THE DOCTOR IS OUT!

Local dentist vaults himself out of work.

By Kirkner

Dr. Ron Kaylor has high hopes of branding Mammoth as the healthiest place on Earth, so he thought he would do his part several weeks ago by attempting to break the world record in pole vaulting for someone 65 or older.
“The rumor around town is [that I’m] crazy Dr. Ron, so I figured I’d live up to it,” Kaylor said.
Many of you have seen this Mammoth local, better known as Dr. Ron, around town. And if you’re lucky, he’s your dentist. He’s hard to overlook. Well over six feet tall, Dr. Ron, at 65, still maintains his quarterback’s physique from his football days at The Ohio State University playing for Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler.
Recently, however, if you’ve seen Ron Kaylor, he is looking less like the young stud he likes to think he is, and more like a man in agony.
On June 6 Kaylor attempted to make his pole vaulting dream a reality and ended up paying a painful price. The decision to attempt this feat was made last winter while Kaylor was talking with a buddy. Even though Kaylor had always excelled in many sports and at one point had wanted to be a decathlete, he chose the pole vault for his world record attempt because his father had told him when he was young that he was a pole vaulter.
“My dad was a track coach and he trained star pole vaulters,” Kaylor said. “He was a pole vaulting freak, so we became a pole vaulting family.”
Training with bamboo poles and homemade pits, pole vaulting continued to follow him through his life. By specializing in two sports, pole vaulting and football, Kaylor was able to obtained a full scholarship to Ohio State. Later, he enjoyed pole vaulting while serving as a dentist for the navy during Vietnam. While others went off to fight Charlie, Kaylor was stationed in Hawaii where he turned almost black from the sun. During one track and field competition on base Kaylor was on Marine Air Base Squadron (MABS) 24’s team. During that meet he vaulted himself well over the 11 feet, 6 inch standard that was the highest the bar would go.
It’s no wonder, then, that Kaylor is still interested in the pole vault today.
“I’m not completely crazy, I wasn’t picking up a pole for the first time,” he said.
Lucky for him, Wave Rave storeowner Steve Klassen has a state of the art pole vaulting pit in his backyard. After making several requests, Klassen finally relented and let the 65-year-old have his chance.
“It was in celebration of D-Day,” Kaylor said. “And boy did I D-Day myself.”
Eight or nine warmup vaults went smoothly with Kaylor hitting heights around nine feet as he practiced. The world record he was trying to break was set in 1986 at 12 feet, 4 inches.
“I was so amped because Klassen’s facility was the best I have ever seen,” Kaylor stated.
Kaylor’s highest vault in his youth was 15 feet, 3 inches, so he knew he had 12’5” in him, even though Klassen told him on that muggy day that he was pushing too hard.
“I did another jump and felt my shoulder partially go out, but it didn’t really hurt so I went again and it popped out all the way,” Kaylor explained.
Luckily for the hemophiliac, Dr. Jack Perry, local orthopedic surgeon, lives next door to Klassen. Kaylor simply walked next door, “dragging his shoulder on the ground,” and had Dr. Perry set his shoulder back into place.
“He just laid me down on the living room floor and popped it back in,” Kaylor said.
Kaylor thinks the injury would have been much worse if he hadn’t had immediate assistance. As it was, the injury left him completely black and blue up and down his right side. Even today, one month later, Kaylor is still in extreme pain. He cannot touch his thumb to his pinkie, and he continues to experience a tingly, numb sensation as if he is repeatedly hitting his funny bone. He can’t work, he can’t write, he can’t even button his own pants without struggling. There is a hematoma in his armpit that is pushing on the nerves.
“I should have listened to Klassen, who told me I needed to quit while I was ahead, but I have this darn Midwest attitude that I can do it,” Kaylor said. “But sometimes, like when you’re not in the right shape for a sport, no, you can’t do it.”
The idea of holding a world record in the pole vault not only plays into Kaylor’s personal ambitions (as he said, “Who wouldn’t want to hold a world record?”), but it also plays into the ambitions he has for Mammoth.
“We need to market ourselves as the healthiest place in the world,” Kaylor exclaimed. He sees pole vaulting as another way to promote what the Eastern Sierra has to offer, which everyone who lives here knows is much more than skiing and fishing.
“We have all of these Olympic athletes training here, we really need to play that up even more,” he added. “We need to be a place where people come to learn how to be healthy and I’m ready to lead the charge.”
His high hopes of spreading the word about Mammoth have been slightly dashed since the injury, as the younger generation is a tough audience.
First, he ran into Kelsea, an 18-year-old lifeguard at Keough’s who didn’t even know what pole vaulting was. Next, his youngest son, Tyson, when questioned about what he thought of his dad’s pole vaulting attempt, jokingly asked if he could comment in another room.
Kaylor, however, is not one to be easily deterred. [By the way, pole vaulting is a track-and-field sport where the vaulter tries to master the art of jumping over an obstacle with the aid of a pole. The athlete must have a high degree of coordination, timing, speed and gymnastic ability.]Klassen was out of town when this article was being put together, but Kaylor claimed that Klassen told him he had the ability to make the jump if he took the time to work up to it.
“I’ve lost 10 pounds and as soon as this shoulder heals, completely, I’d be willing to try it again,” Kaylor said. “I still think I can do it, but next time around I would prepare more and get in the right shape.”
First, however, he needs to heal and get back to work. It will be several more weeks until Kaylor can jump back behind the scaler because he has to wait until the numb, tingly and painful feelings in his arm go away. But you can bet this 65-year-old athlete will be back and “crazier” than ever.
Lara Kirkner is a contributing writer for The Sheet, as well as a writer and editor of The Green Sheet.