Blind high school pole vaulter flies boldly in face of adversity

Charlotte Brown, 16, is doing something few could imagine possible -- becoming one of the best young pole vaulters in nation, and doing it as someone who is legally blind.

Brown's vision in her right eye, as she describes it, was once like looking through a coffee stirrer, blurry, with no depth perception and an inability to distinguish colors or shapes. Her vision has deteriorated more, and she now can vaguely distinguish light and dark, making what she does on the track even more fascinating.

Her parents, Ian and Stori Brown, learned it is better to get out of their daughter's way when she is determined to do something, as she has run track since a young age, but their initial reaction to Charlotte wanting to pole vault did come as a shock.

"They said, 'You're going to do what?'€™" Brown told ESPN. "Then they said, 'We'll let you do it, but have you thought about how?' I said, 'Oh yeah, I'm practicing counting the steps,' and they said, 'Well, OK.' They never said, 'We can't let you do that,' and I'm grateful for that."

Careful to remain safe while flying nearly 12 feet into the sky, Brown has taken every precaution to find a way to fearlessly and successfully pole vault.

"The No. 1 thing with my parents is safety," Brown said. "And I'm not going to go out and drive a car just because it's fun to do. But I stepped on the runway one day and I said, 'This is something I can do. I can figure it out.'"

At the start of Brown's high school track career, she measured and counted her steps for pole vaulting and implemented an 80-foot strip of dark artificial turf that contrasted with the runway to help guide her straight to the box; her coach also assisted by counting Brown's steps. In running events she was permitted the inside lane so she could use the field's grass as a marker to help her stay in the lane.

However, now that she is able to see less, Brown is unable to use the same method, instead opting for an audible solution using a series of beepers to signal where she is on the runway and when she is close to the vault box.

"As soon as I noticed my vision decreasing at the end of my sophomore year," she said, "I thought, 'What's next? What's going to make it a little easier?' It's like when I started thinking about getting a guide dog and using Braille, I wasn't looking at it because I was losing my vision. It was just a matter of, 'This doesn't work, so let's figure out what else we can do."

Brown qualified for the Texas state finals with a jump of 11 feet, 6 inches last year, and returned to Austin this season despite having a shortened training period, having traveling to New Jersey where she met and trained with her new guide dog, Vador, and underwent two optical surgeries.

"It's quite a feat that she is only six inches away from where she was last year -- pretty awesome considering it's a whole new deal this year," Brown'€™s coach, Jeff Lester told ESPN. "To be six inches from where we were? I feel we're going to surpass it in Austin."

The key for Brown's success according to her? Have no fear.

"Everything is just exciting to me," Brown said. "I never thought, 'If I miss the box, I can really get hurt.' I just think, 'Well, if I miss the box and die, I'll never know.'"

Brown isn't just going to settle competing for a high school state championship. She is planning on continuing her track and field career into college and has received written interest from Yale, Brown, Cornell and Stanford; she is near the top of her class academically as well. Her dreams don't end there, however: She is also looking towards the world's biggest stage -- the Olympics.

"Possibly the able-bodied Olympics," Brown said. "Every competitive track athlete is glued to the TV every four years to watch. Who knows? Maybe one of these days, it will be me."

Follow Shawn Ramsey on Twitter: @ShawnPRamsey