INDIANA, Pa. — It’s May 2008 and the sun is shining brightly at Seth Grove Stadium on the campus of Shippensburg University.
With his postseason Mohawk hairdo primed for his last sprints down the runway as a prep sensation, Kane’s Derek (D.J.) Horton is focused on pole vaulting his way to a third-straight PIAA state championship. He goes down the runway, plants his fiberglass pole that bends to launch this star trackman more than 15 feet skyward.
A few moments later, he lands a champion. For the next six-and-half years, however, D.J. Horton will not compete nor will he not go on to a major college career.
Instead of vaulting to new heights, Horton will find nothing but lows as his seemingly untouchable records are broken, his name passed on record lists. He has no team, no uniform and a future that looks bleak.
And then, he figures it out and enrolls at college as a 25-year-old freshman and joins the track team, unheralded as ever. And just like nothing happened, he jumps again.
Except now the Mohawk is traded for long blonde locks with matching facial hair that looks out of control. But Horton is in control as ever, jumping higher than before and rescuing a high school track career that was equal parts promising and bleak.
Now at Division II Indiana University of Pennsylvania – where the track and field program is so in need of equipment that Horton has to borrow poles from Kane High School because IUP’s weren’t big enough – Horton starts the indoor season strong with a 15-7 jump. Three weeks later at the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference indoor championships, the redshirt freshman Horton jumps 16-2 to win the competition, and is later named the PSAC indoor freshman of the year.
As the outdoor season is in mid-stride and the 5-foot-9 Horton, diminutive by pole vaulting standards, jumps 16-08.75 feet to break the IUP outdoor record, one question keeps coming to mind: Where has D.J. Horton been these last eight years, and how did he seemingly pick up right where he left off in high school?
RAISING KANE
It didn’t take Horton long to figure out that he wanted to be a vaulter. His father, Tom, participated in the event, as did his brother.
Living just blocks away from Kane High School, Horton spent many spring afternoons in his youth watching the older athletes fly through the air and over the bar, only to fall back down to earth safely on the mat below. He would try his hand at vaulting over sidewalks with broken tree
branches, and eventually his father made a makeshift jumping pit in the family’s backyard, complete with adjustable standards and an old pole.
“When I’m interested in something,” Horton said, “I can really focus on it and learn about it and be interested in it.”
By the time he was a sophomore and about 30 pounds heavier thanks to weight training, Horton jumped 14-10, broke the school record and had the highest jump by a 10th grader in the country, an accomplishment that was “pretty cool.” By May, he was the only AA vaulter to clear 14 feet and won his first PIAA state championship in 2006.
After repeating as champion as a junior in 2007, Horton entered the 2008 season by storm, clearing 16 feet in the second invitational of the year after taking his ACT test across the parking lot at Brookville’s high school. That vault landed him on numerous national honor roll lists, and a few weeks later he won the Penn Relays with a 15-9 jump.
All that led to his third-consecutive pole vault state championship, which according Kane boys head coach Tom Cecchetti, is a feat that hasn’t been duplicated since the 1950s. In that summer of 2008, Horton placed fifth at the outdoor national championships, earning him All-American status.
Instead of moving on to a collegiate program like Akron or Tennessee, which both showed interest in him, Horton’s academics proved to be a road block.
“My grades were poor in high school,” Horton said, “so I had to either go back to Kane and retake a German class or start somewhere else in college. I was like, ‘I’m not going back to high school. I’m not being that guy who has to go back to high school and take a class.’”
What followed next were a succession of years spent entering open meets, working and trying to make college happen, although that Horton’s first stint at IUP was short and filled with unspectacular grades.
So, he dropped out, had his high school records broken by current Penn State vaulter Patrick Anderson and had to listen to the vaulters he helped mentor in his off years rib him about being able to jump higher now.
“I remember when I was at work and I remember telling (my dad), ‘Dad, I can go back to school and I can win the PSAC,” Horton said. “I guarantee I can jump at least 16 feet again.’ I remember Patrick and Jack (Wolfe, a Kane state qualifier and former IUP jumper), they worked there too. And Jack was like, ‘Come to practice, I want to see if I can beat you.’ I was getting
edgy, I need to take these guys down.”
BACK TO IUP
“I got stuck in a dead-end job. I was 22-year-old, working 12 hour days, six days a week. And I was like, ‘Man, this isn’t what I want to be doing at the prime of my life.
After saving up some money and repaying his old student loans, Horton decided to try his hand at college one more time. The hardest part, he said, was mentally preparing himself for the amount of schoolwork college requires.
Horton returned to IUP in January 2015 and spent the semester getting his grades and GPA up. While working over the summer, at the urging of co-worker Ray Ofman, who runs cross country and distance for the Crimson Hawks, Horton decided to talk to the track coaches, and officially became a Crimson Hawk for the indoor track season.
Credits-wise, he’s a sophomore, though the team’s official roster lists him as a redshirt freshman, meaning his has three more years of eligibility left. His sudden results have left some teammates wondering why they haven’t heard of him before.
“It’s always weird when people ask me at meets what grade I’m in,” said Horton, who recently turned 26. “Yeah, I’m pretty old for a freshman.”
One person who isn’t surprised at his success is Anderson, who Horton helped when he was a volunteer coach at Kane a few years ago. Anderson and Horton combined have five state championships, all under the watchful eye of coach Cecchetti, helping Kane become one of only two schools of any size in Pennsylvania to have eight total state pole vault championships.
“He looks better than he did in high school,” Anderson said. “What he is doing now is simply amazing and inspiring.”
IUP head coach Michelle Burgher, a former Olympic silver medalist sprinter from Jamaica, echoed the same sentiment, attributing Horton’s jumps to his work ethic and discipline.
“Not every day you see an athlete who has taken time off from a sport and are able to get back into the swing of things and perform without missing a beat,” Burgher said. “D.J. is a wonderful talent.”
NEXT UP
Horton and some other teammates are scheduled to compete in the Penn Relays, which run from Thursday to Saturday. Horton is the top seed out of any Division II pole vaulter, and the 10th seed in the second flight, which competes Friday afternoon.
Going back to the Penn Relays means Horton’s story comes full circle since he last won the event in 2008. The meet also presents a chance for him to get his name out, and with 2016 being an Olympic year, his eyes are set on the Olympic trials later this summer.
“That might be a little too far of a reach, but you can get an invite without making the ‘A’ standard,” Horton said. “There’s a ‘B’ standard. It’d be nice to compete against the better guys. The more guys I can jump against, the better.”
For now, Horton looks to continue his success in the outdoor season and hopes for bigger jumps at the PSAC outdoor championship meet in Mansfield in May. He’s also qualified for the outdoor national championship meet.
“I feel like I thrive in competition, especially in championships,” Horton said. “I’ve always done really well.”
Competition, especially the way he’s been jumping, will be a constant in the next few years for Horton, with the hopes of new heights being reached.
