The basic premise of track and field highlights unusual dualities. Like peanut butter and jelly, running and hurdling have been joined by throwing and jumping, meshing athletic talents that underscore singular abilities as well as multiple-event potential.
However, as far as the past two generations of Colorado high school athletes are concerned, there is track, and there is field.
With the notable exception of Widefield’s Rich Martinez, who set the big-school mark in the 1,600 meters in 4 minutes, 10.98 seconds in 1981, nearly every running record at the state meet has been attained in recent years.
On the other hand, almost every competitor who set a state-meet mark in field events could have seen one of his sons challenge it more than once.
If records are made to be broken, where have Colorado’s busters been in field events? Count sports specialization, rising athletic fees, individual training techniques and a short weather window among the litany of reasons the state field records have lasted so long.
Check the list of Colorado bests at championship meets: It was 20 years ago that Aurora Central’s Pat Manson cleared 17 feet, 3 inches in the pole vault. It was 1982 when Arvada’s Jim Banich did 66-3 1/4 in the shot put. Twenty-nine years ago, Westminster’s Todd Austin hurled the discus 192-5. The longest triple jump belongs to Harrison’s Vic White, who went 51-0 1/4 in 1973.
Buena Vista’s Matt Hemingway (7-2 1/4 in the high jump, 1991) and Montbello’s William Henderson (24-5 1/2 in the long jump, 1995) are the most recent to set state-meet records.
“Years ago, everybody went out for everything,” veteran Montbello coach and former Manual star Don Gatewood said. “There’s a lot of pressure being put on kids now throughout the country. These football coaches, even some track coaches, are wanting kids to specialize. That’s all they do for 12 months a year, and that sport is hurting another sport.”
Longtime Smoky Hill track coach Mark Cooper pointed to high – and getting higher – athletic fees. There’s also less glamour in the field events. There are more running events, and the techniques taught in field events are more difficult to receive or implement, and they take a huge commitment.
“It takes a tremendous effort to run down the runway and coordinate your spot to go 16-17 feet in the air,” said Cooper, who is in the middle of three generations of a pole-vaulting family. “It’s highly technical. You have to be able to have body awareness and coordination, be able to control your speed and strength aspects.”
Even if field events were more accessible in terms of availability and coaching, who’s to say competitors would be able to come close to the state-meet marks? Those guys were good.
“When you look at the difference, I don’t think it has to do so much with technique,” said Rhonda Blanford-Green, a former track and field star at Aurora Central and the University of Nebraska. “I just think some of those kids who set those records were that good. They’ve set the bar so high, and they went on to be national champs in college. We’ve had the blessing of having some star athletes in those events.”
Cooper agreed: “What Manson did was truly amazing and that still ranks as one of all-time bests in high schools to this day … (All of them) were tremendous marks.”
Manson went on to Kansas, the Pan Am Games and the professional circuit. He recently cleared 18 feet for the 21st consecutive year, a world record.
“Really, a lot of things have to happen, even if you’re a gifted athlete with a gifted coach,” Manson said. “Everything could be just right for you … then it rains. Those things just don’t come together very often.”
Other factors in the state records standing the test of time include Colorado being a cold-weather state with a short prep season, less interest by the local media and the dropping of middle-school programs and field days by high schools for lower levels. The stands for meets, save for the state championships, can be as open as Colorado’s Eastern Plains.
“But if you have the opportunity to get to a big-time meet out of state, even on the high school level, go,” Gatewood said. “Go to Texas. The stands are full … (but) there’s the weather problems and we don’t have anything going here on the college level, and there’s not enough track on TV. If it’s Big 12 basketball, it would be on TV. Our kids don’t really know what’s going on.”
Hemingway is one of the handful of Coloradans to clear 7 feet and was fortunate enough to have done so at the state meet. He also is tied for sixth nationally all time (7-4). Only one pole vaulter (Smoky Hill’s Josh Oberleas, 16-4, 2003) has come within a foot of Manson on championship day, although the beginning of the 2006 finals Friday and Saturday in Lakewood (Classes 5A-4A) and Pueblo (3A-2A) may hold hope for new names atop the elite list.
Recently, Cooper’s son, Kirk, a senior at 5A Smoky Hill bound for Kansas, cleared 16-5 in the pole vault, the second-best mark in state annals, and 3A Faith Christian’s Ian Lettow, a junior, unleashed the discus 184-3 to crack Colorado’s all-time top eight.
Both have impressive bloodlines. The younger Cooper, whose grandfather, Don, was the first collegiate vaulter to clear 15 feet (in the 1950s) and father was the school-record holder at Wheat Ridge, is on a roll and has a legitimate chance to approach the record.
“I’m not going to put a limit on anything,” Kirk Cooper said. “I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, but it’s up there.”
Said Manson, who will be in attendance, right next to the pole vault pit, “I hope he pops a big one.”
Lettow’s grandfather, J.C., was Iowa’s state champion in the early 1950s, and his father, Kris, also his coach for the Eagles, was a standout high school athlete in California before earning All-America honors at UCLA and competing in the Olympic trials.
“State records are not the main focus of my throwing,” Ian Lettow said. “It’s in the back of my mind, I guess, but I try to concentrate on my technique and whatever happens, happens. It would be nice to get a record, but it’s not my main focus.”
Staff writer Neil H. Devlin can be reached at 303-820-1714 or ndevlin@denverpost.com.
