Jason Porter climbed into the back of his green pickup truck and
pressed his weight forward, tightening the straps that cinch his two
pole vault poles. He wrestled the equipment alone, the January wind
whipping his face as he wedged the poles between the tailgate and
truck bed while his classmates inside Patuxent High School approached
the end of another school day.
Soon, Porter's indoor track and field teammates would walk to
their locker room to prepare for after-school workouts. Porter,
meantime, would drive 1 hour 20 minutes to Landover for his practice
at the Prince George's Sports and Learning Complex.
"It's so far away," Porter said as he secured the poles to the
truck's cab. "But I'd rather drive an hour to get some practice in
than just sit there and not get any better."
The pole vault has been all but eliminated in Maryland high
schools this school year, leaving athletes such as Porter struggling
to merely practice their sport. After three vaulters died in a two-
month span last spring, the National Federation of High School
Associations for Track and Field ordered landing mats expanded.
Replacement pads cost between $6,500 and $8,000, according to the
NFHSA, and in Maryland only Anne Arundel County decided to spend the
money, basically outlawing the event everywhere else.
The Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association,
acknowledging the cost of replacing or even refurbishing mats at each
state school, eliminated the event from regional and state team
competition. Last season, more than 350 vaulters competed in the
Maryland regional indoor and outdoor meets and more than 125 competed
in state meets.
"There are a whole myriad of problems associated with it," said
MPSSAA Director Ned Sparks, who said the event will be evaluated from
year to year. "If there is an answer to it, we will try to find it,
but at this point in time, it's kind of an event that's taken on a
lot of expense and danger."
The sport still is held in Virginia and thrives in Fairfax and
Prince William counties. Centreville High School has sent five
vaulters to college teams in the past two years, including University
of Virginia freshman David Sullivan, a high school all-American in
2002.
Nine pole vaulters from Fairfax County competed at an open meet at
the Landover complex in December. There were zero from Maryland. They
have a difficult enough time merely finding places to practice.
Porter is allowed to work out at facilities with legal mats, which
limits him to select hours at the Prince George's complex. It also
requires him to make a 116-mile round trip from Patuxent.
After the three vaulters died when their heads struck hard
surfaces outside of the designated landing area, the national
federation ruled that mats must be at least 19 feet 8 inches wide and
16 feet 5 inches long behind the metal box in which pole vaulters
plant their poles and initiate their jump. The previous dimensions
were 16 feet wide and 12 feet deep.
"Me and [outdoor track Coach Valerie] Harrington measured our mats
last week and we were two feet short on the back and the same on the
sides," Porter said. "All of this for two feet."
According to NFHSA assistant director Cynthia Doyle, Maryland is
the only state to change the pole vault's status since the federation
adopted the new measures. Doyle said Utah has considered taking the
vault out of its meets for a year as its schools come into
compliance. Pole vault is not offered at high schools in Alaska, Iowa
or the District, which dropped the event three years ago, citing
cost.
"A lot of people in high schools, I think, are making irrational
decisions by just dropping the sport," said Ed Dare, the father of
Penn State sophomore Kevin Dare, a former Pennsylvania AAAA high
school champion and a junior national champion, who died Feb. 23
competing in the Big Ten Indoor Track Championships in Minneapolis.
"I've been the biggest proponent for increased mat size, and I don't
care about the cost. I hear people talk about it, but that's like
putting a dollar amount on safety. That just doesn't jibe with me.
I'd spend my entire paycheck the rest of my life to have my son back.
"I think they are using cost as an excuse. What they're really
making is a knee-jerk reaction to the issue of safety."
One that leaves Porter spending much of his time driving.
"We all know the Beltway isn't a pretty place," said Terry Porter,
Jason's mother. "Is it safe to force a 17-year-old to the highway to
get to practice something he should be able to do at school?"
Porter planned to make the trip three days a week in the winter
season, but the sports complex is off limits if he does not have a
Patuxent coach with him or if a Prince George's County high school is
using the facility. Sometimes plans change at the last moment.
Once, assistant coach Prasad Gerard was unexpectedly called to
attend a National Honor Society meeting, leaving Porter with no one
to accompany him. Another time he and Gerard arrived at the complex
only to find an unscheduled meet in progress. They turned around,
reloaded the poles and drove home.
On this January day, Gerard walked out of school and got in the
truck, book in hand for the long drive. The two left school an hour
early, just to make sure Porter had time to get in his vaults. But
even then he had less than an hour of uninterrupted practice before
giving way to a 4 p.m. meet.
Porter's practice plan was to move from a 13-foot pole to a 14-
footer, which, when mastered, will propel him to greater heights. It
requires great concentration, which was broken by early-arriving meet
participants carelessly walking across the runway. The ticking clock
and awkward rhythm left him short of his goals for the day.
"It frustrates me because I only have one hour, and to go down the
runway it needs to be all out," he said. "But if you do them too
quickly it wears you out. Once you get tired, everything starts
getting sloppy and it's easy for you to go back to your old habits."
Porter is struggling to improve in an event that has had its own
struggles in the past year. Dare's death came eight days after Jesus
Quesada, 16, of Clewiston (Fla.) High, was killed at practice. Samoa
Fili of Southeast High in Wichita died April 1 during a competition.
