Any lawyers in the house?

[miniwhinny]

I need some advice/opinions on something...

say your 15 year old son had a pole vault pit on your land and the local MS and HS kids wanted to come vault there. What's the liability? Even with a disclosure and you going to be putting yourself in a bad situation for getting sued if someone gets hurt? What about your homeowners insurance if they found out you had a pit that others were using almost as a club? Is it just not worth the risk - everyone I've spoken to said you'd have to be crazy to even think about it ????? If you know ahead of time that pole vaulting can be dangerous and you knowingly let kids use a pit without supervision are you in trouble...if you spervised would you be in more trouble if something happened? Would you do it?

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

[rainbowgirl28]

I need some advice/opinions on something...

say your 15 year old son had a pole vault pit on your land and the local MS and HS kids wanted to come vault there. What's the liability? Even with a disclosure and you going to be putting yourself in a bad situation for getting sued if someone gets hurt? What about your homeowners insurance if they found out you had a pit that others were using almost as a club? Is it just not worth the risk - everyone I've spoken to said you'd have to be crazy to even think about it ????? If you know ahead of time that pole vaulting can be dangerous and you knowingly let kids use a pit without supervision are you in trouble...if you spervised would you be in more trouble if something happened? Would you do it?

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

You want to register as a USATF Club: http://www.usatf.org/clubs/benefits/

For a backyard pit you have to send them pictures proving it's a safe setup before you can be covered.

Once you are registered as a Club, anyone who wants to jump needs to register with USATF, and you need to register your practices, and you need to register as a coach and do a simple background check, then it will be covered.

Liability varies by state, just jump through the Club hoops and you'll be in much better position. I can guarantee your homeowner's insurance will not cover it, and that failing to supervise would make you more liable, not less.

[miniwhinny]

Thank you.

I appreciate the advice.

Sounds like the easiest thing to do is - not do it for liability reasons. Guess we'll just vault in HS season.

Thanks

[rainbowgirl28]

Thank you.

I appreciate the advice.

Sounds like the easiest thing to do is - not do it for liability reasons. Guess we'll just vault in HS season.

Thanks

Vaulting in the backyard with no coach will just teach bad habits

[miniwhinny]

Yeah but what do you do? I couldn't register as a coach I'm not a vaulter and there are no clubs in Central Oregon at all ! It's hard for kids who want to train longer than a few weeks a year. I was trying to think of what they could do that would be slightly possible.

[Tim McMichael]

One of the things that USATF does really well is support the formation of clubs. The insurance they offer is more than adequate, and the process is relatively painless considering what is provided. The price of a USATF card and fifty bucks to register your club provides a million dollars of insurance. Not bad. Add that to the fact that pole vaulting is a safe sport if taught properly and you have little to worry about.

[VaultPurple]

My teammate in high school had a pit at his house and his dad did not have any insurance on it. However our pole vault coach did not have a place to run camps out of during the fall, so he ran them from this guys house. And the coach has a million dollar insurance policy that he can add different locations to, so he just added my friends property. I don't know where he got the policy from but it was not as a USATF club.

[miniwhinny]

If I could find a coach for them it may be worth it but I don't know of anyone who could coach the kids and as was stated above...don't want them picking up bad habits because they aren't getting any instruction. It's that or I drive 7 hours round trip to a PV club in the "big city".

Hey, what's life without a challenge lol

[KirkB]

If I could find a coach for them it may be worth it but I don't know of anyone who could coach the kids ...

If you're looking for ideas for your son and his friends to have fun and improve their PV performances for the next school season, you could set up some gym equipment in your back yard ... highbar, rings, rope. Drills on this equipment are essential to PV, and some drills are even BETTER than actual pole vaulting. Perhaps the liability is still the same issue, but the chances of injury is far less ... provided the kids don't do any crazy stunts on the equipment.

Compared to PV, it's also easier to learn to do the drills properly just by watching videos and listening to the advice we provide about them on PVP. There's also some excellent professional DVDs available - from Rick Baggett and from Alan Launder - that explain how to do the drills. Not that a gymnastics coach wouldn't be good, and supervision is ALWAYS advised, but it doesn't take as much technical know-how to coach or supervise these drills as it does to coach PV.

In addition to this, maybe you can send your son to a PV camp, and he'll come back with all sorts of ideas for gymnastic drills? You're close to Rick Baggett's facility in Portland http://www.willamettestriders.com/, and there's also Jan Johnson's camps in Atascadero California http://www.skyjumpers.com/ that are quite good - and emphasize gymnastic drills.

Just an idea.

Kirk

[rainbowgirl28]

Buy a copy of From Beginner to Bubka and Isinbayeva too and learn how to coach

[miniwhinny]

Thank you all so much for all of your help and advice. I didn't realize that the drills were so important. I'm in the process of setting up some high bars so if nothing else there will be that option. I guess a yard full of rings and bars would be just as much fun and help.

I'll check out the vids you suggested also.

Thanks everyone.

[KirkB]

Those DVDs ... and the BTB2 book ... would make a great birthday present.

And toss in a couple T-shirts from PVP.

Kirk