Ex-Pole Vaulter Pennel Dies : Track and field: The Agoura Hills resident, 53, was the first to clear 17 feet, in 1963.

John Pennel of Agoura Hills, the first man is history to clear 17 feet in the pole vault and the 1963 Sullivan Award winner, died of cancer Sunday at St. John’s Hospital Medical Center in Santa Monica.

Pennel, 53, learned that he had terminal liver and stomach cancer in June. He is survived by his wife Caroline, 52, their children, Shannon, 16; Sean, 12, and Erin, 10, and his brother Bill, 55, who lives in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

Services are scheduled for 1 p.m. Friday at St. Jude’s Church in Westlake Village.

Pennel, who was born in Tupelo, Miss., and grew up on his parents’ farm near Memphis, Tenn., set eight world records and tied another in the pole vault between 1963 and ’69.

He did not have great success in the Olympic Games, however. He finished 11th in Tokyo in 1964, after suffering a back injury before the Games, and was fifth in Mexico City in ’68 when an archaic rule cost him a bronze medal. His vault of 17 feet 8 1/2 inches was disallowed because his pole passed under the bar.

“I just never had much luck when it came to the Olympic Games,” Pennel said in an interview with The Times last year. “I was injured in ‘64, and things just didn’t go my way in ’68.”

Pennel won the Florida state high school title in 1959 as a senior at Coral Gables High before attending the University of Florida as a freshman. His stay in Gainesville lasted only a semester, however, and he was driving a truck for his father’s welding company in Miami the following summer when Coach Lew Hertzog persuaded him to attend Northeast Louisiana University in Monroe.

Under Bob Groseclose, who replaced Hertzog in 1960, Pennel set six world records and tied another in 1963 and was honored by Track & Field News as its U.S. field event athlete of the year.

Vaulting on the newly developed fiberglass poles--they had previously been made of aluminum--Pennel set his first world record, 16-3, at Memphis in March of ’63 and his last of 17-0 3/4 at Coral Gables in August.

In between, he experienced one of the greatest thrills of his career in the USA-Poland dual meet in Warsaw. Competing before about 100,000, Pennel cleared 16-5 to win the event, then had the bar raised to 16-9 1/4, which was half an inch above the world record he held at the time.

The Stadium had no lights, however, and by the time the bar had been raised to the record height and measured for accuracy, it was so dark that Pennel said he couldn’t see the runway, let alone the bar he was supposed to clear.

Meet organizers improvised by lighting the runway with car headlights, and by using a photographers’ spotlight to expose the plant box, but the bar was still in the dark and Pennel missed his first attempt, vaulting on pure instinct.

The stadium began to get lighter before the second attempt, as spectators began using their programs, seat cushions, and whatever else they could find as makeshift torches. They also began chanting a folk song. The song, which began as a low rumble, built to a crescendo when he cleared the bar on his second attempt. The cheers lasted for another 10 minutes.

It turned out that the bar had not been measured correctly, and the height Pennel cleared only tied his world record, but he didn’t care. He was too inspired.

“I remember asking a Polish guy afterward who could speak English what they were singing,” Pennel said last year. “And he said they were singing, ‘May he live a thousand years.’

“These people, who were beautiful people who loved life and wanted to go crazy but couldn’t because of the restrictions in Poland at the time, were all for me. It was like I had made their day. When he told me what they were singing, I just started crying.”

Pennel increased the world record to 17-6 3/4 in 1966 and 17-10 1/4 in 1969 before a series of injuries ended his career in 1970.

He stayed involved in sports, however, becoming a marketing agent for a shoe company for the next decade while also working in the real estate and commercial acting market.

Described by Groseclose as a “very charming, funny and intelligent person,” Pennel was hired as the vice president and general manager of Mills Sports in Atlanta earlier this year. He was set to move with his family in June, after selling his house in Agoura Hills and buying one in Atlanta, when he learned of his illness.

Pennel had let his life insurance policy lapse after he had been offered the job at Mills Sports, one of the major advertising promoters involved in the 1996 Olympics. Thousands of dollars in medical bills have accumulated since June.

“It just all seems like a bad dream,” Caroline Pennel said Monday. “The job in Atlanta was a dream come true, but everything has gone wrong since then.”

The Pennels celebrated their 22nd wedding anniversary last month.

“He was a good, humble and simple man,” she said. “He was my best friend. We were two people, but it was like we were one. We always used to joke about that.”

A John Pennel Family Fund has been established to help defray medical costs. The address is 32129 Lindero Canyon Blvd., No. 106, Westlake Village, 91361.