Pole Vault Approved for VT High School Indoor Track
Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 4:33 pm
Should have posted this earlier, but we have made one step closer to having the pole vault approved for the New England High School Indoor Track & Field Championships. With all my hard work getting the year-round vault club going in Vermont, I got the VPA (Vermont Principles Association), governing body for Vermont high school sports, to approve the pole vault as an official event for the 2010/2011 Vermont High School Indoor Track & Field season. It was not approved to have the vault contested at the State meet this year since the VPA wanted to see it integrated smoothly into the regular season first. The major issue is space at our limited facilities. Right now only UVM has pole vault equipment and their indoor space is pathetically small. If is wasn't for the support of one of the head indoor track committee members, this would not have been pushed through. There were quite a few people against it for the sole reason of space for all the "other" events, athletes and spectators. I was a bit frustrated to say the least at that reasoning. They basically said pole vault is less important than all the rest of the events. I stayed calm. A highly respected gentleman by the name of Dave Heitkamp, who is an obsessed Track & Filed enthusiast and great coach in Vermont, supported me at the highest level and made it happen.
Anyway... The vault has been the highlight at the last two UVM meets. Not only did I run the event from the start of the meet with all the other events and sharing high jump space, it couldn't have been integrated any smoother. The icing on the cake was the last UVM meet was the largest, in terms of participating athletes, in Vermont history. The spectators love it of course. Everyone stops and watches the top vaulters. The whole place knew when they missed or made their attempts. Just awesome! We even attracted alot of new athletes wanting to learn the vault. I think alot of the coaches and track committee members were very surprised at the "high level" (in Vermont terms anyway) of vaulting we had for the indoor season. Our last UVM meet was pretty far up on the list for high level vault competitions in Vermont. That's compared to our biggest 3 meets of the outdoor season.
I'm sure we'll have it approved for the state meet next year. It helps that I built a raised portable runway so we have the option to transport my entire club setup to a facility that doesn't have the pole vault like Norwich University, which is where we have the state competition and 50% of our regular season meets. For meets outside of UVM, I contest the vault the following Sunday morning at my club's facility.
So psyched the event was such a success for our first indoor season.
So that only leaves Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Massachusetts without the vault for the high school indoor season. Vermont, Connecticut and Maine have it. I would have picked Vermont myself as the state to lag behind on this too.
Anyway... The vault has been the highlight at the last two UVM meets. Not only did I run the event from the start of the meet with all the other events and sharing high jump space, it couldn't have been integrated any smoother. The icing on the cake was the last UVM meet was the largest, in terms of participating athletes, in Vermont history. The spectators love it of course. Everyone stops and watches the top vaulters. The whole place knew when they missed or made their attempts. Just awesome! We even attracted alot of new athletes wanting to learn the vault. I think alot of the coaches and track committee members were very surprised at the "high level" (in Vermont terms anyway) of vaulting we had for the indoor season. Our last UVM meet was pretty far up on the list for high level vault competitions in Vermont. That's compared to our biggest 3 meets of the outdoor season.
I'm sure we'll have it approved for the state meet next year. It helps that I built a raised portable runway so we have the option to transport my entire club setup to a facility that doesn't have the pole vault like Norwich University, which is where we have the state competition and 50% of our regular season meets. For meets outside of UVM, I contest the vault the following Sunday morning at my club's facility.
So psyched the event was such a success for our first indoor season.
So that only leaves Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Massachusetts without the vault for the high school indoor season. Vermont, Connecticut and Maine have it. I would have picked Vermont myself as the state to lag behind on this too.
