No small amount of controversy surrounds prep pole vaulting in Utah County.
Although pole vaulting is scored toward the track and field state meet team results in 5A and other classifications, the event doesn't count in 4A — the classification of nearly every Utah County school.
Opinions vary widely regarding the real reason for pole vaulting's exclusion from the 4A team scoring.
What's undisputed is that Class 4A schools (with each school allotted votes for its principal and boys track coach) decided a few years ago that the event wouldn't count toward the team results at the track and field state championships.
The rationale of those in favor of the decision is essentially that the cost of codifying adequate safety precautions for pole vaulting would be too much for most schools to stomach.
"They changed the specifications a few years ago on the pits and different technical aspects of the pole vault equipment," said Springville coach Jeff Wales. "That made everybody have to get in compliance, which is extremely expensive. We had no equipment for pole vault, really. So we'd have to buy all new; it was too expensive.
"The liability is tremendous nowadays in the pole vault. You have to have a certified coach to do it at your school. It's very hard to find pole vault coaches, because if you don't have somebody that knows what they're doing it's very dangerous to have a novice out there trying to show these kids what to do."
Mountain View coach Dave Houle, however, doesn't see it as an issue altruistically fueled by concern for the safety of athletes.
"When we don't have pole vaulters, they include the event," said Houle. "But then this year, when we have some of the best pole vaulters in the state, they keep it out.
"The UHSSA allows the coaches to vote on what events they want. If you let us vote as coaches, we'll vote whatever we're the weakest in.
"I just struggle that we as coaches can select what event we want and what we don't want. In those decisions, for me, you should have a committee of coaches.
"Their arguments, it's the kind of thing that bugs me. If it's not safe, then don't let anybody do it, and don't let them jump at state. If it's a safety issue, then make it a safety issue, across the board and affecting (all classifications)."
As Houle notes, the 4A pole vaulters will actually vault at the state meet even though the results of their efforts cannot be counted towards the team totals.
Next year, with Mountain View's move to 5A, Bruin pole vaulters will count toward the team score. That prospect of "next year," though, offers little consolation to Houle in the meantime.
"Sure, next year we're moving to 5A and they'll score it, but that doesn't do us any good for this year," said Houle. "We think we could score 24 points at state (in pole vault). If we lose state by 23 points or less, it's going to be because they decided not to count the pole vault."
Caught in the middle of the debate are the actual pole vaulters, the athletes with the gumption to purposely propel themselves high into the air in the name of competition.
Bob Kittell empathizes with the plight of the 4A pole vaulter. In addition to being Mountain View's pole vaulting coach, Kittell is the father of two Bruin pole vaulters (junior Thomas and freshman Bobby) and uncle of another (Michael Davis).
Said Kittell: "The kids will sit there and go, 'It doesn't score dad, so why bother? We can't help the team.' "
Kittell, who pole vaulted in high school and continues to compete at masters track meets, is such an enthusiast for his sport that he owns two of the four certified pole vault pits in Utah County — the one in his back yard, and the extension pit he loans to Timpview. (The other two belong to BYU and Mountain View). As such, it's no surprise that Kittell pins the student athletes as the biggest losers in the ongoing tug-of-war over the fate of pole vaulting in local high schools.
"I just think there's a whole bunch of kids that could be excelling at something, that they could get scholarships to something, that could have this great feeling of self worth for something, and they're not getting that opportunity because either they're not exposed to it or they just don't have an opportunity to do it," he said.
"Then the kids who want to do it, they may only get to do it a few times. This is an event where you want to be safe and make sure that the kids have plenty of practice and supervision."