Scott Houston (born 11 June 1990) is an American track and field athlete who competes in the pole vault. He was the American national indoor champion in 2018. He competed collegiately for both the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Indiana Hoosiers. Houston has also coached collegiate pole vaulters.
Born in Winter Springs, Florida, he moved with his family to Oak Ridge, North Carolina and attended nearby Northwest Guilford High School. He competed in pole vault while there and broke the state high school record and was captain of the school track and field team. Houston went on to study a sports science major at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and competed for their North Carolina Tar Heels collegiate track team. He was third at the Atlantic Coast Conference meet in his freshman year and ended the 2009 season with a best of 5.34 m (17 ft 6 in). He redshirted the 2010 indoor and the 2011 outdoor seasons. [1]
He continued his studies at Indiana University Bloomington and with their Indiana Hoosiers he won the 2013 Big Ten Conference outdoor title and was a qualify for the NCAA Outdoor Championships. [2] A mature student, he also served as a volunteer assistant track coach from 2013 to 2015. He helped coached fellow vaulter Terry Batemon to a conference title and Kelsie Ahbe and Sophie Gutermuth to a 1–2 placing at the 2014 Big Ten Championships. He was named track and field assistant coach at High Point University in 2015. [3]
Houston's own progress stalled from 2009 to 2014, given his focus on academics and coaching. This changed in the 2015 indoor season, when he set a new personal record of 5.51 m (18 ft 3⁄4 in) and placed fourth at the 2015 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships. [4] In the outdoor season another best of 5.62 m (18 ft 5+1⁄4 in) followed, but he failed to record a height at the 2015 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. [5] He cleared 5.65 m (18 ft 6+1⁄4 in) in the 2016 outdoor season, but failed to figure among the leaders at the 2016 United States Olympic Trials due to an ankle injury that took place en route to qualifying for the Olympic Trials Final. [6] He managed fourth at the 2017 USA Indoors, [7] then was fifth at the 2017 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. [8] A new best of 5.78 m (18 ft 11+1⁄2 in) that July ranked him in the world top 25 vaulters for the first time. [9]
Houston had a career breakthrough at the age of 27 when he won the national title at the 2018 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships, defeating world champion Sam Kendricks with a personal record of 5.83 m (19 ft 1+1⁄2 in). [10] [11]
| Year | Competition | Venue | Position | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Representing  United States | |||||
| 2018 | World Indoor Championships | Birmingham, United Kingdom | 13th | 5.60 m | |
| NACAC Championships | Toronto, Canada | 1st | 5.45 m | ||
Stacy Renée Mikaelson known as Stacy Renée Dragila is a former American pole vaulter. She is an Olympic gold medalist and a multiple-time world champion.
Two sports have events that fall under the name of weight throw one being the track and field event and the other being the Scottish highland games events.
Jeff Hartwig is an American pole vaulter.
Jennifer Lynn Suhr is an American former pole vaulter. She has been an Olympic and World champion, has been ranked #1 in the World, has been the #1 American pole vaulter since 2006, and has won a total of 17 US National Championships. She holds the world indoor pole vault record at 5.03 m. She holds the American women's pole vault record indoors. In 2008, she won the U.S. Olympic trials, setting an American record of 4.92 m and won a silver medal in the Beijing Olympics. She won the gold medal at the London Olympics on August 6, 2012. Track & Field News named her American Female Athlete of the Year for 2008.
Will Claye is an American track and field athlete of Sierra Leonean descent who competes in the long jump and triple jump. He won a bronze medal in 2011 World Championships in Athletics and the gold medals at the 2012 IAAF World Indoor Championships and 2018 IAAF World Indoor Championships. In his Olympic debut at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Claye won a bronze medal in long jump and a silver medal in triple jump. He repeated his silver medal in the triple jump four years later. His personal best of 18.14 m, set at the Jim Bush Southern California USATF Championships in Long Beach on June 29, 2019, ranks him as the No. 3 triple jumper of all time.
Mary Saxer is an American track and field athlete who competes in the pole vault. She holds a personal record of 4.71 m for the event, set in 2014.
