During his acceptance speech, Tully reflected on his 1984 season in which he raised the American record three times in 1984 by a total of two inches from 18-11 to 19-1.

The breakthrough year came after Tully took 18 months off from vaulting after the 1980 U.S. boycott of the Moscow Olympics.

"It was basically like taking three years off during an athlete's best years," Tully said. "It took 18 months to get back to the level I was. Who knows what I could have done if I hadn't taken the time off?"

Tully quickly vaulted into the world rankings after taking up the highly technical event in his junior year at Millikan.

Earl Bell, the 1984 Olympics bronze medallist who introduced Tully during the Hall of Fame ceremony called his former Pacific Coast Track Club

In his second year of vaulting, Tully set the area's still-standing all-time high school record of 16-8 during his senior year in 1974.

Tully, the 1978 NCAA champion at UCLA, was ranked among the top five in the U.S. by Track & Field News magazine all but one season from 1975 through 1988.

The only exception was the season that he took off from vaulting in 1981.

"There are so many people who never discover their talents, I was just lucky to find something that I was good at," Tully said.

Tully has lent his expertise at Los Alamitos High where his brother and former vaulter Steve Tully coaches. Tully worked with Dustin DeLeo during the 2004 season to help him break a 27-year old school record and post the area's best mark since 1996 in his first season of vaulting.