a great shot at excelling with pole vaulting. After winning first place at just about all of my dual meets and placing within the top 10 at weekend invitationals, I ended the year with a personal record of nine feet three inches along with a varsity letter and pin. Following freshman year, sophomore year led to another successful season of pole vaulting. During the summer before sophomore year I attended a pole vault camp at Slippery Rock University where visiting coach, Alan Launder, was there to teach his Bubka model to all of the girls. Needless to say, I learned a lot about pole vaulting that year and I began to understand the logic behind the whole routine. After repeating countless wins at dual meets and moving up with the competition at invitationals, I once again ended the year with a personal record of nine feet six inches along with a varsity pin to attach onto my varsity letter received from freshman year. I have just finished up my junior year of high school and I am now working hard towards Senior year. During junior year, I broke my high school pole vault record of 10'10 and jumped 11'. I also placed either first, second or third at all invitational meets. I received first place at my mid-penn Champion meet, second at my district meet and tied for 7th place at PA states, all with jumps of 11'. As the summer continues, I am working as a junior counselor at Fiberbenders and I am strength and condition training anywhere from 2-3 times a week with Justin Bowers of Synergy fitness. I plan on attending indoor meets this winter and I hope to break my record of 11' sometime in the near future. Looking into the future, I am unsure of which school I specifically wish to attend. I do not care where in the United States a school may be. I love traveling and experiencing new places and ways of life that are different than my own. I am very open as to what kind of school I will attend and I am open to middle to large sized schools. Academically, I would enjoy a school that would fit with my GPA and SAT/ACT scores, when I take those tests (which will be this coming spring 2010). Also, division level is not very important to me but I want to be able to compete right from freshman year with fair competition for myself. As for a major that I wish to pursue in college, I am undecided. Although I am unsure about a major, I am very interested in visual and graphic arts. My goals for pole vaulting throughout college leads me in hopes that I will be able to impact the team and bring in some points. Also, as I stated before, wish to compete all through college, beginning in freshman