Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 11 No. 5 | May 2019

42 Inside Hokie Sports He has enjoyed success at the NCAA Championships, too, winning bronze medals at the 2016 and 2018 NCAA Indoor Championships and thus earning All-America honors those years. He also earned first-team All-America honors at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in 2018, and he twice has earned second-team nods. For good measure, he owns a gold medal from the IAAF U-20 World Championships, which he won in Bydgoszcz, Poland in 2016, and he currently holds the school’s indoor record in the pole vault (5.66 meters; 18 feet, 6.75 inches). That he owns such international and collegiate success comes as no surprise considering his background. His father, Dave, won the national title in the pole vault in 1981 while at Indiana University and made the 1992 U.S. Olympic team that participated in Barcelona, Spain. He finished fifth in a competition of the world’s best. Dave Volz helped coach his sons when they attended Bloomington South High School and still offers pointers today, but he never forced them to get into the event. Instead, competitive juices often take over among boys, and once Drake, the oldest, gave pole vaulting a shot, Drew and Deakin quickly followed. Their dad only provided guidance when asked. “He’s a great coach,” Deakin said. “We get along really well anyway, just father-and-son-wise, so it was a good thing for us. He’s not necessarily done coaching either. Every now and then, I’ll send him videos from practice, and he’ll give me his feedback. If you had a strained relationship with a parent, I could definitely see how that could bemessy, but fortunately that wasn’t the case with us at all.” Deakin gave other sports a shot during his younger days. He tried football, basketball and baseball, admitting that he was terrible in basketball and indifferent to the others. He preferred somethingwith a littlemore excitement, a contradiction to his outward laidback vibe. Then, he always has enjoyed things with a little more edge. His chill belies his willingness to take risks. Once as a 2-year-old, he swung from a tree vine and broke his leg. At the age of 5, he climbed to the top of the barn’s 16-foot ceiling before being calmly urged by his dad to climb back down. Track and field became another option, and he participated in it as a club sport before joining the team in middle school. Even then, he lacked a certain zest for the sport. “I’ve never really enjoyed running,” he said, which obviously limits one’s options in that sport. He became a jumper, watching YouTube videos of those competing in the long jump and high jump to get advice because his high school lacked a jumps coach. Basically, he sprinted as fast as possible and hurled himself forward or upward, depending on the event – a perfect display of imperfect technique. He ultimately found his niche in the pole vault, which gave him an upside-down view of things from an elevated position. He loved it so much that he eventually set the national indoor record (17 feet, 11.25 inches) and won two state championships. “It’s fun,” Volz said. “While I was doing the other sports, team sports, I kind of found that frustrating. Track and field, when you get out there, it’s like basically just you every meet. It doesn’t matter what the competition is like because you’re basically competing against yourself trying to set a higher mark. “I don’t know. It’s just challenging. It makes you put everything on the line. You’ve got to be the best you can be to beat your best from the past, constantly improving and chasing that next bar. It keeps you coming back.” Volz earned the Gatorade Boys Track and Field Athlete of the Year honor in Indiana both his junior and senior seasons, and he established himself as one of the nation’s best pole vaulters – which sparked a lot of interest from college coaches. He loved his home state and loved the familial support he continuously received, but when it came time to pick a college, he wasn’t in love with the Hoosiers’ vault program. He took visits to Tennessee, Akron and Kansas – an interesting mix. But those schools had quality vault programs and secured his interest. So, too, did Virginia Tech. “I came on my visit here, and it just felt like home immediately,” Volz said, repeating a familiar story among the school’s student-athletes. “I Continued from page 41