ROCHESTER, N.Y. – When Jenn Suhr decided that she wanted college coaching to be part of her future, the greatest women's pole vaulter in U.S. history sat down with her husband, Rick, and made a list of Division I universities where they'd consider taking their considerable talents.

Roberts Wesleyan University did not make the original cut.

"One of our prerequisites was to have a football team and a wrestling team, which is kind of funny because Roberts doesn't have either one," Rick said.

Jenn, a 2004 Roberts graduate and the 2012 Olympic gold medalist, and Rick, who coached her throughout her 17-year career, had productive conversations with two institutions in the months after her retirement from competition in June of 2022, but a funny thing happened on their way to the Power 5.

"We got to thinking about Roberts," Rick said. "It was six miles up the road, it was Jenn's alma mater, she had a lot of love for them, and they had always been good to us."

The Suhrs arranged a meeting with Executive Director of Athletics Bob Segave and the wheels were in motion. Then, in April of 2023, Roberts announced that Jenn Suhr was coming home to serve as an assistant track and field coach and pole vault coordinator.

"We are proud to welcome home a true Roberts Wesleyan University and Western New York sports icon to be a coach in the program that helped vault her into the worldwide track and field spotlight," Segave said at the time. "I have great faith in Jenn and her ability to transform the lives of student-athletes and make an impact on the men's and women's track and field program into the future."

"We are happy with our decision, and we are happy with how everything is going," Jenn said. "Everything seems to be moving in the right direction."

At warp speed.

Brynn King, Jenn Suhr's first recruit, sent shockwaves through the pole vault world as she improved her personal record by nearly 19 inches while winning the NCAA Division II Indoor and Outdoor Championships and earning an improbable spot on Team USA for the Paris Olympics.

Considering everything that King accomplished last season begs the question: What will the Redhawks do in Year Two, which begins on Friday?

"Our goal is to keep growing," Jenn said. "We are looking for kids that are hard-working and fit our program. We want to keep building on what we have already have."

Here's how they plan to do it:

KING RETURNS TO DEFEND CROWNS

King's first season as a Redhawk was nothing short of storybook.

She opened the indoor season by setting the NCAA Division II record (4.41 meters, 14-feet, 5½ inches) and ended it by winning the NCAA Division II Outdoor Championship in Emporia, Kans.

King holds both the NCAA Division II Indoor (4.65m, 15-3) and Outdoor (4.68m, 15-4¼) records and owns nine of the 10 best indoor jumps and the top four outdoors. She is the only student-athlete from Roberts to win an NCAA title and the first from the East Coast Conference to claim multiple individual titles.

Her personal record of 4.73m (15-6 ¼) at the Olympic Trials isn't an official NCAA record because it occurred out of season, but it is just two centimeters behind Demi Payne's all-time NCAA best set on Jan. 24, 2015.

King, who spent much of last season chasing her next challenge, took some time off during the late summer to reflect on last season but enters the 2024-25 season focused on new challenges.

"That time is over, now it' time to lock in again," King said.

King's long list of accomplishments will allow her to be more selective this season, so she may be jumping less in an effort to achieve more.

"We are still hoping to have a big standout year, but it is probably going to look different than how it was last year," King says. "Now, every inch higher is a lot of changes."

Rick Suhr, who is a volunteer assistant coach with the Redhawks, said King's impact on the program cannot be underestimated.

"Olympians are hard to come by at the college level and to think that she will be competing here for a year and a half as an Olympian is unheard of," he said. "She has launched the program far beyond anything we could have ever imagined. It's almost not even realistic how much she has done."

With a larger roster (more on that soon), King will be taking on a new role this season – leader.

"The meets are going to be more exciting because your personal goals are going to be going toward the team goals," King said. "That allows you to celebrate with other people. Everyone is happy for someone when they reach an individual goal, but it is different when you are doing something together and it took all of you to reach a goal."

WITH TALENTED NEWCOMERS

Shortly after Jenn Suhr was hired, she began an all-out recruiting blitz.

Landing King, who spent her first four seasons at Duke University and was the top-ranked vaulter in the transfer portal, with one phone call was a coup for

Roberts, but Suhr has embraced technology in an effort to build the program.

She mines the Internet, including the portal, searching for potential recruits and also leverages social media to post good news about the program.

"I embrace the technology because of the kids," Jenn said. "I love when a kid likes something that I put on Instagram or when a parent shares one of my Facebook posts because it shows our program in a positive light."

Being a three-time Olympian and 17-time U.S. national champion also opens doors.

"The kids know, if nothing else, that Jenn is one of the greatest pole vaulters ever," Rick said.

Whatever Jenn is doing is working.

After having three or four vaulters in most meets last season, the Redhawks start 2024-25 with 15 – eight women and seven men.

"We're the size of a basketball team, if you think about it," Rick Suhr said.

The women's roster includes another Division I transfer in sophomore Sarah Ferguson, who spent her first two seasons at the University of Washington.

Ferguson joins King and returning sophomores Melia Couchman and Cora Seaburg along with first-year vaulters Karis Kraf, Sarah Ouelette, Alexandrea Robertson and Molly Winger.

