Scotty Roth

[vaultmd]

From the Sacramento Bee:

http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/v- ... 5689c.html

In their elements

Granite Bay's Roth brothers feel comfortable in the air or the water
By Melody Gutierrez -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, April 14, 2005

Slumped in chairs around a dining table in Granite Bay, two hungry boys, sun-kissed and exhausted, wait for leftovers.

It's past 8 p.m., but the Roth family has just arrived home from a full day of work, school and sports.

It's a typical night in a not very typical household, where pole vaulter Scott and diver Derek are in the national spotlight.

Scott is a proven pole vaulter who's already won a state championship. Derek's potential as a diver has earned him looks from college coaches, although he has been training for only two months.

On this night, Curt Roth runs around completing chores, like putting away equipment used at his son's track meet in Yuba City. Scott, 16, placed first in the pole vault, but he's not pleased with his 15-foot-6 mark.

"There was a strong crosswind," he explains.

Laurie Roth heats up leftover chicken, topped with sweet sauce, and Derek, 15, begins his homework.

The four start joking about what's more important - sports or homework.

"Sports," Curt Roth yells from another room, just loud enough for Laurie to hear.

"You know that's not true," she yells back, defensive but still joking.

She persuades Derek, a 5-foot-1, 100-pound sophomore, to side with her.

But it's a moot discussion. Important as homework is, the Roths are immersed in sports.

The Roth name has become synonymous with pole vaulting in Northern California. It's hard not to notice, from the pole-vaulting facility Curt built behind their home to Scott's second-best mark in the nation this season.

Scott, a junior at Granite Bay High School, is the defending state champion who nearly two weeks ago got that mark, clearing 16 feet, 6 1/4 inches to win the Glenn Poole Invitational at Oakmont. Then last weekend, Scott vaulted 16-3 to win the Arcadia Invitational in Southern California.

Scott feels he was born to pole vault.

"My first attempt was in sixth grade, and I liked it right away," said Scott, who at 5-9, 150 pounds, towers over younger brother Derek, despite just a 14-month age difference.

Curt Roth held records at Oakmont and Sacramento State in the early 1980s and always dreamed of having a son to follow his path. Dusty family videos from the boys' childhood show Scott and Derek pole vaulting with pool sticks into beanbag chairs.

But Derek didn't take to the sport the way Scott did. Curt and Laurie saw that Derek had a knack for another sport - gymnastics.

"He was extremely muscular and compact," Laurie said. "He would climb and hang from the door jams."

After nine years as a gymnast, Derek was advised by a doctor in December to stop competing. Over time, the growth plates in his wrists had fused together, a painful injury for which he is still being treated.

"I was depressed," Derek said. "I had done it all my life."

Derek tried pole vaulting briefly, but it aggravated his wrists, and he didn't like the sport much anyway.

"But I didn't say anything," Derek confided.

Then, his parents remembered hearing about another gymnast who had tried diving. It seemed like a natural progression. Both sports require elegance and limberness. More importantly, it didn't involve any substantial use of his wrists.

In late January, Curt called local diving guru Dede Crayne, who operates a diving club from her back yard in Rio Linda.

"He called and said his son was a gymnast and his wrists were trashed," Crayne recalled. "The family was devastated. I said, What the heck, and invited him to a clinic. You could just see the talent that is in that kid."

Derek's first few dives were at a Berkeley clinic, catching the eye of Cal coach Ron Kontura and legendary Olympic diving coach Hobie Billingsley.

Derek, with just two months of training, has already qualified for the Junior Spring West National Championships, scheduled for April 29 in The Woodlands, Texas.

He's even giving Crayne's top diver, Miles Smith, some competition. Smith, a sophomore at Capital Christian, is the defending Sac-Joaquin Section diving champ who also will compete at the Junior Olympics.

"I just can't believe it," Crayne said. "I never thought that anyone could give Miles a run. But (Derek) is picking it up so fast. I think he can be one of the top kids in the country."

Which is what his parents are counting on, too. In the Roth house, there is one standard rule the boys have known since they were old enough to compete.

"They have to do a sport year-round, but they can pick the sport," Curt Roth said. "Sports keeps kids out of trouble."

And it might just be the edge to get them into college, he added.

Both Scott and Derek have schools in mind. Scott has had his top three - Stanford, Cal and UCLA - for quite some time.

Curt and Laurie know which schools offer diving scholarships and how many are out there. They've calculated Derek's chances.

"Scotty is guaranteed," Curt said. "Derek wants to go to Berkeley. The diving would get him in (a good school); his 3.9 (grade-point average) wouldn't."

The amount of money the Roths have poured into Scott and Derek's athletics could come close to paying for a college education but not at the top institutions.

Derek's gymnastics training used to cost about $500 per month for the nine years he competed. The poles Scott uses range from $300 to $500, and he has gone through about 25 in the past year and a half.

"There's no college fund; this is it," Laurie Roth said. "You can (finance college) the fun way, where it's a risk. It's rolling the dice. But we think it's worth it."

With Scott already one of the best pole vaulters in the country and Derek on his way in diving, it doesn't seem like such a gamble after all.

[pvpole]

SCOTT JUST VAULTED 16'9" AT JAMES LOGAN HIGH SCHOOL -BAY AREA TOP 8. IT WAS A PLEASURE TO WATCH!

[polevaulter08nw]

scott is the man!