Staff Directory
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- Assistant Coach/Jumps
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Erica Fraley enters her fifth season as an assistant coach at the University of Montana track and field team in 2026-27. A world-renown pole vaulter, she works with the Grizzlies’ vertical jumps groups and is Montana’s director of operations.
She has helped lead Montana to four straight 3rd place finishes on the men’s side and three straight 3rd place finishes on the women’s side. The Grizzly men and women finished in the top three at the same outdoor meet for the first time in program history in 2025 and followed up that achievement in 2026.
The Grizzlies scored 218.5 points at the 2026 Big Sky Outdoor Championships, the most by the program since 2002. The men and women have finished in the top three at the same outdoor championship each of the last two years, which are the only two years in program history with both finishing top three.
Montana’s men scored 107.5 points and finished 3rd in 2026, scoring the most points since 2007 and tying for the best finish since 2016. The women scored 111 points and finished 3rd, which was both the most points and best finish since 2017.
In just a short period of time, Fraley has left a huge mark on the Grizzly jumping program. Her athletes in the high jump and pole vault have improved upon school records nine times in four outdoor seasons and eight times indoors.
Fraley’s most notable contribution has come while working with high jumper Erin Wilde. Wilde joined Montana in Fraley’s first season and made program history in her four years in Missoula.
Wilde won seven Big Sky high jump titles, the most by any athlete in Big Sky history. Wilde is one of two women in program history and one of just four women in conference history to win seven Big Sky titles in the same event.
She also broke the Montana school record indoors and outdoors and became the first woman to ever jump six feet at Dornblaser Field, setting the facility record in 2026.
The women’s indoor pole vault record has been broken twice and the outdoor record has fallen three times under Fraley’s leadership. Shealyne McGee broke the indoor mark with a jump of 13-6.5 in 2025. Samantha Serex broke it later that season with a mark of 13-7.25.
McGee set the program mark outdoors in 2023 with a vault of 13-2.5. Serex improved on the mark twice in 2025, moving it up to 13-5.25 and then 13-7.25. McGee rejoined her in the record book in 2026, vaulting 13-7.25 in the final regular season meet.
The men’s pole vault group has seen four different athletes break school records, improving the all-time mark six times in Fraley’s four years.
Zane Johnson was the first to break a record, clearing 17-3.5 in the 2024 outdoor season. Carson Weeden broke Johnson’s record at the 2025 Big Sky Championship meet, clearing 17-4.5 to earn All-Conference honors.
Kevin Swindler set the current record in 2026 by clearing 17-7.25.
Indoors, Carson Hegele broke a 12-year old record in 2026 by clearing 17-2.75. Swindler would go on to break that record twice, clearing 17-3 and then 17-6.5 to hold the current mark.
In addition to both school records, Swindler also won the indoor Big Sky title in 2026. He tied with his teammate Hegele at a height of 17-4.5, winning gold with fewer misses.
Swindler reached the 2026 NCAA Championship in the pole vault, finishing 11th at the NCAA West First Rounds in Fayetteville, Ark. He earned honorable mention All-American honors in Eugene with a jump of 17-6.5, which placed 21st at the NCAAs.
In addition to the Big Sky Champions that she has coached, Fraley’s athletes have also earned All-Conference honors 13 times in four years. The Griz have earned All-Big Sky honors six times in men’s pole vault, five times in men’s high jump, and twice in women’s pole vault.
Patrick Kremer reached the podium four times in the men’s high jump in his career, finishing runner-up in the Big Sky three times and third place once. Zachary Travis also earned All-Big Sky honors in 2025.
Hegele not only set a school record during his career, but he also reached the podium three times after walking on to the Grizzly program. Hegele was third place outdoors in 2024 and finished as the runner-up in the Big Sky indoors and outdoors in 2026.
Samantha Serex earned All-Big Sky honors twice in 2025, finishing runner-up indoors and 3rd place outdoors.
Fraley has extensive coaching experience at the international, collegiate and high school levels. Most-recently, she served as a volunteer coach at Washington State, where she was in charge of the pole vaulters and assisted with the high jump and multi-event athletes.
Highlights from her time in Pullman include coaching Jacob Englar, the 2022 Pac-12 champion in the pole vault and a nationals qualifier where he earned All-America status. Fraley also coached eight other Pac-12 point-scorers, including All-Americans Mitch Jacobson, Susie Pace and Ashlyn Overby.
Prior to her time in at Washington State, Fraley was a volunteer coach at Southeastern Louisiana, coaching the pole vault and assisting with the decathletes. She coached Devin King to a school record in the pole vault (19-0.25), where he also earned NCAA All-America recognition and qualified for the U.S. Olympic Trials.
Fraley was on the coaching staff for the 2013 World Youth Championships in Donetsk, Ukraine, and was named the 2014 USATF Club Coach of the Year by the National Pole Vault Summit.
For more than a decade, she has owned and operated the Louisiana Pole Vault Compound, where she has trained and developed numerous state champions and high school All-Americans, including four high school national champions. Among them was King, who broke a national high school indoor record in 2014 and placed fourth at that year’s U20 World Championships as a high school senior.
Success as a coach should come as no surprise considering Fraley’s accomplishments as a student-athlete and professional.
Fraley (then Erica Bartolina) was a two-time USA Olympic Trials qualifier in the pole vault and finished her competitive career with a best mark of 4.55 meters (14-11.5). The 2008 Beijing Olympics was the pinnacle of Fraley’s athletic career, as she represented Team USA in the pole vault.
Fraley (then Erica Boren) started pole vaulting in high school as girls pole vault was first introduced, winning the Oregon Class 3A state championship. As the pioneer female pole vaulter at Texas A&M, she was a two-time Big XII champion and three-time NCAA qualifier.
Fraley is a native of Philomath, Oregon, where she grew up on a sheep farm. She lost her eyesight as a baby, but despite being blind in one eye and having limited depth perception, she found great athletic success in the pole vault. She holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Texas A&M and a master’s degree in sport management from Washington State.
She lives in Lolo with her husband, Doug, and dog, Ellie.