Ouelette, who lives in Bath, Maine, began researching colleges with strong pole vault programs and was intrigued when she learned Jenn Suhr was coaching at Roberts.

"I immediately was interested," Ouelette said. "I was planning on reaching out but she called me first. To have somebody so famous call you means a lot. I have pretty big aspirations and to have somebody that famous reach out helped my confidence that I can get better."

Ouelette committed to Roberts in November 2023 weeks before Suhr had coached in her first meet.

Kraf, a former gymnast from Tampa, Fla., started pole vault about a year and a half ago and had never heard of Roberts before Jenn reached out.

"I definitely Googled her," Kraf said. "I was definitely surprised, and I was shocked. That was probably the last person that I thought would be reaching out to me when I was at that level, but it gave me a lot of confidence for my senior season of high school."

Kraf has even more confidence now, having improved her PR by 12 inches to 13 feet since arriving at Roberts in August.

There are similar stories on the men's side where sophomore Cyrus Comfort, the lone returnee, is joined by sophomores Jack Sauder and Braden Shaw and freshmen Jordan Bryner, Chase McFadden, Austin Melvin and Therron Percival.

Bryner, who hails from Richmond, Kent., clearly remembers Jenn Suhr's vision for the program from one of their first conversations.

"She said that she wanted to make it a 'Pole Vault Paradise,'" Bryner said.

And so far, for him, it has been. Bryner's PR in high school was 16 feet and he recently jumped 16-6 in practice.

"It's got everything you need," he said. "You have all the poles that you need, you have all the drills that you need. They have everything that I need, so it's perfect."

WITH QUALITY COACHING

While Jenn Suhr is entering just her second season as a coach, Rick Suhr has close to 30 years of experience and Chris Brhel, who has been an assistant on the Roberts staff for years.

Each has their role on the staff with Jenn taking the lead on recruiting and logistics, Rick being a master technician and Brhel doing whatever is needed.

The staff has developed individual training plans for each vaulter and success is measured differently for each student-athlete. This weekend the Suhrs will be taking nine vaulters to the Haynes Lancaster Open at the University of Akron while Brehl will be accompanying six to the Houghton December Classic.

"Not everyone is going to make it to DII nationals, that's a fact," Jenn said. "But we can provide everyone with the opportunity to be the best version of themselves."

Melvin, who has seen his PR rocket improve 17 inches from 14-7 at the end of his high school season to 16 feet recently in practice, said there is one thing that has stood out to him since arriving at Roberts in August.

"Definitely, the coaching," he said. "The drills are so beneficial, and they have three coaches and they all explain it differently. If one coach doesn't put how you are supposed to do it in your head, one of the other coaches will explain it differently and it will all work out."

The same is true for Bryner, who noticed the synergy when he took his campus visit to Roberts.

"I could tell that they were really, really good coaches," Bryner said. "My top thing that I was looking for in a school was really good coaches because I know in pole vault that is really what you need to get better."

Rick Suhr has developed a training system that combines the mental, physical and technical aspects of pole vault. Jenn followed it throughout her career,

King enjoyed unprecedented success with it last year and others on the squad are buying in now.

"If you want to be successful in a very technical sport, you have to do the drills," Bryner said. "I am doing more drills now than I ever have and I am seeing results."

Jenn Suhr, who enjoyed a standout basketball career at Roberts before she started pole vaulting at age 22, believes so strongly in the system that she is willing to recruit athletes who are new to the sport if they display the proper characteristics.

"You need to have the physical, the mental and the technical," Jenn said. "But I am not afraid to identify potential and recruit a 10-footer, because I know that they can develop here."

BY ESTABLISHING A FUN, CARING CULTURE

Jenn Suhr's experience as a basketball player has influenced her desire to develop a strong culture with a sense of belonging as a coach.

"You want to have and to create an atmosphere for success," Jenn says. "I want to teach the kids how to work hard through adversity when things are not going well so they learn those life skills because of pole vault. I want them to have success in pole vault and success in life."

She stresses balancing schoolwork with training and making sure that student-athletes get the proper amount of sleep and exercise and are eating right.

The staff also organizes team-building activities like camping trips. As she did as a student-athlete, Suhr invited the team members who could not travel home for Thanksgiving to enjoy a holiday meal at her parents' house.

"When I tell someone that I am a pole vaulter they say, 'Oh, you are one of those,' because they are constantly meeting pole vaulters, and it seems like we are all over campus," Ouelette said.

Roberts held a watch party for King during the NCAA Division II Indoor Championships and a well-attended parade upon her return to campus from the Olympic Trials in July.

"I think that Roberts is the only college in America where pole vault might be the No. 1 sport as far as recognition for the school in terms of athletics," Rick says. "Here, pole vault is like a football or a basketball at a major university."

And the future is quite bright.

King, Ferguson, Couchman and Kraf have all cleared 13 feet in practice while Shaw, Bryner and Melvin have eclipsed 16 feet on the men's side.

Pole vault is far from a predictable sport, but optimism abounds that several Redhawks could make the national meet and be in contention for All-America honors this season.

"We want to be known on campus, we want to be known around Rochester and we want to be known on the national level," Jenn said.

With year two under Suhr's guidance about to take flight, the Redhawks are well on their way.