HHS alumni Tim Bierle, has been involved in track and field since his high school career, has decided to come back and coach pole vaulting. Bierle, who is in his junior year of college, is attending James Madison University and majoring in Kinesiology. He aspires to become a physical therapist. Coming back and coaching the Blue Streaks wasn’t a hard decision, as it was even encouraged by his past coaches- such as Dave Loughran.

“I want to be able to pass on what I’ve learned from them,” Bierle said.

Bierle’s experience in track and field has been intensive, and this kind of knowledge will be useful to the track team, especially to aspiring pole vaulters. During his senior year, Bierle was awarded first place during indoor track states for pole-vaulting.

“They [the team] were really excited and our team won overall. It was really exciting and made all of our hard work worth it,” Bierle said.

Bierle’s goals for the team this year are for athletes to qualify for states, improve jumping, and improve as individuals overall, meaning encouraging team members to try their best,

“Most of the athletes are here as their first and second year so what we want to do is improve their own personal best. We always strive for that,” Bierle said.

Bierle thanks his mentors, Coach Mathney and Coach Dickerson from Western Albemarle High School, also Coach Loughran

“They’ve always just told me to that if you work hard, you can achieve your goals,” Bierle said.

The team does pole vaulting practice three days a week and works on different drills in order to improve own “personal bests”. Bierle encourages the athletes to work hard and never lose sight of their goals. His own experience from winning states has awarded him the knowledge to coach the team and strive for excellence. Junior, Haley Wenos believes that Bierle’s experience has been able to help the team immensely,

“He vaulted in high school and even won a scholarship, he’s a good coach,” Wenos said.