Track & Field
Favorite athletes:Michael Phelps. He is one of the best athletes in the world and keeps his composure and stays humble.
Sam Kendricks is a great Olympic pole vaulter, but even more important, he seems to really enjoy the sport and represents the great fun of pole vaulting. He is everyone's friend no matter what country you are from.
Favorite team: USA
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning PA States indoor and breaking the 16' barrier was the best day of my life so far. First came the WIN to be PA State Champion then to PR and clear the 16' bar that I have wanted all season was the best. Hearing the crowd at Penn State multi Sportsplex clap me in and the entire building’s scream of delight was electric!
Funniest/most embarrassing memory competing in sports:Being in the hotel room the night before states and realizing I forgot my uniform. Thank goodness one of my teammates brought extra shorts!
Music:Anything but heavy metal
Future plans: Do good in college. Graduate with high GPA. Get into graduate school. Get a good paying job. Continue my success and have fun pole vaulting.
Favorite motto: "go OVER the bar" - my dad...
"Don't think, Relax, and just have FUN"- my mom.
One goal before turning 30:Be happy, healthy and have no debt
One thing people don’t know about me: My grandfather (my mom’s dad) was a PA State champion from then called Hatboro High School and college conference champion in the Pole Vault. Also, I drive a huge diesel dually truck!
By Mary Jane Souder
Nick Marino was born to be a pole vaulter.
Forget the fact that for close to eight years he devoted himself to gymnastics, practicing four hours a day every day. Pole vaulting is in his blood.
His grandfather, Joseph Spieker, was a state champion for then Hatboro High School and went on to earn a conference championship during a collegiate career at West Chester University.
“I’d always heard stories from him and my mom talking about pole vault and everything,” said Marino, whose mother and father also competed in pole vault. “I always thought it was cool, but I was doing gymnastics at the time. I basically didn’t have enough time for it until I grew out of gymnastics. I saw my brother (Ryan Lamont) doing his throws at the track, and Joe Berry was doing his jumping and setting records. That’s when I decided I really wanted to do it.”
The summer before his freshman year, Marino got a taste of pole vaulting at Ambler Olympic Club under the tutelage of coaches Peter Hishman and former Hatters’ coach Bob Ayton, who coached Berry. He was hooked.
“I was very, very short, barely tapping into five feet at the time,” Marino recalled. “It was really difficult for me to be good when I first started, but I worked through that.
Did he ever.
These days the 5-11 Marino is mentioned in the same breath with Berry, who went on to win five SEC titles at the University of Tennessee – three outdoor and two indoor.
Marino shattered the school’s indoor record of 15-2, successfully clearing 16 feet during the indoor season and also capturing the indoor state title.
“The kid has crazy core strength – I don’t know if I’ve ever had an athlete with the core strength he has,” HH coach Michael Harmon said. “You can be really good at anything you do if you have good core strength.
“He works very hard at what he does. He puts in a lot of practice. I would say he probably eats, sleeps and breathes pole vault. That’s what he does.”
There’s no denying the magnitude of Marino’s accomplishments, and he still has his final outdoor season to add to his already impressive resume. Yet, talk to Harmon, and he’s equally impressed with the leadership his senior captain brings to the team.
“He’s really become a tremendous team kid in the last couple of years,” the Hatters’ coach said. “He’s always been trying to push his teammates, trying to make them better even though he might not be doing the things they’re doing, but he’s helping them get better. He’s been very good at that aspect.
“He’s been working with some of our freshmen. We haven’t seen this in a while, but we have seven kids pole vaulting right now, and five are freshmen. You never know - somebody could be there that will be pushing his (records). It’s nice to see him passing that on.”
For the past year, Marino has been training at the Philadelphia Jumps Club in Conshohocken under Brian Mondschein, a two-time pole vault Pennsylvania state champion and a three-time All-American at Virginia Tech.
“I train vaulting twice a week and sprint with my high school track team, so basically every day is track day for me,” said Marino, who also does upper body work three days and legs every day. “This spring one of my goals would be to break the school record of 16-10, to break the state record of 16-6 and to go All-American at Nationals. I’m still pushing for new heights.”
*****
Marino became involved in gymnastics when he was six years old.
“It was all of my time,” he said. “It was every day five to nine o’clock.
“It was very intense from a young age. I did all of the events, but I was best at rings because of upper body strength. I started to grow, and it’s really hard to be tall in gymnastics. Basically, I had growing injuries, and it did not work out after a while.”
Marino, who traveled to competitions throughout the tri-state area, competed at the national level as well, but it was his foray into the world of pole vaulting that put gymnastics on the back burner. That upper body strength he’d acquired as a gymnast was a difference maker.
In his freshman outdoor season – his first season of competing in pole vault, Marino cleared 12-6, just shy of the district cut.
“The one thing that really helped me out from the get-go were my original coaches,” he said of Hishman and Ayton. “Since I had a big upper body strength from gymnastics, they taught me how to have a very big plant from the very start. I’m able to move to poles that are much bigger than a lot of other kids.
“My mom and I found clubs here and there – Harrisburg, New York, and I made tons of friends all over the place.”
Marino affectionately calls his mother ‘coach Marino.’
“She helped me climb the heights, and she would find different places for me to practice,” he said of Tammy Lamont. “She’s almost always the one who can see my problems if no one else can.”
By his sophomore year, Marino had cleared 14-6, and his junior year included a second place finish at states with a vault of 15-9.
Marino is a student of his sport and studies those who have succeeded.
“If I’m struggling with a step or if I can’t figure out how to move a pole or something like that, I can always go to the internet, and there’s almost always something to find,” he said.
The mental aspect is also a key piece of the puzzle.
“Being able to relaxed and not get too pumped up – it’s good to be pumped up, but you have to have your mind at ease,” Marino said.
As a team captain, Marino takes his role of leader seriously.
“You have to be out there every day,” he said. “You can’t miss days.
“I help coach our pole vaulters. It’s a lot of fun helping them to go through what I went through.”
An honors student, Marino will take his talents to Bucknell University, choosing the Patriot League school over the U.S. Naval Academy.
“I took an official visit there, and I loved it,” he said. “Coach Ayton and coach Hishman always told me when I got to the right college I’d know it immediately, and when I’d leave, I’ll be like, ‘I want to go back.’
“I got that feeling, and I was like, ‘I think this is it guys. I want to go here.’”
Marino plans to major in something in the science field, but he has some unfinished business to take care of at Hatboro-Horsham first.
“I know he’s looking for a little redemption from last year,” Harmon said. “The only meet he didn’t win last year outdoors was the state meet – he finished second.
“He’s really looking to make a lot of waves, and he set the tone for outdoor based on what he did indoor. We’re really excited about what he can do.”
Marino is using the Hatters’ dual meet season to fine tune his skills.
“Being in the position he’s in, he can try things that will maybe make him go higher because no one in our league is pushing him,” Harmon said. “Basically, his opening height is going to win the meet for us.
“He comes in and clears the bar and then he bumps it up and tries to push himself and work on some things. He’s a very, very nice kid.”
A kid who can vault higher than most with his sights sets on going even higher.
“I don’t know how to describe it,” Marino said. “I love the feeling – it’s just free.”
