Back to Work!!

It really wasn’t much of a “vacation” from officiating. My last “official” meet was the cross country regionals, so it’s been about six weeks to my first indoor track meet. But it was “good to be back”, officiating the pole vault at the Muskingum High School indoor meet on Saturday (12/13).

Warmups were to Christmas music (can you really vault to “Hallelujah?) and the kids were excited to be back in competition. We had 19 boys and 14 girls, a good sized meet to get going on.

We used the new warmup rule (don’t get a warmup until after 60 minutes of competition). From a meet management standpoint: only three boys “earned” their two-minute warmup instead of sixteen. That’s twenty-six minutes of warmup time “avoided”, all of which would have been within an hour of the start of competition. The impact: 19 boys, starting at 7′ and ending at 15-3, start to finish in a little over 2 hours. (And I don’t think any vaulter felt “rushed” – though the kids coming in at 12′ were a little surprised at how quickly we got there).

On the girls side, we managed to get from 7′ to 11′ all before the 60 minute deadline. Again, the vaulters coming in at 11′ were a little surprised how quick it came up, well before the 60 minute deadline. No one got a warmup, but that didn’t keep the competition from being fierce, as we had three clear 12′, and a vault off for first (winner went 12’3″).

Vault OFF 11-0 11-6 12-0 12-6 12-6 12-3

Howard O O O XXX X O

Kman O O O XXX X X

Blevins O XO XXO.

Of course, a pole vault competition doesn’t work without great workers – and the Muskingum University track athletes setting bars and standards were outstanding!!

And we learned. One athlete learned you can’t “catch” your own pole to keep it from knocking the bar off. He was surprised when his vault was called a miss, but took it all in stride, easily clearing the height on his second attempt.

And another learned that you have to wait for the official to “call you up” on the runway. She was surprised as the bar fell on her approach, as much as I was surprised that she was vaulting as we fixed the standards. We had a little discussion, then she got a “re-vault”.

All in all, a good way to start the new season – even if we all had to navigate a snowstorm on the way home. We had great competition, everyone had a “shot” at a bar they could clear (only one no height on the day), and we would have beat the 4×400 – if they hadn’t scratched the event!!

It’s good to be back to work!!