The University of Wisconsin women’s track team captain Tara Clack arrives at the McClain center a convenient 15 minutes prior to the departure of her bus to Notre Dame. Clack, along with several other UW athletes, is traveling to South Bend to compete in the Alex Wilson Invitational, a last-chance qualifier for individual athletes to become eligible to compete in the upcoming NCAA National Championships.
Short of breath, Clack rounds a corner of the McClain Center, making her way to the locker room, where she quickly gathers her equipment. Fortunately, Clack doesn’t have to fight time on the track. As the UW record holder in the pole vault, Clack is more concerned with adding height to the pole vault of 12 feet 5.5 inches she achieved at the Iowa invitational last month.
“I was so happy. I had been working real hard practicing, and I had been doing pretty well,” Clack said. “It just showed that [all the work] paid off, and I was really pleased with my performance.”
All the hard work has paid off, as Clack has diligently followed her rigorous training regimen that includes biweekly vaults and interval running, three weightlifting sessions per week, and “a lot of sprinting, a lot of jumps, a lot of gymnastics, pull-ups and sit-ups.”
But Clack’s time-consuming training, coupled with her academic schedule, doesn’t keep the team captain from planning and participating in community service projects.
“Well, I try to organize some functions,” Clack said. “[The track team] did a hospital thing at the beginning of the year where we went to the children’s hospital three times with about six girls per time and just did cookies, and talked to the kids and played games and gave them encouraging thoughts.”
As a team, the Badger women finished sixth in the Big Ten Championships for the second year in a row. This was the first indoor track season in the history of the program that no Badgers finished first in an event.
However, the results of both the men and women’s Big Ten Championships were overshadowed by the tragic death of Penn State pole-vaulter Kevin Dare. The empathetic Clack feels the death of a fellow vaulter sent a serious message throughout the track community.
“It hit us all pretty hard, especially the vaulters who have competed with him in the past,” Clack said. “He was a great vaulter, he loved vaulting, and I know he would want everything and everyone to keep going. His girlfriend was at our meet, and she is a great vaulter, and we just have to look at it positively, try to push through that . . . . It was a horrible accident, but we just have to try and go on and keep living our dream.”
With the Alex Wilson Invitational, the track team continued under a heavy heart. Clack finished a respectable sixth overall with a vault of 11 feet 9 inches. Her school record vault qualified for a provisional mark for the national championships but did not rank high enough for an automatic entry. The optimistic Clack doesn’t let the disappointment get her or the team down.
“Outdoors are at home this year, and the team is really looking forward to that one now,” Clack said.
