All-American gymnast jumps into a new kind of vaulting

By Sean Saunders
sun staff writer

JONESBORO — Sports has always been a part of Andreé Pickens’ life.
For 20 years, Pickens has been active in gymnastics, reaching heights few have achieved in the sport. Now, because of sports, the Houston athlete finds herself in Jonesboro to practice her newly found passion — pole vaulting.
“It was just something after my collegiate career that sparked my interest through my gymnastics coaches as well as other coaches asking me what was next on my plate as an athlete,” Pickens said. “Some said ‘pole vaulting. Why don’t you have a try at that?’
“After a while I just took a try at it and fell in love with it and loved the challenge of doing something new.”
The former All-American gymnast from the University of Alabama trains at Earl Bell’s pole vaulting complex. The naturally gifted athlete has been vaulting for just four years and finished eighth at the U.S. Track and Field Championships earlier this month.
“Since I’ve been in Jonesboro, I’ve improved my height by a foot-and-a-half, which is really big in pole vaulting,” Pickens said. “I qualified to the U.S. Indoor Championships back in February and also qualified to the U.S. Outdoor Championships.”
Pickens has a very storied past. Before arriving in Jonesboro, she led her Crimson Tide squad to a national championship in 2002 while winning the national collegiate gymnast of the year that same year.
She was also a 5-time All-American for two seasons in gymnastics at Alabama as well as the Southeastern Conference Women’s Athlete of the Year in 2002 and a finalist for the national women’s athlete of the year.
Before her decorated career as a member of the Crimson Tide, Pickens made it to the U.S. Olympic Trials for the Sydney games of 2000, where she qualified as an alternate.
Now she coaches gymnastics part-time at Champions Gymnastics Center Inc. in Jonesboro while she works on her pole vault training. She relates to her students with her experience at the club and collegiate levels, and she gets along well with their parents, she said.
“She is an excellent gym coach and one of the reasons I drive one hour, four days a week so my daughter can attend this facility,” according to a letter written by Dee Keiter, a Gosnell parent of one of Pickens’ students.
Pickens has lived in Jonesboro now for 10 months. She has not had to adjust to life in Jonesboro much because it reminds her of Tuscaloosa, Ala., where she went to school, she said.
“It’s a family atmosphere. It’s a town that is not too crazy, similar to where I went to college,” she said. “You have everything that you need and enough to really enjoy yourself and keep focused on what you are trying to do.”
With regards to her life after athletics, Pickens is still undecided, she said. She originally planned to go to medical school after college, but when she got back into athletics, she put medical school on the back burner.
“I got back involved with athletics, and I wanted to see how far this would go,” she said. “Medical school would always be there, and this opportunity wouldn’t.”
Pickens plans to stay in Jonesboro through at least 2008 because she wants to try out for the Olympics as a pole vaulter. Her experience with the Olympic Trials will help her with her future aspirations, she said.
She is also excited that she can try to represent her country again at the games, she said.
“It’s the kind of thing where you work so hard, and you’re working and you’re training and you’re competing with the best in your country,” Pickens said.
While Pickens wants to move on from her days in the collegiate spotlight, she still tries to keep in contact with her teammates.
“I stay up pretty much on how things are going,” she said. “I keep in touch with my coaches all the time on the phone or by e-mail just to cheer them on and give them words of encouragement. But also to see what’s going on.”
Pickens also said she is enjoying life outside of the limelight.
“It’s peaceful. But I’m still the same person. I’m still humble about what I’m doing. I just work hard at whatever I’m doing, whether it is gymnastics or pole vaulting or coaching gymnastics.”
She now gets to train at Bell Athletics, one of the premiere pole vaulting training facilities in the country.
“I think it’s great, and I think that when you walk in there, it’s an atmosphere and a place where you know you can succeed if you have the motivation to put forth the effort and take what he (Bell) has to give you and use it for yourself,” Pickens said.
After 2008, the picture becomes blurry for Pickens. She said she wants to either pursue her coaching prospects further or go back to work in the medical field.
“If I say that I don’t go back to coaching gymnastics, it would be working in my field,” she said. “I went to school in biology, so whether it’s going to medical school or working in the health department as a health educator … I want to find a career that is still giving back to the community.”
No matter what she does, she will always have a special place in her heart for gymnastics, she said.