Pole Vault in serious danger of extinction in Utah

[rainbowgirl28]

I am posting this in the general high school forum because I want to raise awareness of the fact that the pole vault could easily DIE at the high school level in Utah.

http://www.sltrib.com/prepsports/ci_3813697

Vault not the same in Utah anymore
By Jim Patrick
The Salt Lake Tribune

The runway for pole vaulting at Juan Diego High School runs north to south. At either end, where the pads, standards and bar should be, there is only concrete.
The cement and steel box where the pole is inserted just prior to vaulting has a heavy metal cover. If you stand on top of the cover, water spurts out from the box underneath.
There hasn't been anybody vaulting here for a while.
Ian Jansen knows it all too well.
The Juan Diego junior looks like a pole vaulter. He has the arms of a vaulter, muscular from handling the fiberglass poles and vaulting himself as high as 14 feet last year.
But he doesn't compete in the pole vault anymore, at least not in a way that matters to his high school team.
Last year, when Juan Diego was in Class 2-A, Jansen's pole vaulting earned points for the team. He placed first at the state meet, earning 10 points for the Soaring Eagle.
Juan Diego moved up to 3-A in the offseason. That was a problem for Jansen, since 3-A no longer counts pole vaulting as an official event.
Utah has a hodge-podge of rules for the pole vault. While classes 5-A and 2-A allow kids to compete at state and earn points for their teams, the three other classes (1-A, 3-A and 4-A) do not.
The schism became official three seasons ago, when, with a concern for safety, superintendents from each class voted on whether to keep the pole vault as an official event.
While the Utah High School Athletics Association insists the move was based on safety, some coaches say the move was more about a competitive imbalance, and money.
"The thing that killed it, I believe, is money," Juab coach Gary Nielson said. "In the Jordan School District, for instance, they have to buy 20 or 21 mats at $5,000 to $7,000 apiece. . . . They weren't
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looking at it on a per-school basis. They were looking at liability issues."
All of which leaves Jansen and other Utah vaulters in a lurch.
"It's unfair to cancel an event because it's expensive," Jansen said. "Essentially, all of track and field is expensive. It's expensive to resurface the track. Used shot puts are $80 apiece. That's the cost of competing." Now, many say that pole vaulting is on the way out of Utah for good.

IN THE BEGINNING

Pole vaulting was doing fine here in the late 1990s. There were no problems with the number of competitors and no one was talking openly about ditching the event.
But, in 1998, Gregory Christian died while helping coach the pole vault at Snow Canyon in St. George. His death caused shockwaves throughout the state.
Davis boys' track and field coach Roger Buhrley said after Christian's death there was a move among principals to get rid of the vault all together. But Buhrley and Viewmont coach Bart Thompson fought the move and pushed for a vote on the vault. Each classification's superintendents would decide whether or not to keep the vault.
Classes 5-A and 2-A were the only classes to keep the vault
Buhrley speculates that coaches voted against the pole vault simply because they didn't have any good athletes in the vault. That, he said, was a combination of lack of coaching and prohibitively expensive equipment.
In state track and field competitions, teams can earn points in events ranging from the 100-meter dash to the javelin. A first-place finish earns a team 10 points, second place is worth less and so on and so forth, down to eighth place, which is worth a point.
Coaches who never placed an athlete in the top eight had little motivation to keep the vault.
"To me, it was like getting rid of the forward pass in football," Buhrley said. "A lot of schools didn't [compete in it] anyway. They felt it was advantageous to schools that put any time or money into it.
"To me, it's sour grapes because I don't know how to coach it. I'm too lazy."
That sentiment was echoed by several coaches.
"Here in Utah, many of the track coaches are joggers and don't want to coach a field event," Juan Diego coach Dan John said.
Especially not an expensive field event.