Sixteen other pole vault-related deaths have been reported to the
National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research since 1982.
The pole vault dates from the Greeks and Cretans, who used poles
to vault over bulls, but it did not become the running and vaulting
competition of today until 1850. It was a medal event in the 1896
Athens Olympics, and the 2000 Sydney Games included the women's pole
vault for the first time. Maryland high schools have fielded the
boys' pole vault for decades, and the first girls' event was held in
1997.
Calvert County Supervisor of Athletics Brian Stevens said that
before deciding to eliminate pole vault as a Southern Maryland
Athletic Conference event, he and the conference's two other
supervisors weighed both safety and cost. None of the league's 11
schools have equipment that meets the new standards, nor are they
planning to buy it.
"I would like to tell you it was all based on safety, but that
would probably be a stretch," said Stevens, who estimated the cost of
upgrading the mats at the three Calvert County High Schools,
including Patuxent, at more than $30,000. "Everybody knew that it
would be very expensive, so that was in the back of everyone's mind.
But the primary factor was the issue of keeping the kids safe. Pole
vaulting is a very dangerous sport, and there is statistical data to
prove that."
That doesn't keep Terry Porter, Jason's mother, from believing
that the school system has let her son down.
"I'm always worried about him getting hurt, on the soccer field or
wrestling or pole vaulting or even driving for that matter," Porter
said. "But when he's vaulting he's always assured me that if it
doesn't feel right when he's going he won't go up, and I trust that.
But now he can't practice at school. So here's an honor student who
has worked so hard and is capable of earning a scholarship, and
colleges will never know what he's really capable of. It's unfair."
Jason entered an open meet at the Prince George's complex in
January -- winning the high school division with a jump of 12-0 --
but such meets are only offered once per month. In between, all
Porter can do at school is lift weights and work on ground drills
such as practice runs and pole plants. He cannot leave the ground
under any circumstances.
"It would be like trying to teach someone to ride a horse and
sitting the saddle on a barrel," Terry Porter said. "It's not the
same. Until you actually jump, that's the only way you can improve
your heights and master the mental aspects of jumping that high."
Jason Porter, who attended pole vault camps at Slippery Rock
University the past two summers at a cost of $300 per week, vaulted
over 12 feet last season and had his sights set on 14 or 15 feet this
season, a realistic goal for improvement. He has drawn the attention
of three Pennsylvania colleges -- Lehigh University, Elizabethtown
College and Robert Morris University -- as well as UMBC. At one point
last year, colleges sent him letters every week.
"Elizabethtown is still calling, but they're the only one lately,"
Porter said. "The letters have slowed down. I'm not really sure why."
Harrington said colleges have been understanding of Porter's
plight, but she and Porter still worry that a vaulter who can compete
this season will eventually overtake him. Porter acknowledged that he
is not improving as he expected, but said his heights are similar to
those of the vaulters at some small colleges.
"I try to drill as much as I can," Porter said. "But Saturday I
met a boy from Pennsylvania who said that all of the schools up there
are buying new mats. So they have the chance to get better every day,
and I don't. Coaches know what I could do last year, but they won't
have an opportunity to see what I would have been able to do this
year."
Stevens acknowledged that athletes such as Porter have gotten
caught in the middle, but despite recent success of Southern Maryland
athletes (three SMAC pole vaulters won state championships a year
ago), Stevens found only seven athletes from his county returning to
the event this season.
"So we were talking about, at a cost of up to $30,000 to refurbish
three pole vault mats, seven kids being able to participate in an
event that we felt was dangerous? It just didn't seem like it made
any sense at all," Stevens said. "I hate that a potentially college-
bound kid was one of those that got blindsided by this, but we have
to do what makes sense for everyone."
Still, Porter carries on, even as his time is divided between
driving, jumping and dodging stray participants who wander
obliviously across his practice path at the Sports and Learning
Complex.
He said he sometimes wonders if it's worth it. He had to give up
his spot on Patuxent's varsity wrestling team because of the
difficult pole vault practice schedule. He did both sports when
practices were held at Patuxent.
"I was really looking forward to this year as a big improvement
year for me" in the pole vault, said Porter, whose truck ran smack
into the Beltway's rush hour traffic shortly into his trip back home.
When the two arrived back in Lusby, Gerard realized he had left his
car keys and book back at the Prince George's complex. His wife had
to drive him back that night to retrieve them.
By that time, Porter had eaten a late dinner and finally begun his
homework. He hoped to pole vault again two days later, but he wasn't
sure he would have the opportunity.
"This year I haven't really progressed as much because I'm not
getting the chance to practice," Porter said. "It's not the best
situation, but this is still my future. I won't let all the hard work
go for nothing."
As for the future of the sport, it appears bleak in Maryland.
"The pole vault will be a dead issue," said Mark Reedy, coach of
Mount Hebron in Ellicott City. "They won't let any [junior varsity]
kids do it. In a couple years, it will be dead. It will be gone. How
do I go and tell my pole vaulter, 'Sorry, it's your senior year and I
know you worked really hard this summer, but we are not contesting
your event?' "
Staff writer Todd Jacobson contributed to this story.
