Ducks need Skipper to vault into contention.

Byline: Ron Bellamy / The Register-Guard

Tommy Skipper said his rhythm on the pole vault runway was terrible, his technique was bad and, on his final attempts, he was pretty much out of gas.

Nervous, Oregon?

A week away from the Pac-10 Conference track and field championships, the defending Pac-10 and NCAA titlist made his 2005 outdoor season debut Saturday evening in the Twilight Meet at Hayward Field.

He expected to be rusty and he was. He thought he could vault 18 feet and he didn't. With a personal best of 18 feet, 10 1/4 inches, Skipper missed his first two attempts at 17- 3/4 , cleared his third, passed the next bar, then missed all three attempts at 17-8 1/2 .

Next Saturday, the Oregon sophomore is expected to lead the Ducks into battle against UCLA and Southern California.

Saturday night, the Pac-10 meet's form-chart favorite got beat by a guy from Southern Oregon.

Uh oh?

"I just have to take it one day at a time and really correct the things I was doing wrong today," Skipper said. "After nine weeks of not jumping, I was really concerned about how I'd feel, and what would happen. So now I know, and the bugs are gone."

The last time Skipper vaulted, Martin Smith was still a Duck, and Galen Rupp wasn't a Duck, and Skipper was capping his superb indoor season by winning the NCAA Indoor championship on March 11 in Fayetteville, Ark.

Ten days later, he had surgery to repair a small tear in the medial meniscus cartilage of his left knee. By then, Smith had resigned as head coach, reaching a contract settlement with Oregon the day before the official beginning of the outdoor season, the Oregon Preview meet.

"I dearly respect coach Smith as a person," Skipper said. "He always was a huge inspiration and motivated me in my event, and he wasn't even my coach. He supported everybody equally, and I have no bad things to say about him.

"The only thing I'm going to say about it is that the timing was definitely off. For the administration to change something that far into the season, with having a successful team, I'm a little disappointed. ...

"But I also have the outlook that every problem is an opportunity in disguise. You have to look at it from that angle, too. The crowd tonight is absolutely phenomenal. It's the Twilight Meet, and there are a bunch of people out here, and some things definitely do need to change and we're seeing some good things come out of it."

Such as Rupp's performance in the 10,000 later in the evening, a record-breaking performance that had the crowd of 3,410 stomping, clapping and shouting Rupp's name. A performance by the freshman that rekindled old passions for the sport here, and potentially ignited new ones.

What talent, and potential, there is at Oregon, for the next coach.

"I hope they get the right guy for the right job," Skipper said. "Somebody who is going to be an inspiration and a leader for all the events, not just his own individual coaching forte. I think that's really important."

Clearly, Skipper's return to health is really important for Oregon. He's still the Ducks' surest thing, in the Pac-10 meet, and in the NCAA championships, where he is their only defending champion. He's Oregon's inspiration, and cornerstone, with the season's two biggest goals looming.

Skipper said Saturday that his left knee, which he injured during the indoor season, feels great. However, two weeks ago, he developed soreness in his left hamstring that virtually shut down his training. Since the surgery, he said, he'd taken only one full-approach vault in practice, that last Tuesday, and on that vault he still felt the hamstring.

It stopped hurting Friday he said, and felt fine Saturday, when his clearance qualified him for the NCAA West Regional championships here May 27-28. Not that anybody was worried about Skipper getting that standard, 16-6 3/4 , as long as he could get to the top of the runway in decent health.

But it was hardly an effortless performance. Skipper had plenty of height on his first two misses at 17- 3/4 , hitting the bar on the way down. He clipped the higher height on the way up on all three misses there.

"Today, I was very, very sloppy in my technique," he said. "I have to iron out those problems."

Skipper figures that a vault of 18 feet will be a mark to be reckoned with in the Pac-10 meet; going into the weekend, the best outdoor mark of the spring by a Pac-10 vaulter was 17-8 1/2 . Skipper doesn't have to be at his best to defend his title, and then he'd have two weeks to prepare for regionals. The NCAA championships are still a month away.

"I put all my worries and problems in God's hands," Skipper said.

"If it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be. I'm going to go out there and do the best job that I can, and work as hard as I can for the next couple of months, and everything else I'll leave in his hands."

Even so, Skipper knows that he holds a lot of Oregon's hopes in his own hands.