NUMBERS GAME

David Wilkey, an assistant director at the UHSAA, wants to make it clear: As far as the UHSAA is concerned, safety is the only issue with the pole vault.
"It is a safety issue, period," Wilkey said.
The coaches don't believe it.
"If they were worried about kids' safety, then they wouldn't let girls play year-round soccer, because there's been way more kids with ACL and MCL injuries than from pole vaulting," John said. "Playing year-round is a dangerous thing, but they don't try to do anything about that.
"And don't get me started on football."
John and other coaches don't deny vaulting can be dangerous, but they say the UHSAA would be doing more to protect athletes if it were really only worried about safety.
Of the 41 states that compete in pole vault, six require athletes to wear helmets. Utah does not require helmets. Utah also has no limits on the number of events an athlete can enter, nor does it limit the distances runners can compete in at the state meet. Both measures are intended to prevent injuries caused by overwork.
Wilkey said that the issues of safety and money were intertwined. In regard to helmets, none has been tested and approved for pole vault use by a national testing authority. That would, theoretically, leave the state open to liability lawsuits if athletes that used helmets are injured.
Pole vaulting is a dangerous enough sport.
According to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research, there were 18 pole vault deaths between 1983 and 2004. There were four cheerleading deaths during the same time period.
Each of the 35 vaulting injuries the NCCSIR said was very serious from '83 to '04 was caused by athletes hitting their heads, either on the cement around the pole vault pit or by an accident on the runway.
New mat sizes were introduced to combat the problem. It was perhaps a good idea for safety and a bad idea, practically speaking.
Providing the proper mats can cost up to $10,000 and must be replaced every 10 to 15 years.
"They kind of panicked a little bit and said all pole vault pits must be a new size," Buhrley said. "At the time, we were one of four schools with the proper pits."
Schools like Juan Diego couldn't pay the bill - and more than one coach pointed out their schools had other priorities.
"It got back to me that they've said, 'All we have to do is wait until Roger Buhrley retires, then we can get rid of pole vault,' '' Buhrley said. "Ninety percent of schools would rather get rid of it, take the $10,000 it costs every 10 or 15 years and spend it on football helmets."
Money is always an issue for schools, and it seems especially so in Utah.
Finances have already had a crippling effect on the event.
"The thing is, with all the regulations they've added, it's a huge expense," John said. "At public schools, they just fill out a form. You can't pull over drunk drivers and write tickets for private schools. At private schools, you have to do it the old fashioned way, with bake sales."

EFFECTIVE

Classes 4-A, 3-A and 1-A still have kids who compete in the vault on an exhibition basis.
In theory, anyway. At last year's state meet, there were no 1-A vaulters.
"Instead of giving the vault the death penalty, it's the slow death penalty," Buhrley said.
Others agree.
Schools like Juan Diego are unwilling or unable to come up with money for new pits, so kids have to drive elsewhere if they want to train. Winning heights have come down as a result.
"The winning vault last year for Class 5-A was 12-foot-6," Buhrley said. "The last time that height won was with bamboo sticks."
Nobody's talking about bringing back wooden sticks to make the sport safer. But coaches are fighting a grass-roots campaign to keep the event. Even if it might be a losing cause.
Buhrley expects the event to be gone when he retires and John said the vault will disappear as early as next year. While superintendents in 2-A and 5-A voted to keep the vault, coaches say they wouldn't be surprised if there was another vote taken to get rid of the pole vault.
With javelin also considered a risky sport, coaches are clearly annoyed that the "field" in track and field appears to be falling to the wayside.
"It's going to be like field day in elementary school, pretty soon," Nielson said. "There's only going to be a couple of events and everybody gets a ribbon."
At Juan Diego, Jansen is done winning pole vault ribbons. With his senior year still ahead, he has switched to sprinting events to try to help the Soaring Eagle at the state meet.
As for his favorite event, Jansen has no hope that future Juan Diego athletes will get a chance to soar at the state meet.
"I think it will definitely be gone," Jansen said. "I don't know how long. . . . maybe five years."
---
To write a letter about this or any sports topic, send an e-mail to sportseditor@sltrib.com.

* Of the 41 states that sanction high school track and field meets, 39 compete in the pole vault.

* Utah has state competition only in Class 5-A and Class 2-A, after superintendents voted to get rid of the event three years ago.

* While Utah has seen a drop in participation, neighboring Nevada had more than 500 pole vault competitors last year.

* Of 37 track and field events, pole vaulting is the 11th most popular.

Source: National Federation of State High School Associations track and field survey, 2004

[rainbowgirl28]

* Of the 41 states that sanction high school track and field meets, 39 compete in the pole vault.

* Utah has state competition only in Class 5-A and Class 2-A, after superintendents voted to get rid of the event three years ago.

* While Utah has seen a drop in participation, neighboring Nevada had more than 500 pole vault competitors last year.

* Of 37 track and field events, pole vaulting is the 11th most popular.

Source: National Federation of State High School Associations track and field survey, 2004

What are the 9 states that aren't sanctioned? I know Alaska and Iowa do not have pole vault at all. Any others?

Does Utah have girls pole vault?

Are there any states (besides AK and IA obviously) that don't sanction girls PV yet?

