The price of Poles and the effect on participation

[bdc629]

Will the price of Poles decrease the schools participation in the sport as well as hinder the athelete who is trying to jump on his own? I have a daughter jumping now and I myself have come back after 15 years and the only poles I will be able to afford are the ones for her....and I hate thinking how much money I will be forking out over the next few years....LOL....I might as well just pay for college myself then....

[rainbowgirl28]

Will the price of Poles decrease the schools participation in the sport as well as hinder the athelete who is trying to jump on his own? I have a daughter jumping now and I myself have come back after 15 years and the only poles I will be able to afford are the ones for her....and I hate thinking how much money I will be forking out over the next few years....LOL....I might as well just pay for college myself then....

I think the price of poles has roughly gone up at the rate of inflation. There haven't been any notable increases in recent years, just a slow steady climb.

The price of pits has gone up at a higher rate though, since foam rubber is a petroleum product, and once prices come up, they usually don't come back down.

[kev44000]

Buy poles direct from the manufacture and save big $$$$$. I have did that for our high school for years. Also several clubs have good used poles for sale on this site for half off or more. If someone wants to vault bad enough they find a way. This is not a cheap sport for sure.

[souleman]

Yep! Poles are expensive. For yourself you should be able to find used poles that schools or club will just give away for a small donation. There are all kinds of chopped poles sitting in equipment rooms all over and they work fine for us ol' geezers. The daughter is a different story. As long as she is in high school you have to be sure that the pole is high school legal for her to use it in competition. This doesn't mean that you can't put her on a used pole or two. Now for a little perspective. You can see that I am from Minnesota. Up here the average hockey parent spends between $2000 to $5000 a year for their kids to play hockey. They start at this rate around 5 or 6 years old and continue all the way through high school. A good baseball or softball glove is between $100 and $200 and a bat now a days is between $100 and $300. (GEEZ, and you wonder why so many kids are playing soccer now a days). A good bowler will own between 5 to 15 bowling balls all at about $150 to $250 each. So a pole inventory, albeit expensive, is not that far out of line with the rest of the sports. You can also check in your area for a club or outlet that rents poles. We have Flight Deck Athletics up here in Minnesota that has a great rental program. Jump on the masters site and there's a bunch of us there that have had pretty good luck getting "returnees" back to this sport. Later.............Mike

[2-15-46]

I don't even wanna go there...then I'd hafta take blood pressure meds:)