t be beat. he failed to repeat as state champion. ” s Boys Track and Field Athlete of the Year. s Tyler Porter, now a pole vaulter at Tennessee, jumping and made his decision. s father.
“Mason got stronger and faster and you have to be a little bit crazy to do this thing and Mason is right there on the bubble … It kind of gets in your blood and I think that helped him become a better vaulter. He loved the sport so much he put the work in.” But the sport took some getting used to, Hamrick said. Every motion felt unnatural and he had to condition his body to successfully jump. “The first time it ever got scary was when I actually started bending the pole,” Hamrick said. “You go from everything you learn with a straight pole to this pole bending and you don’t really know what to do with it. I let go of the pole a few times and it smacked me right in the face. I landed on the ground, but I pushed through all that.” Eventually, Hamrick realized he was becoming a pretty good vaulter. At the end of his first season, he heard about Jared Scotland, a pole vaulter for Hart County, who was jumping 9-6. Hamrick wanted to be better. “I spent hours and hours every single day over here (at Jefferson’s track),” Hamrick said. “I jumped 10 feet in the seventh grade and that’s when I realized, hey, I’m pretty good at this.” Hamrick went on to win the state title as a freshman in 2011. Scotland took the state title in 2012 and Hamrick finished third. As a junior, he jumped 15-0 at the rain-drenched Georgia Olympics to recapture the state crown. “It was drizzling rain, it was at night, everyone was freaking out because I always jump best when it’s 100 degrees with no clouds,” Hamrick said. “My mom had all my friends running up to her car getting towels and umbrellas. We were all down there and then 15-foot came and I just did it. It was absolutely awesome. It was perfect … There was absolutely no way I was going to let anyone beat me.” Porter thought Hamrick would jump 16 feet in the state meet last month – he’d done it before in practice — but he fell short of the mark in May. He took a week off after the state meet before beginning preparation for Georgia Tech and jumps weekly at Emory to get ready for college. “He just loves the sport,” Porter said. “Any opportunity he has to jump, he’s going to jump.”
