Pole Vault in serious danger of extinction in Utah
Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 8:36 pm
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
Related Articles
Lowering the Bar: Pole Vaulting in Utah High Schools
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
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
Related Articles
Lowering the Bar: Pole Vaulting in Utah High Schools
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