A UW student athlete can be defined in many ways, but for Badger standout pole-vaulter Tara Clack the term is being reinvented.
The fifth year senior from Deforest, Wis., has made a name for herself throughout the Big Ten in the past two and a half years as an extremely gifted and talented pole-vaulter. Not bad for a walk-on who didn’t start vaulting until the summer before her junior year in college.
“I had two good friends on the team that were doing it, and it looked like so much fun, so during the summer I decided that I was just going to try it for fun,” Clack said. “I ended up doing pretty well, by the end of the summer the coaches decided to switch me over from heptathlon to vaulting.”
This coaching decision turned out to be a very beneficial one for Clack and the UW women’s track team. Clack’s first opportunity to show her pole-vaulting skills at the collegiate level came during the indoor season of her junior year and she did not disappoint. Just months after learning how to vault, she became a serious competitor. During her junior indoor season she finished second at the Badger Track Classic, third at the Wisconsin Elite Invitational, second at the USTCA Collegiate Invitational, first at the UNI Dome Open and capped off her first indoor pole-vaulting season by finishing a very respectful sixth place in the Indoor Big Ten Championships.
Assistant UW track coach Spencer Schumacher was quick to praise the gifted track star.
“It’s been about two and a half years that I have been working with her,” Schumacher said. “At the beginning she was doing very well vaulting with her raw natural athletic ability. Every time she practices or competes she learns more and more about the techniques of vaulting and she continues to improve on her personal bests.”
Unfortunately, two stress fractures in her foot forced Clack to sit out the outdoor season of her junior year. After sitting out an entire outdoor season you might think that she would be a little rusty coming back for her senior indoor season, however this couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Clack won the Wisconsin Twilight meet, and won both the UW-La Crosse Classic meet and the Pomona-Pitzer Invitational. She topped off her senior season with an extremely successful second place at the Outdoor Big Ten Championships.
Because she sat out the outdoor season of her junior year, she still had one more outdoor season of eligibility. Clack ultimately decided to sit out this year’s indoor season, but continued to train and compete in local meets in preparation for the outdoor season.
“I went to local meets in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota and competed unattached, but it was pretty tough being a senior captain and not being able to help the team score points,” Clack said. “It was really hard not being able to wear the Wisconsin uniform. It feels good to be a Badger again.”
Despite sitting out this year’s indoor season, she did not let herself or her teammates down two weeks ago in Northridge, Calif., where she broke her own school record by recording a vault of 12-feet, 11-inches.
“I’m honored to have that, and I hope I set some good marks so it will be there for a while,” Clack said modestly. “I know that records are meant to be broken and with the popularity of women’s pole-vaulting rising, I’m sure that vaults are going to continue to get higher and higher.”
Clack, who is a biology major, is a three-time academic All-Big Ten award winner and plans on attending medical school.
“She’s always organizing stuff, and volunteering at the hospital,” Schumaker said. “She’s smart, always happy, always smiling, and is always in a good mood. She’s all the things that a great teammate should be.”
Even with her long list of accomplishments and awards, Clack feels like there is a lot she can still accomplish in the remaining months of her collegiate career at UW.
“I’d love to get first place at the Big Tens because it’s my last year,” Clack said. “I’m going to compete hard and hopefully I’ll qualify for Nationals and become an All-American. My main goal right now is to take the meets one at a time and help the team as much as possible.”
“Track has presented me with amazing opportunities to travel to all parts of the world,” she said. “It’s kind of like a family here; we spend so much time together that we get to know each other really well. We are all so proud of each other and we want to do well for each other and make the team successful”
As it stands, Tara Clack holds the UW school record for the indoor and outdoor women’s pole-vault. How long will these records last? No one really knows. One thing is for sure though: Tara Clack’s commitment to excellence on the track and in the classroom will never be forgotten.
“She’s a great person, a great athlete and a great asset to the University of Wisconsin,” assistant coach Spencer Schumacher concluded.