Vault verdict in the air

Rick Devereux

The Pacific Coast League dropped the pole vault this season as a

scoring event in track and field after having the event for 30 years.

Teams can still have pole vaulters, but it doesn’t count toward the

team score in league meets.

Corona del Mar High, a member of the PCL, still has three athletes

who compete in the pole vault, but Coach Bill Sumner doesn’t foresee

any future vaulters joining the team.

“I know that if you take out an event, you can kiss it goodbye,”

he said.

The fear that other leagues will follow the PCL and cut the event

is a real one, considering the monetary motives of such a move.

A pole vault pit can run from $6,000 to $15,000 and a pole can

cost between $300 and $500. A pit can last up to 10 years, but poles

need to be replaced at least once a year. That means it could cost a

high school upward of $1,000 a year per vaulter.

“The Pacific Coast League dropping pole vaulting will absolutely

affect other leagues to drop pole vaulting,” Sumner predicted.

Eric Tweit, Newport Harbor boys athletic director, thinks the

technical difficulty of the event has aided its decline.

“It’s pretty hard to find someone to coach a single event when I’m

trying to find someone to coach two or three things,” Tweit said.

“When you’re looking for coaches, you’re looking for someone who can

[coach] both of the hurdles, or the long and triple jumps, or the

shot and discus, because that covers two events. That’s why it’s so

tough because, with the vault, you need a single coach and that’s all

he concentrates on.”

Tweit, who is also the girls track and field coach, has found

Logan Odden to coach pole vaulting. Odden went to Marina High, where

he set the Orange County record at 16 feet, 7 inches as a senior. He

is currently competing for Golden West College.

Odden came in specifically to coach Newport freshman Allison

Stokke. Stokke set a school record and personal best of 11-6 on April

15 at Laguna Hills, won the frosh-soph division at the Orange County

Championships April 24, and beat everyone, boys and girls, with a

jump of 11-0 at a dual meet against Woodbridge at Orange Coast

College April 28.

Odden was introduced to Stokke by Kevin Magula, Odden’s former

high school and current Golden West pole vaulting coach. Magula still

coaches at Marina, but also coaches a club called the High Flyers in

Huntington Beach.

Stokke was told by a family friend to try pole vaulting after she

stopped competing in gymnastics and the friend referred her to

Magula. Stokke joined Magula and High Flyers in December.

Magula is a well-respected coach who has churned out some of the

best pole vaulters in the nation, including Odden and Mission Viejo

High’s Whitney Johnson, ranked No. 2 in California.

“There are certain areas and certain pockets of this state where

you get good coaches and you’re going to see some real good

vaulters,” Tweit said. “Orange County is a real good example of that.

There may not be a lot of schools, but there is a clique of coaches

and a clique of vaulters.”

The addition of the girls pole vault on the high school level in

the mid 1990s has increased participation. But some wonder if that

will be enough to keep the event off the chopping block.

“I know that they’ve taken it out of a few places,” Magula said.

“I think it’s more of a money issue. Hopefully, they can get the

districts involved and realize it’s more of a safety issue than a

money issue and they’ll be able to come up with the money to do it.”

No matter how many participants are involved in the sport, someone

who has knowledge of the proper technique must be there to teach the

athletes. And a shortage of quality coaches is forcing schools to

drop the event.

With budget cuts, schools can’t afford to pay one coach to

instruct one event in a sport where one coach can take on two or

three events.

Costa Mesa and Estancia, members of the Golden West League, do not

offer the event, though at least two in the seven-school league do.

“We’re a small school,” Coach Glenn Mitchell said. “It would cost

about $20,000 for us to [offer the event].”

Estancia boys coach Steve Crenshaw said the school has not offered

the event for more than 10 years.

Another factor for schools who don’t offer the event is liability

and the cost of insurance.

Severe injuries, even death, has resulted from pole vault

competition, thought some pole vault coaches believe the fear of

injuries is overblown.

“I see the problem as not enough coaches who know enough about it

to keep it safe,” Odden said. “I think it helps if coaches just do

the pole vault because there are a lot of things that are going on

and it helps if they are constantly there reminding the kids of the

small things to help keep them safe.”

Whether it be because of money, interest, insurance or coaching,

pole vaulting’s future is uncertain.

“I think, one day, you’re going to wake up and it’s going to be

gone from the county,” Sumner said. “In four more years, there are

going to be a lot more schools like Corona del Mar.”

But that mentality is not shared by everyone.

“I think, in Southern California, the vault is really in good

shape, even though there are some schools dropping it,” Tweit said.

“Coaches want to be aware because they don’t want to have what’s

happening in the Pacific Coast League affect every league. But I

think that if you go to the CIF meets, you’re going to see plenty of

vaulters still around,” Tweit said.

Twiet said with the success of Stokke and the arrival of Odden,

Newport Harbor, which competes in the Sea View League, has no plans

to drop the event any time soon.