Cameron Overstreet is not a prototypical pole-vaulter. At just 5-foot-5 and a half inches, the junior on the North Carolina track and field team is a few inches short of what coaches look for in an ideal vaulter. But Josh Langley, the vaulting coach for UNC, couldn’t help but notice when he saw her years ago. ”Wow, she’s kinda short for how good she is,” Langley said to himself when he first met her.She won’t be growing anytime soon — she has been the same height since seventh grade. And now that her third indoor season at UNC has come to a conclusion and the outdoor season officially kicks off today, she accepts there is nothing she can do about her height. But her coaches say she has certain intangible qualities that all coaches seek out. The same words keep popping up, over and over.Dedicated. Determined. Motivated. Intelligent. While the first three are hard to demonstrate on paper, Overstreet leaves little doubt that she is just as much student as she is athlete. After graduating among the top 10 in her high school class, she came to UNC and continued to excel in the classroom. more
