Bryce Tyger needed a change; soccer didn’t cut it anymore.
Trevor Bushman didn’t need a change; he’s had plenty of it over the years.
Pole vaulting is what helped Bushman with life stability during the rockiest of times. For Tyger, regardless of the sport, his thick right knee brace provides stability for an unstable knee since age 14.
Through it all, the pole vault — considered track and field’s most technically demanding event — is what bonds Tyger and Bushman, who are Class 4A’s Nos. 1- and 2-ranked pole vaulters heading into this weekend’s state track and field championships in Tacoma.
Now seniors and close friends as their second year of vaulting together, they’re looking to end their high school careers just like they’ve been ranked the last three weeks — first and second.
Said Tyger heading into this week: “I’m excited for us both.”
From soccer to track
Tyger never did track and field before last spring. He was a soccer player at Union his freshman and sophomore seasons.
But he quickly became burned out by the family’s sport.
Not until he and Bushman shared a conversation in pre-calculus class did the conversation turn to track, then pole vaulting. Like Bushman, Tyger is a self-described adrenaline-junky.
“You have to do the pole vault,” Bushman said.
So he did. And within 14 months, Tyger improved six feet — going 9 feet his first meet junior year to clearing a career-best 15-0 on his first attempt at the district meet two weeks ago. That clearance moved him to second in Class 4A this spring.
Even with a bad knee.
Tyger has no right meniscus. Ongoing wear and tear led to its removal the summer before entering high school, and he wears a knee brace to compete.
Bushman, meanwhile, is 4A’s top-ranked vaulter. His career-high of 15-6 also came at the district meet just minutes after watching Tyger clear his best mark.
In a family filled with vaulters, Bushman’s path wasn’t always the smoothest.
Rocky road for a time
Bushman is 19, and lives with older brother Calvin and his wife Rebekah. He’s one of 16 children in a Mormon family. For kicks, he can name all 15 of his siblings –10 of whom are full-blooded — in one breath.
“When it’s that big,” he said, “it’s like having cousins.”
Union is Bushman’s third high school. He also attended Quincy and Richland high schools before enrolling at Union as a junior, and grew up bouncing from family member to family member.
Weeks before turning 4, his father, Kenneth Bushman, was killed in a car accident. Soon after, his mother relapsed into drugs. Since then, aunts, uncles or older siblings have been guardians.
Three years removed from his uncle’s passing — “like two of my dad’s had died,” he said — Bushman hit a low point. He was a freshman at Quincy High, a Class 1A school in eastern Washington. He left track a year earlier after he no-heighted in the pole vault in all but one meet in seventh grade.
He’s a YouTube junky, too, and parts of motivational speaker Eric Thomas’ words still resonate with him today: Don’t cry to quit, you’re already in pain; you’re already hurt. Get a reward from it.
“It really turned me around,” Bushman said. “When I do something, it’s 100 percent in, or 100 percent out.”
That spring, he cleared 12 feet, placed fifth at the 1A state championships, and was on the path to stardom.
But Tyger and Bushman know they wouldn’t be where they are today without Rick Baggett, an ex-Washington State pole vaulter who once qualified for an Olympic Trials.
“He knows his stuff,” Tyger said. “If you give him the time of day, he’ll make you a great vaulter.”
Drive for success
The duo are now year-round vaulters. They carpool twice weekly to Oregon City, Ore., to practice at Baggett’s indoor facility. Baggett runs the Willamette Striders Track Club, which started in 1986 as the South Sound Striders in Kent, and focuses on pole vaulters, jumpers, hurdlers, and multi-event athletes.
Tyger and Bushman, along with Columbia River’s Sarah Ellis, are three of his 55 pole vaulters he coaches. Baggett said what allows Tyger and Bushman to do so well in such a technically-demanding event is not only are they naturally-gifted athletes; Tyger’s strength and body awareness and Bushman’s speed and jumping ability, but their commitment level is top notch.
“They keep working at it until they get it,” said Baggett, who has coached 69 high school state champions, and coached future Olympian Becky Holliday (2012).
This weekend isn’t the end of their pole-vaulting careers, or even as teammates. Tyger and Bushman have walk-on statuses at Washington State. WSU’s pole vault coach is American record holder Brad Walker.
But to finish their prep careers going out like they’re heading into Tacoma — being on the podium at 1 and 2 — would be a picture-perfecting ending, they said.
“Even better,” Tyger said.
Added Bushman: “We’ve put in so much work.”
