Cal High pole vaulting has struggled to find a regular coach since Mike King left in 2021.
The search to find a coach has been difficult, leaving the team with two different coaches and even coach-less at times since then.
But this year, PE and weights teacher Lenard Matthews agreed to fill the coaching vacancy, but the search could continue after this season.
“The pole vault is a very specialized event, and there aren’t a lot of people who know how to coach it,” head track coach Mark Karbo said.
King had been a vaulter at Cal Poly and was with the team for several seasons before leaving after the 2020-2021 season. During the 2021-2022 season, the parents of the pole vault team captain Samantha Contreras supervised the team, so pole vaulting was still able to continue with the supervision of an adult.
During this time, pole vaulting was student ran with only four of the returning vaulters from the previous season. The returners had to step up and teach the newcomers.
With a collaborative effort, the group of vaulters were able to keep the event alive at Cal.
Todd Arnett, a former pole vaulter at Cal Poly, was introduced toward the end of the 2021-2022 school year and became the official coach in the 2022-2023 year.
Arnett had a son on the track and field team but unfortunately, he moved and wasn’t able to continue coaching at Cal.
Not having anyone to coach the team at meets and at practices has been difficult. Since athletes have been put into situations without consistent coaching, they were forced to become self-sufficient.
“It’s been tough and we’ve struggled at meets,” senior pole vaulter Vibha Hari said.
In addition to what athletes miss from working without a coach, roles on the team have been put into the hands of the vaulters and their families, especially the Contreras family.
“As parents, transporting poles should not be our responsibility or Samantha’s,” said Abraham Contreras who has had two daughters compete as pole vaulters for the team. “That is a role all the pole vault coaches in the area are in charge of.”
The equipment is also falling apart and without a coach to request new equipment and poles, much of the stuff used can be a safety hazard.
“I had to go to the hardware store to buy bolts and screws to repair the standards,” Abraham Contreras said.
Standards are adjustable structures that support the crossbar which pole vaulters aim to jump over. Without proper standards the bar cannot be put up.
With Contreras graduating this year, it’s been a question of who will be responsible for transporting the poles to and from meets and keeping up the new equipment if a new coach can’t be found.
Now that Matthews is stepping up to coach the vaulters this season, they are all ready to have more coaching input from someone with his experience.
Pole vaulters believe that it will be nice having another person to assist them.
“I am hoping for more support besides my teammates,” freshman vaulter Gabrielle Oldham said.
Matthews was a former high school pole vaulter for James Logan High school in Union City. He coached track and field for 27 years at James Logan, Foothill, Amador, Dublin, and Cal, mostly focusing on high jump but also triple jump and the long jump.
He had also worked with a national high jump winner and two Olympic head coaches.
Karbo said he persuaded Mathews to come out of retirement from track and field and convinced him to try for one year. Matthews told Karbo to continue to look for a pole vault coach because he has absolutely no plans to do more than one year.
“This is my one year I’m giving him,” Matthews said.
Matthews is only attending half of the practices a week, while the rest of the days an adult supervisor is there while Contreras helps her teammates.
“We were fortunate that Coach Matthews agreed to help us out,” Karbo said.
Although Matthews is not experienced with coaching pole vaulting, he believes his high school experience competing in the event, his nearly three decades coaching track and field events, and his general coaching abilities will help him this year.
“I want to coach them how to coach each other,” Matthews said.
He can teach the basics to the beginner pole vaulters but when it comes to the advanced vaulters they need more specific critiques.
Junior Suhas Balla said when he was a freshman and sophomore, the upperclassmen helped him learn the sport. So coming into the practice with the team having an already set routine, Matthews said he doesn’t want to jump in and change a lot.
“Let them continue what they’ve been doing as a group for the last couple of years,” Matthews said.
The pole vaulting team has built a community and were put in a situation to be the only motivation they had for each other.
“It’s been a really supporting team and really fun,” Oldham said.
The pole vaulters were able to manage with teamwork and have been able to improve even without a consistent coach.
“It was fine I didn’t notice the difference,” sophomore pole vaulter Jacob Woo said.
Matthews said seeing students help and listen to each other has been the best part of coaching so far.
“I don’t care how you learn just as long as you learn,” Matthews said.
With Matthews also being the weights teacher he can teach the athletes how to properly lift for their sport.
As the search for a new coach will continue next season for this unique sport, the pole vaulting team was able to grow the number of vaulters in the past years.
In 2021-2022 there were only five vaulters, this year there are 18.
Pole Vaulting has grown exponentially because of what athletes say is the unique tight-knit community and the support they have created.
The pole vaulting team hopes that they can secure a long term coach soon to assist them in their athletic journey.
