New Heights
Trying for the 40-plus record in a young man's sport.
By Erika Rasmusson Janes

(FORTUNE Small Business) – Most aging jocks talk about their glory days. Kelly Rodriques, 41, is trying to relive his. As a teenager and twentysomething, Rodriques was an elite pole vaulter who competed in three NCAA championships, qualified for the 1984 Olympic trials, and competed in the World Games in Helsinki in 1986. He set his personal best that year, 18 feet, 2½ inches, but he had already graduated from California State at Fresno and was eager to reach new heights in a different arena: the business world. Now he's getting back into the sport and shooting for the 40-and-over record at a meet in Austria this spring.

Rodriques is a serial entrepreneur, having started and sold a software business and an Internet services company. His most recent launch was Totality, a $35-million-a-year firm in San Francisco that manages customer-interaction software for devices such as American Airlines' ticket kiosks. He sold the firm this fall to MCI for an undisclosed sum and will remain there through the transition.

Despite trading his spikes for a briefcase, Rodriques never lost his love for pole vaulting. As a frequent spectator at track meets, he felt the desire to compete again but feared that his body wouldn't hold up. Two years ago, however, he ran into Earl Bell, the 1984 Olympic bronze medalist in the sport and a renowned coach. Bell offered to work with him at Bell's facility in Jonesboro, Ark. Rodriques spent the next nine months running, lifting weights, and doing gymnastics to prepare. He dropped 20 pounds.

When he finally got to Jonesboro, he says, "I had to relearn what I'd forgotten." Moreover, the sport's technique had changed since he had stopped competing. Athletes today hold the pole nearly vertical as they start their approach, as opposed to the horizontal approach Rodriques originally learned. But four weeks later he cleared 15 feet, and in a recent meet he vaulted 16 feet and three-quarter inches. His goal now: Bell's 40-and-over Masters record of 17 feet.

Rodriques flies to Jonesboro every three weeks to train with Bell and works out the rest of the time at a high school in Marin, Calif. Much of the work happens off the track. He's up at five most mornings to run and lift weights. "A lot of pole-vaulting training isn't vaulting," he says. "It's preparing for that three-second moment." Still, he says, nothing beats those three seconds: "One of the reasons I got back into it was I wanted to be challenged by an activity that, when you do it right, is just a beautiful thing to watch."