Pole vault camp is more than it seems

Video of students during their final day of pole vault camp at Greenbrier High School.

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Scott Hinds' second pole vault camp drew a couple more participants than in 2008.

This year's camp, held at Greenbrier High the first week of June, had a new wrinkle.

Hinds, a community coach for Lakeside High School's track and field team this year, brought in a personal trainer to speak with the young vaulters about the importance of workouts and the physical aspect of the sport, and also to demonstrate them.

"If they are choosing to be a good vaulter, they've got to really think about their conditioning," Hinds said. "I can't be there 24-7 for them. You don't need a weight room. All that we were doing was with their own body weight."

The camp also included classroom instruction, and taught more than the technical skills learned at the track.

Eight mostly high school-age pole vaulters, boys and girls, participated in the camp.

The vaulters came from Greenbrier and Lakeside, the only two county schools to compete in the event. Until this spring, Greenbrier was the only school with the equipment necessary to field pole vaulters.

Lakeside added a pit this year and was ready to go by the time the season began. The addition of the event bolstered the Panthers' point totals. And they sent a pole vaulter to state for the first time since Hinds has been associated with the program.

"Where we were getting first and seconds in the vault where we never had points at all, that made a big difference in our schedule," Hinds said.

The last time Lakeside fielded pole vaulters was 1995. This year, Lakeside's Michael Borke finished second in pole vault at the Region 3-AAAA meet and competed at the Class AAAA state meet.

"It helped us win a lot of meets," Borke said. "It helped us with a lot of points this year."

Greenbrier's Barret Duncan, a distance runner before the camp, will probably still be a distance runner when he competes for the Wolfpack's track and field team next spring. But he wanted to try pole vault.

He worked on planting and taking off, landing in sand on the opposite end of the runway from the pole vault pit. He tried a few times to sprint down the runway, planting and landing on the large blue pads.

The first couple days of the camp were spent attempting "pop-ups," where the vaulters tried to get their hips above their head.

"It's nerve-racking the first time you do it," Duncan said.

Duncan's teammate, rising junior Gabe Moorhead, also participated in the camp. Moorhead was the Wolfpack's top vaulter as a sophomore. He cleared 12 feet to take first in the Region 2-AAAAA meet and qualify for state.

He finished in eighth place at the Class AAAAA meet. Moorhead moved to the area from Oklahoma, where he said he finished seventh in pole vault at the state meet as a freshman.