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MSU's two-time national champion takes it higher (continued)
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| MSU's Ellie Rudy has won the NCAA Indoor Pole Vault Championship both in 2008 and 2007, and spent last summer working in an MSU lab studying how proteins survive in Yellowstone National Park's steamy underground. Rudy is MSU's only repeat national champion. |
Rudy's status as a Bobcat legend has long been cemented. "She's a rare talent," said Dale Kennedy, in his third decade coaching women's track and field at MSU. "The great thing about Ellie is that her focus and work ethic match her ability."
Tom Eitel, MSU's jumps coach to whom Rudy attributes much of her success, has built something of a vault dynasty at MSU. Bobcats hold three of the Big Sky Conference's top four vaults on the league's all-time list, and an Eitel jumper has won five of the last seven Big Sky indoor titles.
Eitel said that as good as Rudy has been, her best efforts lie ahead. "She continues to improve," Eitel said. "She has some definite goals, and she works hard toward those."
First on that list of goals, Rudy will defend her NCAA Indoor crown in March at Fayetteville, Ark. "That's a huge deal for me," she said, smiling broadly. Even more intriguing, however, is her work toward qualifying for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
To that end, Rudy plans to redshirt during this spring's outdoor season so she will be fresh for the once-every-four-years shot at the Olympics. "I don't want that to happen again," she said of the draining effect of back-to-back indoor and outdoor seasons. "I don't want to have a letdown at the (Olympic) Trials."
Rudy plans to jump as a senior at MSU in 2009 and should complete her academic career at the same time. Although she has no idea where her cell biology and neuroscience degree will lead her -- "I'm bouncing all over the place, but it's always somewhere within the medical field," she said -- she knows one thing for certain.
"I want to be in a field where I can help people," she said.
> Spring 2008 Contents
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