Danger and Increasing Costs Ground Pole Vaulters : Track and field: At least 14 Orange County high schools have dropped the pole vault. Others strive to save it from extinction.

“ You know where you’re going -- you can’t see , but you feel it . You’re in a blind flight, you’re floating and you’re weightless. It’s a motion of conflicting forces. . . . It’s changed my life more than anything I’ve ever done.”

--Former Servite star Steve Williams, on the joys of the pole vault.

“Kids just haven’t really (been interested in) the pole vault. . . . It’s a scary thing . . . . I mean, I look at that myself and say, ‘My goodness, I wouldn’t want to do that.’ ”

--John Seeland, assistant superintendent Fullerton Unified School District, on why the district eliminated the pole vault.

In Orange County, as well as across the nation, the pole vault, one of the most crowd-pleasing events in track and field, is in jeopardy.

At least 14 schools already have dropped the event. Others, including El Dorado--once the county’s premier vaulting program--are considering dropping the pole vault, which has a rich tradition in Orange County track and field. The schools cite escalating costs, lack of qualified coaches and concerns over safety and liability.

But others say the decreasing numbers is a tragedy. They say opponents of the pole vault just don’t appreciate the event.

The pole vault, they say, is an Olympic event, one that is an integral part of track and field, one that allows athletes of all sizes and abilities an opportunity to soar--both literally and figuratively--to new heights.

Several of the event’s supporters are trying to save the pole vault, which might not be an easy task.

The Orange County high schools that already have eliminated the event are Buena Park, Fullerton, La Habra, Sonora, Sunny Hills and Troy of the Freeway League; Bolsa Grande, Garden Grove, Kennedy, La Quinta, Los Amigos, Pacifica, Rancho Alamitos and Santiago of the Garden Grove League.

The schools dropped the event, administrators say, because of increasing costs and lack of interest among athletes. Empire League schools dropped the pole vault for the same reasons in 1988.

Although league coaches voted to reinstate the vault one year later, El Dorado--a school that produced the event’s county record-holder (Greg Ernst, 16-feet 6-inches in 1978)--has not. El Dorado Coach Charles Titus said the school has no plans of bringing the pole vault back.

“Besides the cost, the problem as I see it is getting a qualified coach,” Titus said. “It’s hard to find a good coach; I’ve told my athletic director, if you give me the money to get a coach, we’ll have it, but I’m not going to ask one of my assistants to do it--they won’t get near it--and I’m not going to do it. . . . It’s so dangerous (and) it’s time-consuming . . . “

Many coaches unfamiliar with the event are hesitant to teach it. But there is quality, low-cost instruction available.

In addition, the event is not cheap--poles cost $150 to $250 and landing pits are about $4,000--but there are ways of running a quality program much more economically than most think.

And, although some people think the pole vault is as an accident waiting to happen, experts insist the event is safe, only if it is taught and supervised correctly.

A more in-depth look into these issues concerning the pole vault:

COST

For many, increasing costs are the main reason why the pole vault is in trouble. Schools already hit hard by budget cuts have trouble justifying spending of thousands of dollars for pole vault equipment and runways when only a handful of students are interested.

Administrators in the Fullerton and Garden Grove school districts ran into unexpected costs because of a rule adopted by the National Federation of State High School Assns. several years ago requiring a vault’s landing pit to be extended several feet in front of the pole’s planting box.

This meant the schools had to buy a new regulation-size pit or buy add-on portions that would bring pits up to the new standards.

“The cost of the equipment suddenly went out of sight,” Seeland said. “With the requirement to expand the size of the pit, that was really the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

The cost of poles also presents problems. Because athletes use longer and more advanced poles as they improve, coaches complain that they can’t afford enough poles for all their vaulters. In addition, poles break and replacements put further strain on an already limited budget.

But proponents of the pole vault say the complaints are unnecessary, that costs can be cut through proper pole selection and better care and maintenance.

“If the poles are taken care of, and if the coaching is sound, poles will last for many many, years,” said Steve Chappell, manager of Spirit Poles in Carson City, Nev., one of the largest suppliers in the nation.

“The pole is 70% fiberglass, 30% resin. It’s glass. The pole will break principally because of misuse. It needs basic care and prevention. When a kid walks into the science class, he’s told that he’s handling a $200 microscope and he had better take care of it. But you always see the poles on the floor of the bus getting stepped all over by the kids.”

Jan Johnson, a 1972 Olympian and one-time world record-holder in the pole vault, said most coaches do not spend money wisely on pole-vault equipment. Coaches could reduce costs, he said, by utilizing training poles, a heavier, nearly unbreakable model for beginning vaulters that costs nearly half the price of a competition model.

Rick Foster, who coaches the vault at Edison, said he has tried to convince coaches to trade poles to satisfy their individual needs.

“To me, it sounds like a reasonable thing to do,” Foster said. “But no one’s ever interested.”

LACK OF QUALIFIED COACHES

Capistrano Valley Coach Tom White said he’s no expert on the pole vault, so he relys on his two experienced seniors, Tyson Jacobsen and Paul Ipek, to coach the younger boys.

“There’s a lot of peer coaching going on there,” White said. “We don’t have anyone who’s a specialist, and because it has the greatest liability, I (coach) the event. But basically the vaulters more or less help themselves. . . . I think to have a coach with expertise and experience (in coaching the vault) is the exception rather than the rule. It’s really an orphan event.”

But it also has the potential for quality guidance.

Although most programs do not have a coach who has been specifically trained to teach the vault, there is help available.

In Orange County, former UCLA star Anthony Curran organizes clinics each Sunday afternoon, often at Foothill High School.

In San Luis Obispo, Jan Johnson offers a four-day vaulting camp where coaches and athletes can learn all the latest technical information from experts.

Despite the availability of camps, Dave Johnston, an assistant coach at Los Alamitos who has coached world-class vaulters Earl Bell and Mike Tully, said few coaches are taking advantage of the opportunity.

“I held a clinic at Long Beach State three years ago,” he said. “Fourteen kids showed up and only one coach--and I had invited the coaches all through Southern California--for free.

“I think they’re intimidated by the event. To be honest, I think they’re scared of it.”

SAFETY

Although the pole vault appears dangerous, coaches say the only risk is when athletes use improper technique, use poor equipment or compete on bad runways.

“Our facility is about 12 years old--it’s really bad,” Villa Park Coach Dave White said. “It does concern me, yes.”

At Estancia, the pole vault runway got so bad last year that at the team’s final dual meet, the referee told the vaulters that they wouldn’t be allowed to use it again until it was repaired.

“You run on a tilt, it’s so slanted,” said Estancia vaulter Tom Engleman, who has yet to vault this season because the runway still has not been fixed. “It is really torn up; there’s holes in it and when you run, your spikes hit the cement.”

Rick Attig, coach at the University of Kansas and the national pole vault chairman for The Athletics Congress, said the event can be dangerous when apathetic coaches won’t teach the event correctly.

“There are a few coaches around that are extremely motivated,” Attig said. “Most are not. But it’s easy to look around for reasons not to do a lot of things.”

That kind of apathy has left many pole vaulters without any competition.

Estancia vaulter Jake Durnell said he has grown tired of asking if the runway has been fixed yet.

“I kept going out there, but they kept saying it’s not fixed,” Durnell said. “After a while, I dropped out (of track). It was the only thing I wanted to do. Now I’m in a ceramics class instead.”