Sam Kendricks is an American pole vaulter. He is a three-time indoor and six-time outdoor national champion (2014–2019), the 2016 Olympics bronze medalist, and the 2017 and 2019 World Champion. In 2019, Kendricks set the American pole vault record at 6.06 m, tying him with Steve Hooker for fourth all time. He later won the gold medal at the World Championships in Doha.
Jacob "Jake" Blankenship is an American track and field athlete who competes in the pole vault. He holds a personal record of 5.80 m for the event, set in 2015. He placed third at the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in 2015.
Joan Nesbit Mabe is an American former long-distance runner who competed mainly in distances from 3000 meters to 10,000 meters. Her highest honour was a bronze medal in the 3000 m at the 1995 IAAF World Indoor Championships. She represented her country at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and appeared four times at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships.
Sandi Morris is an American pole vault record holder. She won the silver medal in the pole vault event at the 2016 Summer Olympics. She also won silver at the pole vault event at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics and another silver at the 2019 World Championships in Athletics. In 2018 she won gold at the World Indoor Championships. Morris has a personal best vault of 4.95 m indoor, set on March 12, 2016, in Portland, Oregon. She matched this height at the 2018 World Indoor Champships when setting a new championship record. July 23, 2016, Morris cleared 4.93 m at American Track League in Houston at Rice University breaking Jennifer Suhr's American outdoor record in the pole vault. Morris cleared 5.00 m at 2016 IAAF Diamond League Memorial Van Damme in Brussels on September 9, 2016, to set the U.S. women's outdoor pole vault record.
Kylie Nicole Hutson is an American track and field athlete who competes in the pole vault. She was the national champion in the event in 2011 and represented the United States at the World Championships in Athletics in 2011 and 2013. She won four NCAA collegiate titles while at Indiana State University. Her personal records are 4.75 m indoors and 4.70 m outdoors.
Darrell Hill is an American track and field athlete known for the shot put. On July 1, 2016, at the 2016 Olympic Trials, Hill threw a new personal best of 21.63 m to finish third and qualify for the 2016 Olympics. His previous personal best of 21.16m was set just two weeks earlier at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, California.
Alexis "Lexi" Jacobus is an American pole vaulter. Lexi Jacobus has an identical twin Tori Weeks Hoggard, who is also a pole vaulter. Lexi qualified for the 2016 Summer Olympics by finishing third at the Olympic trials. Jacobus is the first woman to win 4 NCAA Division 1 pole Vault titles.
Felisha Nayomie Johnson is an American track and field athlete who specialises in the shot put. She was the 2015 national indoor champion in the weight throw. She won two NCAA collegiate titles in that event for the Indiana State Sycamores.
Cale Simmons is an American track and field athlete who competes in the pole vault. He was runner-up at the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in 2016 and was chosen for the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Logan Cunningham is an American track and field athlete who specializes in the pole vault. He holds a personal best of 5.71 m, set in 2016.
Kathryn Elizabeth Moon is an American professional athlete, specializing in pole vaulting. She won gold medals at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, 2022 World Athletics Championships and 2023 World Athletics Championships, and a silver at the 2022 World Indoor Championships. Moon was also 2019 Pan American Games silver medalist.
Clayton Parros is an American male track and field sprinter who specializes in the 400-meter dash. He was a runner in the gold medal-winning American 4 × 400 metres relay teams at the 2009 Pan American Junior Athletics Championships and the 2015 NACAC Championships in Athletics, setting a championship record of 3:00.07 minutes at the latter meet. He also ran as the alternate heats runner for the American teams that won gold medals at the 2014 IAAF World Indoor Championships and the 2014 IAAF World Relays.
Christopher Nilsen is an American athlete specialising in pole vault and high jump. He won the silver medal at the 2020 Summer Olympics in the pole vault event with a jump of 5.97 m.
Kahmari Montgomery is an American track and field sprinter specializing in the 400 m for Nike. He was the men's 400 m champion at the USA Championships in 2018, and at the NCAA Division I Championships in 2019. He represented the United States in the 4 × 400 m relay at the World U20 Championships in 2016 and at the inaugural Athletics World Cup in 2018, earning gold medals in both competitions.
