Sheldon Blockburger

Bryce Alderton

Once he grasped the intricacies and began profusely practicing, the

pole vault became more familiar for Sheldon Blockburger, giving him

the added tool to compete in an event that requires many different

skills.

“It takes two years to get over the fears and then you have to

understand the technique,” Blockburger, the former decathlete who

graduated from Newport Harbor High and Orange Coast College, said

Thursday.

Blockburger, along with wife Cynthia and children Johnny and

Alyssa, fraternal twins who each turned 1 Saturday, drove four hours

south from their home in Atascadero to visit Sheldon’s parents, Mary

and Gary, who reside in Costa Mesa.

Blockburger, who will turn 39 in September, returned to the city

where he spent his youth playing basketball, baseball and eventually,

track and field.

He won CIF titles in both the long and triple jumps his senior

year at Newport, just a year after he went out for track for the

first time.

Fresh out of basketball season, Blockburger blossomed on the track

after a commitment to spending the needed hours in the weight room

and the time running to maintain cardiovascular health.

After graduation from Newport in 1983, Blockburger took his

talents to greater heights at OCC, competing in the decathlon for the

first time as a freshman.

Under the guidance of Fred Hokanson, Coast’s head track and field

coach at the time who is now the school’s athletic director,

Blockburger won the state championship in the decathlon as a

sophomore. The decathlon is made up of ten events: the high jump, 100

meters, long jump, shot put, 400, high hurdles, discus, javelin,

1,500 and the pole vault.

Standing 6-foot-2 and weighing 165 pounds, Blockburger defied odds

expressed by his own coach.

“I approached Hokanson and said, ‘I want to do the decathlon,’ ”

Blockburger recalled. “He laughed at me. I was [6-2] and 165 pounds.

I said, ‘No, you watch, I’m going to do it.” As a freshman

Blockburger placed first in Southern California in the event.

Blockburger, who will enter his seventh season as an assistant

track and field coach at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo this fall, said he

never had a coach at Coast who taught him fundamentals of the pole

vault but began training more rigorously at LSU. Three days a week he

trained while at LSU and the work finally paid off. The Costa Mesa

native took fifth in the event at the NCAA championships as a senior.

“The good pole vaulters learn techniques similar to gymnastics and

the importance of body awareness,” Blockburger said. “The pole vault

helps the long jump, hurdles and all the speed rhythm events.”

Blockburger, who finished third in the decathlon in the 1991 Pan

Am Games, had aspirations to compete in the 1992 Summer Olympics in

Barcelona, Spain, but dislocated his left ankle -- the one he pushed

off of -- two weeks before the trials. He still completed the meet,

but failed to qualify for the Olympics.

“I was clearing 17-4 while most were going over 26 feet,”

Blockburger said. “It was depressing to see all your dreams

evaporate, but that’s what happened. Things in life happen for a

reason.

“In the end, it is just a sport. People out there would love to be

competing.”

Blockburger did his last decathlon in 1994, where he finished

fourth in an international meet called, “Gotziz,” held in Australia.

Six months later, he received a phone call from Sylvie LeMau, meet

director for another international competition, a 30-minute

pentathlon held in Paris.

In 1995 Blockburger won the national indoor heptathlon and took

second his first two years at the 30-minute pentathlon, a meet

featuring the top 12 competitors in the world.

Blockburger wasn’t training heavily from 1994-96, but kept

receiving calls to enter the pentathlon.

“She liked the fact I was giving everything I had and it was in

front of a TV audience,” he said.

The time constraints afforded a 30-minute pentathlon were in stark

contrast to what Blockburger had focused and trained on for the

decathlon.

“A decathlon takes eight hours of training a day,” he said. “I

just liked the concept of doing something in 30 minutes and it paid

well too, about $6,000 an hour.”

Blockburger now gets his check from Cal Poly, where he will work

with Sharon Day, the Costa Mesa High graduate who owns the CIF

Southern Section and Orange County record in the high jump with a

clearance of 6-2 while repeating as state champion in the event (5-10

at Cerritos College June 7).

“I see her going over 6-4 very soon and she has the possibility of

making the Olympic team,” Blockburger said. “She has the best raw

jumping ability of any girl in the country.”

Blockburger is also getting ready to go to the world track and

field championships Aug. 22-31 in Paris. He will coach and root for a

current student, Paul Terek, a Michigan State athlete who took second

in both the decathlon and the pole vault at this year’s NCAA

championships.

“I called him up and asked, ‘Do you need a club to train with?’ ”

Blockburger recalled.

That was all it took for Terek to take Blockburger’s offer.

So Blockburger will return to the world stage next month, a spot

he is familiar with from his days competing.

He doesn’t dwell on the past, despite the near misses.

“I’d like to say I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory,”

Blockburger said about his third-place finish in the Pan Am Games,

which he led after seven events. “But you have to keep things in

perspective. I gave a good run and still have my health and family.”

Happy birthday Johnny and Alyssa.