Here's a clue on the "cost" of Pole Vault pits.
Its the first item cut from an budget and T&F is usually the last to be considered after football,soccer,basketball,volleyball, swimming,golf, and cross-country. Yeah, I said cross-country because they have to spend money to cut the grass before a meet! Usually, CC gets very little else.
When I investigated the pits used at our school I found their original age (1980) and the standards were upgraded in 2001 from the original Blazer standards purchased in the mid 60's. Before that, the pit was sawdust and wood, which eventually got a foam chunking in a net-bag upgrade. That's why most high schoolers didn't vault well. In any event, our HJ &PV pits were purchased as "used" from the 1980 MO state meet. If your equipment is now used by 6 grades (HS & JrH) and is 20 years old, it has served out its cost justification pretty well! Even then, most pieces are still good as extra padding. I guess what I'm saying is: If you paid $2,000 for it twenty years ago, don't complain about the replacement cost. Spend the time to ascess what you have and buy quality, not quantity.
We took our old PV pit and turned it into a nice sized HJ pit for $0.
It can be done, just use a little common sense.
