FRESNO, Calif. -- Pole vaulter Cornelius "Dutch" Warmerdam, who was the first man to clear 15 feet and held numerous world records, died November 13 after suffering from Alzheimer's disease. He was 86.

Warmerdam cleared the 15-foot mark at a meet in Berkeley on April 13, 1940, and continued to raise the bar and soar to new heights as his records stood for more than a decade.

No other athlete cleared the bar at 15 feet for 11 years, a time in which Warmerdam set indoor and outdoor records using a bamboo pole.

In May 1942, he set the outdoor world record of 15-7¾ at a meet in Modesto, a record that stood for 15 years. In March 1943, he set the indoor mark of 15-8½ at the Chicago relays.

Warmerdam won the James E. Sullivan Award from the AAU as the nation's outstanding amateur athlete in 1942 and was voted pole vaulter of the century last year by USA Track and Field.

He joined the Navy in 1943 and later settled down in Fresno to start a family, coaching track and field at Fresno State.

"In all my childhood, we never went anywhere somebody didn't recognize our last name and stop and talk about his pole vaulting," said Barry Warmerdam, the youngest of his five children. "It donned on me when I was 15 that my father was more unique than I gave him credit for."

Warmerdam was discovered when his high school coach lured a sporting goods merchant to see Warmerdam vault at his homemade pit on the spinach and fruit farm where he grew up in nearby Hanford.

Word made it to Fresno State coach J. Flint Hanner, who went to the farm to see the teen for himself. Two weeks later, Warmerdam was on the college team.

Of all his accomplishments, however, Warmerdam never had a shot at an Olympic medal. The games were canceled in 1940 and 1944 because of World War II.

"That was the only goal he didn't reach," said Juanita Warmerdam, who met her husband in 1937 and married him three years later. "He had all the world records, but he never got there."

Warmerdam coached at his alma mater until 1980.

Two-time Olympic decathlon gold medalist Bob Mathias remembered seeing Warmerdam for the first time when he was in high school.

"I was a teenager, and he was a hero," Mathias said. "I didn't go up and talk with him, but I remember thinking I was standing near someone who was larger than life."