YORKTOWN — Bright, colorful tie-dyed shirts spotted the field at Yorktown High School during Thursday’s tri meet with Delta and Jay County, each of them emblazoned with a message across the front.
“Grateful for Drew.”
The shirts featured the logo for the iconic rock band Grateful Dead on the sleeve and two of the band’s iconic “Dancing Bear” symbols — one walking across the word Grateful and the other pole vaulting over it. At the center of the design was a photo of Drew Thurston, Yorktown’s pole vault coach for five seasons.
Thurston died suddenly on Friday, August 29, while being life-lined to St. Vincent Heart Center during a medical emergency. His passing left a hole in the Yorktown community, especially within the school’s track and field program. The Tigers used the tri meet on Thursday, April 16, to honor Thurston and celebrate a life that touched so many student-athletes.
“It’s a mixed bag of emotions, because obviously, Drew’s not with us, and I want him to be coaching pole vault right now,” Yorktown coach Jared Turner said. “That’s the bad side of it, but the good side is to see how many people’s lives he affected in a positive way, and it was really a simple way that he affected all of us.
“It was just by being this endless beam of positivity.”
According to Turner, the bright colors on the “Grateful for Drew” shirts represented the brightness that Thurston brought to every meet. The Grateful Dead-inspired “hippie” aesthetic of the shirts was very intentional. Thurston himself was a musician, playing in bands with friends for over 14 years and releasing his first album shortly before his death. Coupled with his flowing hair and constant positivity, Thurston looked and played the part of a hippie well.
Before Thurston joined the program, Yorktown hadn’t supported the pole vault within its track and field program for several years. Kolton Nanko was a sophomore at Yorktown when he first started pole vaulting, and Thurston was his first teacher.
“Coach Thurston was kind of the person that made me fall in love with it,” Nanko said. “We started from nothing, pretty much, because we hadn’t had pole vaulting for however many years it was. He came in, and he wanted nothing more than to just watch us succeed.”
Thurston watched Nanko succeed all the way to the IHSAA state finals in 2023, where Nanko placed fifth with a school-record vault of 15 feet, a mark that still stands today. The IHSAA only allows one coach per event at state, and BJ McKay — Thurston’s co-coach on the pole vault — was with Nanko that day.
Of course, that didn’t stop Thurston from making sure his support was felt.
“Drew was out there filming from outside the stadium,” Nanko said. “We all traveled out there to go see him, and he just gives me a great, big hug. It just felt like he was like another dad to me. It almost seemed like he was more excited than I was.”
Thurston wasn’t just a coach — he was also the team’s resident fixer. He often brought home damaged equipment from practices and returned the next day, having fixed it, or crafted something specifically for the team to use in drills. Kolton Nanko’s dad, Dr. Raymond Nanko, referred to Thurston as “MacGyver” due to his ability to solve whatever problems arose.
During Thursday’s meet, Yorktown junior pole vaulter Addison Embry got on the PA system to share some words about Thurston and told a story of his willingness to go above and beyond when solving problems for his athletes. Over the summer, Thurston and McKay took Embry and six other Delaware County athletes to Pennsylvania for a pole vault camp. Someone offered a van for them to borrow for the road trip, but the van was too small and uncomfortable for seven kids and two coaches.
Thurston took one look at the inside of the van and decided to explore other options. A few phone calls later, he brought them to his brother’s house, where they were greeted by a much nicer van, described by Embry as “closer to a tour bus than a van.”
“There’s definitely tons of other stories I could tell, but that really does summarize him,” Embry said. “He never thought twice about just giving you an extra hand, making sure that we had whatever we needed. We could have drove the van and it would have been fine, but the fact that he went out of his way to try to make something better for us because he knew that we would like it more… he always thought of us first.”
Thurston had a knack for making sure kids weren’t too hard on themselves. For young athletes, track and field is an easy sport to fall into a trap feeling the need to beat one’s personal best and being dissatisfied if they aren’t living up to their own standards. Embry recalled one particularly frustrating practice where Thurston told her exactly what she needed to hear.
“I remember one specific practice where I was getting so mad at myself,” Embry said. “He stopped me and asked me, ‘Would you ever talk to a friend like that?’ I kind of laughed and said, ‘Like what?'”
“The way you’re talking to yourself,” Thurston told her. “Be nice to her. I think she’s pretty cool.”
After Embry shared her stories, Turner presented Thurston’s family with a memorial plaque honoring the late coach, and members of the Thurston family received countless hugs from Yorktown athletes. When Thurston passed, his family requested donations to Yorktown’s pole vault program in lieu of flowers. During the meet, it was announced that $17,159.20 was raised in Thurston’s name.
“Again, bittersweet,” Turner said. “It meant a ton to me that that many people showed up from their family. We knew we wanted to give them an opportunity to come, but you know, it’s sensitive, so we didn’t know if they would all show up, and they did. I’m just glad that they were able to see how much Drew meant to our team and our community.”
In the wake of Thurston’s death, McKay has taken over responsibilities as Yorktown’s sole pole vault coach this season. As someone who worked side-by-side with Thurston for years, McKay has felt his absence perhaps more strongly than any other member of the Yorktown track program.
“I don’t know how the dude had 35 hours a day, but he found a way to just be there for everybody, especially for the kids,” McKay said. “It’s a loss on much more levels than just track and field when you lose someone like that. His number’s still on my phone. I still wish I could talk to him. There’s a particular hole now, for the first time, to talk out here and not have him by my side, helping with the kids. I feel like I just lost an arm or leg.”
While Thurston is no longer with the Tigers in person, his spirit lingers on in the way the athletes carry themselves and uplift one another. Clearly, a good example was set in that regard.
“The positivity, the way that the kids work together and have each other’s backs, even the mental talk for themselves,” McKay said. “Drew was just a master at being there for them when they got between their own ears, just to give that kind word, to put a hand on their back and let them know it’s going to be alright.”
Contact Cade Hampton via email at cbhampton@usatodayco.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @CadeHamp10.
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Yorktown track honors late pole vault coach Drew Thurston at tri-meet
Reporting by Cade Hampton, Muncie Star Press / Muncie Star Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
