SPRINGDALE -- Rylee Robinson has always been in a hurry.
The Shiloh Christian senior skipped the sixth grade when she tested out, jumping from the fifth to the seventh grade.
All-NWA Media Girls Track Athlete of the Year
Class 5A and Below
Rylee Robinson
School: Shiloh Christian
Class: Senior
Notable: Won the Class 5A state pole vault championship as a junior with a class record 11-foot, 5-inch vault. … Finished second in the pole vault this spring. … Has signed a college scholarship with Arkansas. … Oldest of three highly successful Shiloh Christian siblings.
She graduated last month from Shiloh Christian as a 16-year-old National Honor Society member, with a 4.06 grade-point-average.
When she enrolls at Arkansas in the fall, she will already be a sophomore with 27 college credits before she steps into Ole Main.
How she's not a sprinter in track is a mystery. But pole vaulting is her specialty, and her gold medals and record jumps are proof she's doing exactly what she's supposed to do.
"When I was in the seventh grade, I wanted to do track because it was a very athletic thing and I liked running," Robinson said. "So I went to track practice and I saw all these long poles. I went over there to see what they were doing and they were pole vaulting. It looked really fun."
That afternoon when Rylee's grandfather picked her up from the junior high in Prosper, Texas, located near McKinney, she told him about her newfound sport. He found her a private coach near Fort Worth and a career was born, although the three-hour round trip from McKinney to Fort Worth was taxing, she said.
Rylee said her in first meet as a seventh grader she vaulted 6-foot, 6 inches, which was a big deal at the time.
"When I jumped over 6-6, I thought that was the biggest thing ever because that's how tall my dad is," she said. "I was like, 'Oh my gosh Dad, I can jump as high as you.'
"Now I pass at 6-6."
Robinson signed a track scholarship with Arkansas earlier this year. Last year as a junior, she set a Class 5A pole vault record at 11-5. This season she passed that mark with an 11-8 vault.
Her performance earned her the All-NWA Media Athlete of the Year in school Class 5A and below.
Shiloh Christian track coach Marla Richards thought she had been blessed with a distance runner when Robinson enrolled as a sophomore after her family moved to Arkansas.
"She has the body build for a distance runner, that's what I thought," Richards said. "I did not know at the time that she was such a great pole vaulter. I saw her doing sprinting and I said 'You have the build for distance running.' But she could not do that and vault. You need the sprinting workouts for vaulting."
Robinson's grandfather, Simon Robinson, was an Olympian in the 400 hurdles years ago for New Zealand. His records in the event will never be broken because the event no longer exists. Her father was a tennis player at Arkansas and talked incessantly about the Razorbacks when the family lived in Texas.
"At first I didn't want to go there," she said. "He would always talk about Arkansas and I was like, 'Dad, stop taking about Arkansas.'
"But since we've move up here, and Arkansas is close, and the track program is really good, getting a scholarship there is amazing. I'm very blessed."
Robinson, whose siblings Kyle and Reagan are also standout athletes in golf and volleyball respectively, plans to attend medical school when her vaulting days are over, with dermatology a possible field, she said.
Richards said what sets Robinson apart is her tireless work ethic.
"She is one of the most humble athletes that I have ever come across," Richards said. "She has won a state title, but she is not somebody who gloats about her achievements."
Sports on 06/04/2014