She runs. She stabilizes her pole. She lifts her body upwards. She propels herself over the crossbar. She lands. She repeats.

“[Pole vaulting] is stressful, but it’s so fun and you have so much adrenaline going,” Coppell junior pole vaulter Kinley Wojick said. “You are stressing out about it a little bit, but you are so excited for it. Once you clear that bar you have been wanting to clear for a long time, then you are just so ecstatic and so excited. You just have so much adrenaline rushing. It’s just the best feeling in the world.”

According to mother Trista Wojick, Kinley loves to participate in risky activities. Despite it being a dangerous sport, Mrs. Wojick is supportive of Kinley’s fondness for pole vaulting. 

“[When Kinley first started pole vaulting], I was scared,” Mrs. Wojick said. “It is a risky sport. People can break their necks or fall or possibly die. If she is doing what she loves then that’s OK, but it does make my heart pound a little bit each time.” 

Kinley’s first interaction with pole vaulting occurred in seventh grade at Coppell Middle School East. When she watched videos of her friend’s dad’s experiences with pole vaulting at Texas A&M, Kinley was inspired to begin her pole vaulting journey.

Although Kinley is one of the shortest members on the Coppell track and field team at 5 feet 3 inches, she displays indomitable spirit and does not let her height hinder her performance. 

“She has always been the shortest one, the smallest one,” Coppell coach Don Kemp said. “She struggled with [those characteristics] when compared to everybody else. She overcame it by working harder and eating the right things. She overcame that by doing the things that were necessary to get working.” 

Her mentality and commitment to sports has helped Kinley compete in the Junior Olympics twice: during the summer of 2018 and the summer of 2019. 

“It was a couple years before I was able to [compete at that level],” Kinley said. “It took a lot of practice, hard work and dedication. Going into the weight room, running even when conditions aren’t right [and] working whenever your competitors may not be working.”

Competing as a rising freshman, Kinley cleared 10.9252 feet and won second place in the Junior Olympics. However, as a rising sophomore, Kinley thinks she faced mental challenges because her performance was not her best, clearing 10 feet. 

“I learned that not every single meet you are going to do as you hope,” Kinley said. “The meets that you do well in, even though they may be spread out, they are worth all of the hard work that you put in for it.” 

Not performing as best as she could during her second time at the Junior Olympics was just the start to a cascade of challenges Kinley faced during her sophomore year. 

“I did not [beat my personal record] at all, and my form was terrible,” Kinley said. “Pole vault is one of those things that you can envision what you want to do in your mind and you know what to do, but it just doesn’t come sometimes. Your body just can’t do it for some reason. Even though I knew I wanted to get higher and inverted, I wasn’t able to do it. I did worse than I did my freshman year.”

Countless hours, changing habits and a desire to keep pushing helped Kinley overcome these difficulties along with assistance from her coach, parents and teammates. 

“We were both struggling [last year], so I feel like we both depended on each other a lot to be that source of motivation for each other,” Coppell senior pole vaulter Veronica Turner said. “We definitely were able to rely on each other a lot last year.” 

Despite the difficulties she faced, Kinley’s demeanor spreads positivity and uplifts her teammates.

“Everybody loves her,” Kemp said. “She’s positive and has a bubbly personality. She’s a leader more by example and by her work ethic. They have a pretty close knit pole vault group, and that’s how she contributes to the team: by getting points.”

With the combination of Kinley’s diligence, personality and intrigue towards pole vaulting, she strives for excellence. 

“She’s honest,” Kemp said. “She’s driven. A lot of kids pretend like they are driven and when they leave practice, they are not. They do things that don’t help. Whenever she leaves practice, she’s got high character. She’s got such a high character, that when she leaves practice, you don’t worry about her doing stupid stuff that’s going to affect her athletic ability.”

Follow Varshitha (@varshitha1128) and @SidekickSports on Twitter.