By Rich Fisher, Sports Editor
For someone who’s on the Dean’s List at the University of Delaware, Laura Chirico sure had a dumb idea.
When she graduated from South Brunswick High School in 2005, the UD senior figured her track & field career was over.
Boy, was she ever wrong.
Four years later, she finds herself taking dead aim on the Blue Hens outdoor pole vault record this spring.
Not bad for someone who walked on to Delaware just to satisfy an urge.
”I left high school thinking I wouldn’t be competitive enough to vault in Division I,” Chirico said. “But after I came here, I realized I missed jumping. I didn’t want to do indoor right away because I wanted to make sure I could handle college. But that spring I decided to walk on just so I could do track again.”
She had no goals, just a desire to vault herself over a bar.
Four years later, she has been put on scholarship and has the third best women’s pole vault mark in Delaware history for both indoor (11-11¾) and outdoor (12-5½).
”I think, I’ve had a really good four years up to this point,” said Chirico, one of three ex-Vikings in the program. “I’m hoping to continue that and finish strong without any injuries.”
Especially after a disappointing junior outdoor season, when Chirico sprained her sternum during practice and missed the final two weeks of the year. She had already qualified for the ECAC Championships, but decided to give it a go and finished 18th.
”I did horribly because I was still injured,” she said. “I wasn’t even supposed to be competing.”
Chirico’s progress is impressive, considering her best vault at SBHS was 10-3. But in high school, she also ran sprints and did the long jump, so she wasn’t exactly focusing on making herself better in a specific sport.
But under the tutelage of pole vault coach Chris Watson, she has blossomed at the collegiate level.
”I was surprised at how well I did considering I only jumped 10-3,” Chirico said. “But the coach here is really good. He helped me get so much better. I never imagined I’d be jumping this well. It was a nice surprise.
”During my freshman year, we changed a lot of stuff with my vault and it started to come together my sophomore year. That’s when I started increasing how I could jump and when I started to realize I could do this at the Division I level.”
Chirico said her highlight to date was setting her PR by eight inches at the University of Connecticut meet last indoor season. She and her teammate and close friend Kelly McDonald each cleared 12-5½ that day.
”That was really exciting,” she said. “Kelly is about the same level I am, she has the outdoor record now (of 15-6), and the two of us really push each other.”
While she lists that as her biggest highlight, Chirico has had plenty of others.
During her indoor career, she finished 14th in this year’s ECAC meet and 16th last year. She also won the pole vault at the 2008 Delaware Invitational.
In outdoor events, she was third in the 2007 Colonial Athletic Association Championships to earn All-CAA honors, and placed fifth last year.
She won the Delaware Open title as a sophomore and finished ninth at the Penn Relays. As a junior, she posted a hat trick by winning the Penn, Rider and Leigh invitationals. She also finished eighth at the Penn Relays and won the Blue Hens’ Sportsmanship Award.
After working on some technical details during the winter, she hopes to qualify for the ECAC meet again, and hopefully the NCAA Regional.
”They were kind of simple adjustments,” she said. “I needed to fix my plant, and on the path I need to stay tight to the pole, not come off it too early and be more patient. I worked on them all winter and they’re finally starting to come together, so they should help in the spring.”
Chirico noted that unlike high school, when winter track is mostly used as a warm-up for the spring season, college indoor track is equally competitive. Thus, she was making adjustments on the fly.
”It’s pretty tricky to try new things because it’s pretty intense during indoor,” she said. “You want to see if they work during a meet and if they don’t you probably won’t do well and you have to work on it again for the next week.”
At the moment, Chirico is unsure if the spring will be her final collegiate season. Despite her 3.56 GPA and an internship last summer, Laura is not having luck in the job market. Of course, the fact she is a finance major during a world-wide recession might have something to do with that.
Thus, Chirico has applied to Delaware’s graduate school. If accepted, she plans to compete on the indoor team next winter since she has one year of eligibility remaining.
As for the summer, Chirico is searching for another internship. The former Viking gymnast has also worked at the South Brunswick Gymnastics Camp and hopes to do that again as well.
Until then, she has one more outdoor season to show her worth.
”Getting the school record is definitely a goal,” she said. “It’s always a goal to improve my PR. So if I do that, I would break the record since it’s only an inch higher.”
Simple, but effective math.
See that. She’s not so dumb afterall.
Yesenia Boynton, a 2007 SBHS grad, is also on the Blue Hens roster but has been hindered by health problems.
”I know she was injured coming in,” Chirico said. “The last I heard, she was still struggling with her foot injury.”

