He Threw a Rising Curve : Pullard Vaulted Into Prominence Off the Mound

Bob Pullard, 10th grader aA. High and a pitcher on the baseball team, was trying to loosen up in the school’s makeshift bullpen.

But he couldn’t seem to keep his mind on his work.

That’s because the pole vault runway stretched past the auxiliary mound and he was distracted by the struggles of a friend attempting to scale a bar resting at 8 feet, 6 inches.

Pullard wasn’t above teasing his buddy. One word led to another over the amount of skill required to vault.

“I’ll tell you what,” Pullard said. “You put that bar at 10 feet and I’ll clear it.”

Pullard’s cockiness may have gone a little too far this time, because the vaulter marched over to the pit, moved the bar up to the 10-foot mark and flashed a Go-Ahead-Make-My-Day look at the pitcher.

Too late to back down now. The gauntlet had been thrown. Pullard threw down his glove, marched over to the runway in uniform, cap, cleats and all, picked up the pole--for the first time in his life--took a deep breath and took off.

He didn’t really know what he was doing. With no technique, he went over the bar backwards. But he did make it over, landing with his cap still on his head.

A star was borne.

His feat didn’t escape the notice of an amazed track coach. Before he knew it, Pullard had traded his glove for a pole. Within three meets, he had soared to 13 feet, 6 inches, had broken the school record and was on his way to the City championships where he emerged as the winner.

That was nearly two decades ago. But Pullard, 34, is still at it. He’ll be back on the runway Friday night, competing in The Times/GTE Indoor Games at the Forum in the Collegiate/Olympic Development competition.

Maybe if he had attempted to enter the sport in a more orthodox manner, he might have been warned that left-handers are rare among pole vaulters. So are blacks.

“By the time I found those things out, it was too late to psyche me out,” he said, relaxing in the living room of his Reseda town house. “I enjoyed the sport so much, I didn’t let those things bother me.

“But it may be one of the reasons why there are so few blacks in the sport. They hear how rare it is and go on to other sports. I’d like to see more interest by blacks, but it’s not there. Another thing is the expense. The equipment can make it a pretty expensive sport for a poor kid. Poles cost about $170 apiece. A kid will use one for two to three weeks and find he’s outgrown it and needs a new one. Then there are the special shoes you need with heels. A kid hears all that and he says to himself, ‘Maybe I’d better pick another event.’ ”

That was never the case with Pullard. After setting a national scholastic prep record of 16 feet, 7 inches, he moved on to USC on a track scholarship. He took part in the national collegiate championships, indoor and outdoor, on five separate occasions, never finishing lower than fifth nor higher than third.

He was also a basketball player--with great jumping ability, of course. He averaged 21 rebounds a game one year in high school as a 6-foot forward. He played as a freshman in college for Stan Morrison, but quit the sport after that season to devote himself to vaulting.

After college, he picked up his pole and leaped from country to country, 27 in all, as an international competitor. There was a year spent in Nigeria helping its national team. When Pullard discovered that the Nigerians didn’t even have a pole-vaulting pit, he manufactured one out of 120 bed mattresses tied together.

There were five years spent in Europe. He made Germany his headquarters, but got around enough to win at meets in England, France, Austria and Denmark.

His best vault is 18 feet, 1 1/2 inches. The world record is 19 feet, 8 inches by Sergei Bubka of the Soviet Union.

Pullard also aimed his pole at the Olympics, but he never seemed able to soar quite that high. He was eliminated in qualifying for the 1972 U. S. team. In 1976, he wound up as an alternate on the U. S. squad, but didn’t compete. His chances in 1980 were blocked by a bar of a different type, as President Jimmy Carter barred all Americans from competing in the Moscow Games in protest over the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. Pullard, 32 at the time, took one more shot in 1984. To qualify for the ’84 Olympic trials, the minimum vault required was 17 feet, 8 1/2 inches. Pullard came up three inches short.

By then, Pullard’s biggest problem was simply a lack of time to prepare himself. Since returning to America in 1981, he has been a member of the Los Angeles Police Department; he currently works as a patrol officer out of the Devonshire Division.

“To compete against the best in the world,” he said, “you’ve got to work out four to five hours a day. You can’t do that when you have a job that sometimes stretches to 10 to 12 hours a day.”

Not to mention his other activities. He coaches a pole-vaulting club that meets two nights a week at Pierce College and competes on Saturdays, and he also finds time to work with the vaulters, high jumpers and triple jumpers on the Birmingham High track team.

When he finds a left-hander like himself among his kids, he loves to tease them. He’ll tell them to call up a manufacturer and ask for a left-handed pole, “where the fibers are wrapped the opposite way.” There is no such thing.

The manufacturers are now wise. When they hear that request, they just smile and ask, “Have you been talking to Bob Pullard again?”

But then if Pullard wasn’t such a tease, he wouldn’t have gotten into vaulting in the first place.

Track Notes

Other Valley performers in Friday’s Forum event include Robert Dangcil of Valley College (men’s 1,000 yards), Craig Ingram of Granada Hills (devil-take-the-hindmost mile) and the men’s and women’s relay teams from Valley College. Like Robert Pullard, they will participate in the Collegiate/Olympic Development competition.