The Penn State Behrend women’s track and field team is looking to gear up for another successful season. The team returns 13 members, and one of them is pole vaulter Haley Yenchik. Yenchik comes into the season tied for 16th in the nation in clearance height in pole vault, and she is hopeful she will compete at the NCAA Championship Meet this season. While Yenchik has had a lot of success since day one at Penn State, her journey to Penn State Behrend was rather unique.

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Yenchik is a 2015 graduate of Canon McMillan High School, where she was a two sport athlete in gymnastics and track. However, she was only a gymnast until her junior year. Yenchik was a competitive gymnast for 15 years before deciding to step away from gymnastics. Yenchik had immediate success as a pole vaulter in high school, despite not having great technique or proper training. She won two consecutive county pole vault medals, two district medals and placed 10th in the state her senior season. While she had great success in track, she may have been a better gymnast than a pole vaulter. Yenchik was a three time national qualifier in club gymnastics and competed against Olympic qualifying gymnasts. Yenchik was highly considering attending the University of Pittsburgh for pre med and to join their gymnastics team, but that all changed when Behrend track and field coach Greg Cooper contacted Yenchik about pole vaulting.

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“Coach Cooper has been there for me with anything I needed from the day we met. He knows how to motivate, relate to and encourage all of the members of the team. He also can answer any questions that our team has about Penn State Behrend in general. He treats everyone on our team as an equal, and he finds a way to motivate everyone on our team individually and differently,” she stated of Cooper. She stated a huge reason why she elected to attend Penn State Behrend was because how Coach Cooper treated her from the second they met.

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Not only has Yenchik elected to go to Behrend instead of Pitt, but she has also chosen to become a nurse rather than a doctor. Regarding this decision, she stated “I chose to become a nurse because nurses are main advocates for patients, and they have the most personal touch to patients. We are there for patients at their most vulnerable points, and we are responsible for helping to make their lives easier. I am leaning towards becoming a geriatric nurse because I have always loved to work with elderly people. I find the stories about their lives interesting, and I look forward to visiting and assisting elderly patients.” Yenchik has completed clinicals at LECOM Senior Living Center and has an externship this summer at Allegheny General Hospital beginning in May. In addition to field experience in Nursing, Yenchik is currently a member of JONS, which is the Behrend Nursing Club. The club has numerous fundraisers and drives to help people in need. Some of the events include the March of Dimes, blood drives, bone marrow screening events and Veterans Day parade baskets.

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There are a few other people who always push her to do her best and do even more. She credited her grandmother for being one of her primary role models in stating “My grandma was like a second mom to me. She always took care of me and encouraged me to be involved. She came to all of my track and gymnastics meets in high school. No matter what she had going on in her life, she made time for me, and made it a priority to support me in anything I did.” While she gains a lot of support and drive from her grandmother, she has a lot of great teammates who encourage her every day at practice and at meets. “I love every single person on our team at Behrend. Everyone cheers one another on, we push people to perform at their best, and we pick each other up if they need it. Being on a team like that is important to me, and I am fortunate to have the the teammates I do,” she said. There is one trip with her track team that she likes to reflect on the most, and that trip was to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Behrend had the opportunity to compete against some of the best Division 2 and Division 3 teams in the country, and it pushed all of the members of the team to do their best. “We were all glad to be in the nice warm weather, and it was also a great experience to see where our team stacks up on a national stage,” she said of the trip. While it was mentioned earlier that Yenchik has had a great amount of success as a member of the women’s track and field team, just how much success has she had?

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Well, in her first year at Behrend, she found immediate success. She was named a CSAC All-Academic, First-Team All-CSAC in the triple jump and pole vault and Third-Team All-CSAC in the long jump. In her sophomore campaign, she was able to raise the bar even higher. She was named the CSAC Field Athlete of the Year and First-Team All-CSAC in pole vault, triple jump and 4x100 meter relay. She was also named Second-Team All-CSAC in long jump and given honorable mention in 100 meter, 200 meter and high jump. Also in her sophomore year, she was an All-ECAC team member and an ECAC qualifier in 4x100 meter relay. To cap her sophomore year off, she set the Behrend indoor 4x200 meter run record and outdoor 4x100 meter run. Leading up to her junior season, she is currently tied for 16th in the nation in pole vault. Yenchik will look to add to her medal count and quite possibly break even more Behrend records this upcoming season.

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Haley Yenchik has had a high amount of success in all of the activities she is involved in at Penn State Behrend. She is hopeful to coach youth gymnastics in the near future as well as move south to continue her career as a nurse. Yenchik still has about two more years as a Behrend student athlete, and she wants the best out of the time she has remaining.