USA Pole Vaulter Stops Cold While Running To Vault For This One Incredibly Patriotic Reason…
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Love of country isn’t something you can easily define, you either have it, or you don’t!
For those who have it, it seldom leaves you, and it’s there forever. And so when American Olympian Sam Kendricks stopped dead in his tracks during one of his practice runs and stood at attention at the playing of the National Anthem over a loudspeaker, it perhaps took a few onlookers by surprise.
However for a patriot Second Lieutenant like Kendricks it all comes naturally.
The “Ole Miss” graduate and Army Reservist won the bronze medal for pole-vaulting, which was the first for an American in a dozen years.
Kendricks upon winning the bronze reflected: “They say back home, and jokingly in track circles, that if you win a medal it will change your life. I think your life is changed on the way to that medal, honestly”.
He continued; “With all the journeys and sacrifices that you make, all the training that you do, and the people you leave at home to watch. That is what is really the value of the (medal). I’m glad I have something tangible to bring home and show for it”.
Needless to say this young army reservist and Olympian has made the folks back home in Oxford, Mississippi proud, however more impotently a role model for other athletes in how to conduct themselves, with honor and dignity and proud to be an American.
Folks back home have been more than happy to warmly support Sam.
