Tiger Talk: Maddix Blazovich With RSHS Track and Field

Tiger Talk: Maddix Blazovich With RSHS Track and Field

Maddix Blazovich. SweetwaterNOW photo by David Martin. Graphic Design by Kaylee Hughes

Welcome to #TIGERTALK – a SweetwaterNOW exclusive series where Rock Springs High School Tigers inspire our community by telling their stories in their own words.


My name is Maddix Blazovich, I’m an 18-year-old graduate of Rock Springs High School and have just finished my last season of high school track and field. I’m a state champion in pole-vaulting and recently committed to running track at Idaho State University.

From a young age, I had always shown an interest in pole vault. My neighbor John Lesko was the old record holder at our high school with a vault of 15’. I can recall all the way back to when I first heard of the sport through John when I was little. At the time, it had peaked my interest, but since pole vault or track aren’t sports that you can participate in at such a young age, there wasn’t much I could do at the time with the sport.

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My whole life my mom had always encouraged me to do as many sports as possible (despite my lack of any athleticism at the time). By the time junior high came these sports had been whittled down to just track and diving. At the time I showed little hope in the sport of track and field as I lost just about every race I was entered into by a mile and was forced to take a year off from the sport due to Covid. Around this time, I took an interest in weightlifting as I was an underweight, underdeveloped kid who desperately wanted to put on some size. During my freshman year, I decided to rejoin track to be involved in a sport that would help with my development (my girlfriend at the time ran track). Our coach (Casey Walker) had decided to take on the task of re-starting our pole-vault program my freshman year because our school had fizzled out of the event years before.


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Pole vaulting started out rough for me as it does for everyone learning the sport. There’s a balance of technique, strength, and mental focus that goes into this event, and at the time I was still learning how to run forward without falling backwards. Needless to say, my first season was very mediocre, but no matter how painful it must have been to watch me, my family never missed a meet. However, going into my second year of the sport my coach (Blane Christensen) had taken it upon himself to learn more about the sport, and I had gained some muscle and speed which caused a certain click to happen with the sport and I ended up winning regionals with a vault of 13’. This meant a lot to me because for the first time, I wasn’t just a skinny uncoordinated kid, I was actually good at something. At this time I had met a coach from Mountain View named Toni Michelli, who had an indoor pole vault runway on his Property and had offered to coach me in the offseason with hopes of developing my comfort and technique with the sport.

My junior year had proven successful as I had gone from a 13’ personal record to a 15’6” personal record to win outdoor state track. It took countless acts of kindness from many different coaches who didn’t even know me to make this possible. With one year ahead of me, I had gotten a hold of a coach in Boise named Stacy Dragilla who is an Olympic gold medalist in pole vault. My Mom had insisted that she send me to train with Stacy in the offseason as it was a great opportunity, as she has always offered to do whatever it took to get me the correct tools necessary for the sport and not let our lack of resources become a limit. This resulted in me winning another state championship in indoor track and field with a new pr of 16’ and getting a scholarship to go jump at the next level at ISU. None of this would have been possible without my family and coaches always cheering me on and looking out for every opportunity possible to better myself at the sport.

– Maddix Blazovich