Vaulter's stunt at Stokely Center

[BillVol]

Listing to John Wilkerson on Knoxville sports radio today. They were talking about the perch from which media would do basketball games at Stokely Athletics Center at Tennessee and how some people were afraid to go up there. Forget the nickname for this place.

Later, John told a story of a pole vaulter who wanted to jump from a heating unit that was attached to the ceiling of Stokely into the pole vault pit below. In order to get onto this heating unit, the vaulter had to go through the roof (I guess through a vent) and somehow worked his way onto the unit. John said he did jump and landed safely.

Has anyone heard this one? I have a hard time believing this one. I would think the impact from jumping from that height (even though Stokely did not have that high of a ceiling) would be very painful and dangerous -- even if landing in a pole vault pit.

[cullman]

That sounds like something that former Olympian and stunt diver Joe Gerlach would do. Gerlach had an act where he dove off of a 48 platform into a Port-a-Pit.

[gh]

It's definitely a tale that I think I've heard before. I wanna say that Dave Volz did some kind of rafters jump at Indiana. (I apologize if I falsely tag him as a madman here!)