Pole Vault Approved for VT High School Indoor Track

[superpipe]

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.

[rainbowgirl28]

Nice work!!

[pistolpete6994]

It might help to get Indoor New England's out of the Regie. We have been there for years and it may be tradition but it is time for another state to get a chance. There are plenty of great tracks all over New England.

[superpipe]

It's official now! I just returned from the VITA (Vermont Indoor Track Association) meeting in Fair Haven, VT and the association agreed to approve the vault as an official event for the season AND the Indoor State Championships permanently. Hard work paid off! Wasn't easy. Currently our State Championships are held at Norwich University. They have no vault facilities. Dave Heitcamp, our head VITA guy and big supporter of my hard work, convinced Norwich to let us bring our entire club setup there. Apparently Norwich was worried our raised runway would damage their track. Dave convinced them otherwise thankfully. I'm so pumped for this indoor season! We have some talented vaulters that should put up some big jumps for this inaugural event. I see a tight battle on the boys side.

Lets go Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Get your butts on the bandwagon so we get the vault contested at the New England Indoor Championships

[master]

It's official now!

Congratulations.

[Barto]

Congratulations! It is the tireless work of people like you who keep our sport relevant.

Mike Bartolina

[rainbowgirl28]

Nice work!

[superpipe]

Well, we successfully finished out the first Vermont High School Indoor Track season with the Pole Vault. It was sick! I had to bring my club runway to Norwich University for our last 3 meets, including the State Meet. Norwich has a nice 200m indoor track, but has zero Track & Field Equipment. Since I had to rent multiple trucks to get our entire PV setup there and back, I also transported the HJ setup and hurdles from the high school I also coach at. Was totally worth it to have the PV setup onsite. We had a great turnout of vaulters at every meet. We averaged 15 vaulters on both the boys side and the girls side each event. We saw lots of PR's and alot of new Club attendance for training. The State Meet was fantastic. Coaches and parents loved the seeing the event. We "wowed" the crowed with great jumps and an Olympic UCS setup. Ed Simon put up the biggest VT indoor mark of 14' 6" so far. Kareligh Manfredi put up the biggest mark for girls at 10' 9". I'm looking to see those marks increase before the indoor season is over. Here's some pics of our State Meet:


Shot from the balcony before the crowd arrived. Place was packed to the gills when the meet started.


Brand new UCS 1900 system I got my high school to purchase 1 year ago. They were kind enough to let me use it at our Norwich Meets. You couldn't get more support for the PV event than I do from the school I coach at outside of my club, Milton High School.


The ultimate raised wooden runway I built for my club.




Karleigh Manfredi, Vermont's #1 high school girls vaulter (Hard to beat a perfect take-off like this)


Ed Simon, Vermont's #1 high school boys vaulter (aka, the "Freak of Nature". Kid literally never practices. We'd have a 16+ foot vaulter in Vermont if he did)