African American Pole Vaulters

[jam354]

One thing that ive noticed is that in a lot of high school programs, coaches throw people who just aren't good in any other events into the pole vault. Dont ask me why this is, thats a different phenomena all together. But if you have a kid whos fast enough to be a good pole vaulter in high school (white or black) unless he specifically wants to be a pole vaulters, the caoches are gonna make him a sprinters. There are more decent sprint coaches in the high school level than vault coaches, its cheaper to develop sprinters, and lets face it, being a pole vaulter is a pain in the butt. I bet there would be a lot less hurdlers if they all had to bring their own 10 hurdles to every meet

I've been coaching fo 4 years now and realize how much other coaches do that. I have even been guilty of it myself. I know when considering a great athlete for the pole vault, I have to take in consideration the fact of how much time it takes to learn and practice and how much time that would take away from them practicing 4 or 5 other events. However, the fact remains that many coaches no nothing of the event, so if you are knowledgable, you can make an average athlete a good pole vaulter relative to the competition in a particular area.

The more I reflect on my decisions on who should be pole vaulters, the more I think about individual success. Let's say I have a girl who runs a 27.0 200, long jumps 17' and runs 60 for the 400. She will be a huge point scorer for my team, but in the grand scheme of things, she is far from special. However, if I make that same girl a pole vaulter, she could potentially be a great pole vaulter with the right attitude.

[xjoeyx]

in sc it seems as if most of the black pole vaulters are really good or not good at all. you have some that are as VTechVaulter said just thrown into it. and you have others like Jaquon Peques who won AA Pole Vault State title every year in high school here in sc and jumped his age twice. He would have in all likelihood set the state record but he jammed his shoulder at the beginning of the year and only cleared 15' at highest although he cleared 16 last year as a junior. But most of the better pole vaulters like Jaquon are also great sprinters or other jumpers. Not very many really have the want to around here though

[achtungpv]

Brown's best was 5.65.

Alain Andji FRA 5.85

Clarence Phelps, Cal, 5.63

Kersley Gardenne, Mauritius 5.60

Marvin Osei-Tutu GER 5.60 or 5.70

Depending on your definition of African...twins Khalid (5.80) and Taofik Laccheb (5.73) of FRA were from Morocco.

Also the UPenn record holder @ 5.52ish I believe.

[nitro]

One thing that ive noticed is that in a lot of high school programs, coaches throw people who just aren't good in any other events into the pole vault. Dont ask me why this is, thats a different phenomena all together. But if you have a kid whos fast enough to be a good pole vaulter in high school (white or black) unless he specifically wants to be a pole vaulters, the caoches are gonna make him a sprinters. There are more decent sprint coaches in the high school level than vault coaches, its cheaper to develop sprinters, and lets face it, being a pole vaulter is a pain in the butt. I bet there would be a lot less hurdlers if they all had to bring their own 10 hurdles to every meet

That is how it is at my school too. Luckily my dad could turn those kind of kids into 14 and 15 footers.

Also if anyone remembers keenan king he was one of my favorite vaulters years ago. Anyone know what hes been doing?

[VTechVaulter]

oh yeah kenan king.. good call pb 5.60. retired after 2004 i believe. dont know what hes doing now.

[nitro]

He was jumping really well until reno that year......

[christopher_cochran]

The pole vaulter at Mississippi College right now is African American-- T.J. Pride.
Here is a video of a pretty impressive vaulter as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DpcYddC ... re=channel

[GreenSilver]

I'm just seeing this thread. I would say that the economic upside of track and field (especially field events) is lower than most of mainstream sports. Many of these young kids aspire to material wealth and fame. Doesn't everyone? It is not the best investment of time to play track and field for many kids, though it is the best sport in the world by my opinion. As a black coach (coaching vault, sprints/hurdles and other jumping events), I can say that I was never identified as a pole vault candidate because my high school couldn't afford to have many pole vaulters let alone lots of poles for each vaulter. Carrying the 10-20 poles to every meet for one pole vaulter is an investment. Buying these poles is painful and hard, but possible if you have money. If your program doesn't have the money, vaulting with one pole won't do for long.

If there were pole vault coaches in communities needing coaching mentors, those coaches could find an outlet for further developing themselves and blessing others in turn through pole vaulting. It can be a very freeing event, because it is so unique and special.

It isn't just black kids that need exposure to other things, especially outside of sports, but children of immigrants and low-income families.

[monteo]

I agree with many of the posts about expectations, I think one of the other big issues is that many African Americans are on the low end of the income scale. Therefore, they cannot afford most clubs, or even have a way to get to the club. That means that often (anyone with a low income regardless of race) they cannot even afford the transportation to the club. Therefore, those that are interested may not express their interest knowing they cannot meet that criteria. So they are "stuck", if they are interested, with the schools programs that are often severely lacking both equipment (such as sufficient poles for a reasonable progression) and all too often expertise. And then lets not forget that most school coaches coach PV only during the training season, so they miss out on most of the year in training that the kids in clubs get. I know at the school where I'm "officially" a coach (I actually coach kids from five different schools at the moment), I can't even get the school to pay for one pole a year, and when the pit wears out, I'll probably have to figure out a way to get another one without school support, and asking the relatively few kids who vault to fundraise for that is not realistic.

I have very high hopes for the one African American kid that I've been coaching for several years now, and hope that his example will pull in more in the future.

[Kayantonio13]

I'm an African American women who asked my high school coach to let me vault. However I'm the only vaulter on my college team and its causing all kinds of issues in my training.

[MMessy3]

I'm an African American pole vaulter and I think the two biggest issues would have to be money and appeal. When I started vaulting in high school there was only one other person who ever did it at our school and he already graduated a few years earlier which meant no one cared about pole vault at our school. It was just my teammate and I and that was it. We started off in the sand pits as we didn't have a mat to go with our pit. We did what we had to do to train but with no pit its kind of hard to see where you're at. The only pit/mat relatively close to us was 45 minutes away and there was no way for us to make it there every day. Going into our second year we were lucky enough to receive some hand me down mats. Although the condition of the mats were fairly bad we found a way to make it work as we already had a pit. Our only problem then was that we still had no standards therefore we didn't know what height we were jumping till we got to a meet. In my senior year we began to blow through our poles and eventually we broke them due to bad technique (pulling on the poles). Luckily my teammate was able to scuff up some money and buy a pole while I rented one from a pole vault camp. So my point is that it is a lot harder for poorer schools or schools which don't support their athletes to get into pole vaulting due to the fact that it takes a lot of money to get the things that us vaulters need. As for the appeal side of things most of our athletes were either football players, people who just wanted to stay in shape and first year track runners. So everyone wanted to be a sprinter and if you weren't fast enough you got sent to do distance work. But no attention was given to us pole vaulting until we started placing in meets. I was able to place in districts and regionals and my teammate was able to make it to states last year so all it takes is some time and effort.
and don't forget...Money