In light of recent death, pole vaulters assess sport’s risks

  Photo courtesy of Zada Foltz-Evans Daily Bruin File
Photo

Pole vaulters like Tracy O’Hara brave
injury or worse in their risky sport.

Jeff Eisenberg
Daily Bruin Contributor

Even in its most primitive stages, the sport of pole vaulting
has always been a daredevil’s delight.

“My dad vaulted with a bamboo pole in vacant lots back in
the ’30s,” UCLA pole vaulting coach Anthony Curran
said. “He would stack up trash barrels and put another bamboo
shoot across the top of them so he could jump over the
bar.”

Nowadays, poles are constructed from carbon fiber and fiberglass
composite materials, and the athletes land in a heavily cushioned
pit.

Nonetheless, the sport certainly has not lost its extreme
edge.

“I think of pole vaulting similar to parachuting because
you are going to be dropping 15-20 feet with nothing strapping you
in,” said Jeannette Bolden, head coach of the UCLA
women’s track and field team. “Once you let go of the
pole, it’s just you and gravity. It takes a special kind of
person to do that.”

To flourish in the sport, pole vaulters not only must have
tremendous strength, balance and coordination, but also a fearless
mentality that separates them from other track and field
athletes.

“When you are on the runway, that is where it’s the
most extreme,” said sophomore Jared Drake, one of
UCLA’s top pole vaulters. “Each day you jump, you
can’t back off. You have to charge no matter what.”

Sometimes that recklessness can have catastrophic
consequences.

Numerous pole vaulters have been critically injured when their
jumps went awry in midair because of a minute technical error. The
threat of an accident can be overwhelming because there is such a
fine line between a successful attempt and potential disaster.

“There are a lot of kids who are very concerned about
getting injured,” said Art Venegas, head coach of the UCLA
men’s track and field team. “If they miss the pit
altogether or if the pole breaks, that is when they have no
control. The human body can only take so much impact.”

Previously unfazed by the life-threatening nature of their
sport, pole vaulters received quite a jolt when tragedy struck the
Big Ten Indoor Championships in Minneapolis last Saturday.

Penn State’s Kevin Dare died after landing on his head
while attempting what seemed like a routine vault that was well
below his personal record. The 19-year-old sophomore seemed to
stall while upside down in midair. He became disoriented and
tumbled backward, headfirst onto the metal box that is used to
plant the pole.

“Pole vaulters have been dying for a lot of years
now,” said Venegas. “While I was coaching at San Diego
State, we had a guy who landed on the cement, cracked his head open
and died. It is really tragic.”

Both Venegas and Bolden were concerned about how news of the
death might affect their own squads. Each coach met with the pole
vaulters on Thursday to give them the opportunity to offer their
own opinions about the accident before Saturday’s meets in
Irvine and Seattle.

“You always have that stuff in the back of your
mind,” said CJ Bell, one of three senior pole vaulters on the
men’s squad. “You don’t want to focus on (the
risk of death) too much, but it happens every once in a while. The
sport is dangerous.”

The threat of injury will always be a factor, but the adrenaline
rush most athletes receive from each jump is enough to keep them
addicted.

Furthermore, the pole vaulting community has recently made great
strides to make the sport safer by reducing the risk of landing on
an unforgiving surface. The rigid, metallic standards are covered
by several inches of foam padding and the landing pits are much
wider than they were in the past.

“I think we are at a very safe equipment position right
now,” said Curran, who was the conference’s top pole
vaulter in 1982, his senior year at UCLA. “We have an
incredible facility here.”

As safety concerns surrounding pole vaulting continue to
intensify, the controversy over whether all participants should
wear helmets has escalated as well. Currently wearing protective
head gear is an individual choice, but the NCAA is expected to make
some sort of a ruling on the issue in the near future.

“Most of the kids are not into wearing helmets right
now,” said Curran, who does not wear one when he competes
either. “They are just unstable on your head. We make a
couple of quick movements in the air where we drop our heads back
and do some tough moves, so it is just a little bit
cumbersome.”

While helmets would reduce the risk of a head wound like the one
that killed Dare, they would do very little to diminish the chance
of sustaining a broken neck, the injury that pole vaulters often
fear the most. Therefore Curran believes that learning to fall
properly is the most effective way to stay healthy.

With all of the safety precautions that pole vaulters now
employ, Curran has to laugh when any current Bruins complain about
the conditions at a meet.

“I’ll tell them that there were guys jumping 15 feet
into sawdust in the ’40s,” he said. “The sport
has definitely come a long way since then.”