I had the privilege of officiating the pole vault at Ohio’s OHSAA 7th and 8th Grade State Track Championships Saturday. It always fun to officiate the vault, but what made Saturday different, was motivation. The officiating crew was highly motivated to give the athletes their best efforts. The pole vault pit crew did a fantastic job under some of the toughest vault conditions I’ve seen. And, the coaches and kids were intense, excited, and directed – after all, it was their State Meet!
The weather wasn’t the best for pole vaulting: wind gusts of up to thirty miles an hour, with a pretty constant fifteen to twenty blow. That was the bad news – the good news was that it was blowing right down the runway, at the vaulters’ backs. So if they could harness the energy, their vaults could be even better.
And for the “pit crew” from Hilliard Darby, it meant that almost every “bar” had to be held up, braced by the “bar lifters” until the last second when the vaulter left the ground, then swung back like an old rocket launch pad gantry so that the bar was “free” when the vaulter actually cleared it. Let’s see, 54 total vaulters, an average of six vaults per athlete, that’s 320 some vaults. Bar placed and held, standards set, then bar released at the last second, over and over again – they were fantastic!!!
And my admiration goes out to the coaches, most of whom made the significant adjustments to approach and takeoff for the wind/force on their vaulters. Only 4 vaulters in the competition failed to clear a height. In my long coaching experience, making those adjustments is hard enough with seasoned “veteran vaulters”, much less middle schoolers.
And as for us two pole vault officials: hang onto your papers. I had to remove my “meet credentials” hanging around my neck – every time I looked up the runway it blew circles in attempted asphyxiation!! And every vault had to focus on the bar – was the pole “released properly”? When did the force of the wind, as the rule says, “disassociated from the vault” take over? At what point did a vaulter clear the bar successfully, and then the wind blew the bar off, or the pole into the bar? It was “THE CALL” all day long.
There are lots of “formations” for officiating the pole vault, depending on how many officials are available. But if there is just one or two, the setup is straight forward. If only one, the official needs to stand “up the runway” from the pit so he/she can visualize the box, the bar, and the vaulter. Any other position “gives away” too much of the action. And if there are two, especially in a large field like this meet, one handles the “paperwork”; calling the order, “coordinator the runway”, and keeping the record (and the time). The other one has the “easier” job of “pit boss”: calling the actual vault, making sure the pit is ready, and measuring the bar. That second is in front of the pit like a single official, only with less paperwork.
My officiating teammate Tom and I shared the load: I took coordinator for the boys and he took the “pit boss”, then we switched for the girls.
My “secret plan” to determine whether a pole has been “properly released” is pretty simple. If I was able to visualize the whole crossbar (as I often am at the High School State Track meet with a four/person officiating crew) then I can see exactly what actions the vaulter makes to “properly release”. But from the position in front of the pit, the vaulter, and then the pole itself, often hide arm actions. So I then watch the action of the pole after “release”, how far does it travel towards vertical.
My “call” is: if the pole reaches vertical it’s very likely to be a good vault. Once it’s vertical, then “disassociated forces” certainly could play a role: rebound off of the box collar (happened twice on Saturday), or our “friend” the wind. But if the pole doesn’t reach vertical, then the fate of the vault is “At the mercy of the Pole Vault Gods!!”. If the pole doesn’t knock the crossbar off, then it’s still a good vault. If it does, then it’s a miss.
“Properly release” became a bit of contention for one coach. In good faith, (and less vehemence than I had back in my coaching days) he believed that any effort to release the pole away was a “proper release”. And he wanted to show me the video of his athlete making that effort. But under National Federation Rules, he would be ejected for “unsportsmanlike conduct” for that; and I stopped him from showing me. (He didn’t know that rule, and was grateful for the warning!).
It happened to his athletes three times: the vaulters cleared the bar, then released the pole. It moved slightly away from the bar, then banged back in, knocking it down. In each case I called the vault a “miss”. What made things probably worse, was that another vaulter close in the order did the same thing, leaving the pole literally “on the bar”. But the pole fell to the side, and the bar remained up – a “good vault”. The “Pole Vault Gods” were friendlier to her.
Agree or not, he made the coaching adjustments and encouraged his athlete to make more of an effort to “properly release”. And they did. The misses didn’t affect his better vaulter’s fourth place in the State. And, after the competition, the coach genuinely was interested in understanding how we made the call. Everyone left the windblow runway of Hilliard Darby in good spirits.
I try to learn something from every meet. Saturday, I learned from my officiating colleague Tom Weaver, another effective way of doing five-alive, and the calming presence he made as the Pit Boss. And I learned that coaches, just like I used to be, get fired up and excited, then usually “chill out” when they get a reasonable explanation.
But mostly I saw the perseverance of middle school kids, in a difficult situation, who, as the saying goes, “Came to Play”. It was a great meet to be a part of.
Ohio Pole Vault Safety 