[rainbowgirl28]

This answers a few of my questions above.

http://www.sltrib.com/prepsports/ci_3813696

Lowering the Bar: Pole Vaulting in Utah High Schools
Girls, able, not willing to compete
By James Patrick
The Salt Lake Tribune

Pole vaulting for women became popular in the United States in the 1990s, with American Stacy Dragila leading the way.
The event became a gold medal competition for women in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. The sport picked up at the high school level when opportunities for college scholarships became available for girls who could vault. According to a National High Schools Federation survey for the 2004 track season, 36 states had separate pole vault competitions
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Vault not the same in Utah anymore
for girls.
Utah was the only state to combine boys and girls into one competition.
Not that it ever happens.
Juan Diego junior Ian Jansen has vaulted for three years in Utah. He laughed when he was asked if he'd ever seen a girl competing. Not because the idea is ridiculous, but because he never had.
Brigham Young assistant coach Richard Legas has had several Utah natives compete for the Cougars and earn points on the women's side. Still, he said Utah has a long way to go to catch up to other states.
"I'm all for whatever it takes to get the vault going," Legas said. "In years past, we said women couldn't run more than 5,000 meters. Then, lo and behold, they ran a marathon and didn't die."
David Wilkey, an assistant director at the Utah High School Athletic Association, said the state would be happy to add girls' vault, if enough athletes were interested. Fifty percent of schools in each class must compete in order for an event to become a state competition.
Coaches say they'd have enough athletes if the UHSAA made it an official event.
"Both sides are pointing fingers, saying if you start it, we'll finish it," Juab vault coach Darren Owens said. "Girls are losing out in the meantime."
Losing out on college scholarships, primarily. Coaches say the lack of girls' competition puts Utah behind other states.
As states began adding pole vault in the 1990s, Davis coach Roger Buhrley and other coaches began lobbying for the vault to be added for girls.
It was an effort that fell apart when the state began cutting the event rather than adding it.
"I thought I was on he verge of getting girls' vault, but now I'm worried about keeping what we've got," Buhrley said. "It's pretty rare, [to see a girl vaulting]."

[Mecham]

I almost died reading this post. How can a state with a huge college with 4 guys vaulting 17+ at BYU be close to extinction? It makes me want to move there and get the hype up! Who is with me?

[jumpbackin]

Does anyone know how the coach died at Snow Canyon High school?

Coincidentally, I run sprints at that high school when I visit my parents.

[VaultMarq26]

I almost died reading this post. How can a state with a huge college with 4 guys vaulting 17+ at BYU be close to extinction? It makes me want to move there and get the hype up! Who is with me?

I am pretty happy not living in Utah.....I got a friend from there and from talking to him I have began to understand that there isnt' much to do in Utah.

[rainbowgirl28]

Does anyone know how the coach died at Snow Canyon High school?

Coincidentally, I run sprints at that high school when I visit my parents.

Blew through and jumped over the pit.

[rainbowgirl28]

I almost died reading this post. How can a state with a huge college with 4 guys vaulting 17+ at BYU be close to extinction? It makes me want to move there and get the hype up! Who is with me?

I hope you get a chance to promote the sport while you are out there. Get some street vaults going, put on some exhibitions, whatever. Get kids fired up about the sport.

[distancejumper]

that would suck so much not having polevault. We had a meet in Iowa last year (my schools only 13 miles from Iowa) It sucked so much not vaulting there, then I got seriously sick that night, but that's a different story

[vault3rb0y]

did you really? haha you eat the steak?? I had baby back ribs in utah and was sick for an entire night and day. But anyways, i think thats terrible with utah. You would think in a state with nothing to do, people would be more into pole vaulting. I think its a downward cycle.... as less kids participate less want to, because its not competitive. There needs to be a real spark of interest in utah to get kids into it again, like a ton of street vaults and big competitions held there, teaching kids how to pole vault. Or offer some scholarships to top 3 finishers in the state.

[ec1vaulter]

I don't think that gaining interest among the high school students will bring back the pole vault in Utah. It is a matter of becoming a recognized event at the state level once again. It is most likely a lack of understanding and respect for the vault on the part of the state's governing track and field organization. The motto of this thread should be "Educate, Don't Eliminate!"

[vault3rb0y]

I don't think that gaining interest among the high school students will bring back the pole vault in Utah. It is a matter of becoming a recognized event at the state level once again. It is most likely a lack of understanding and respect for the vault on the part of the state's governing track and field organization. The motto of this thread should be "Educate, Don't Eliminate!"

I agree, but i also think that if there is more interest among the kids that the state might recognize it more as an event that should be scored. This is only my perception after seeing that there arent many vaulters even in the class 5A and 2A. For all i know, pole vault is very popular in utah. But i agree, once we are recognized we will be given our rightful spots on the podiums at utah!