Pole vaulting at Grinnell halted due to recent injury

Grinnell’s track and field pole vaulting event has been suspended after Rohan Thota `28 sustained an injury due to a fall during a track meet on February 15.

In wake of the injury, Luca Fornari `25 has led pole vaulting’s defense. Recruited for the event, Fornari has largely self-coached his way through collegiate pole vaulting. After sustaining a bad injury his junior year, the athletic department closed the program until a dedicated pole vaulting coach could be found. 

The process of finding a pole vaulting coach was a slow one, so Fornari took matters into his own hands, creating job posts on various social media platforms. After much searching, Fornari found Melvin Barney, an engineer at Collins Aerospace and Level 1 certified USA Track and Field coach based in Waterloo, IA. 

Barney vaulted in high school with plans to continue in college, until an injury forced an early retirement. Committed to staying connected to the sport, Barney sought out his track coaching certification. However, when Barney moved to Iowa for a job opportunity, he was disappointed to learn that pole vaulting was banned in high school track and field. So when Barney found Fornari’s posting, he jumped at the opportunity to pursue his passion for pole vaulting. 

When Barney joined the track coaching team at Grinnell, he did so under the temporary mentorship of former Grinnell coach William Freeman, while Barney sought his level 2 jumping coach certificate. 

Together the two worked with Thota, Fornari and Leah Barringer `28, the only three pole vaulters for the Grinnell track and field team, until Thota’s fall at a meet in mid-February. 

“It was a good day. I just PRed [hit my personal record], making top five, so I was really excited, and I just didn’t really listen to my body telling me I was tired,” Thota said. “So on my last run, I didn’t bring enough speed into it. So instead of taking me through and landing on the foam pit, I landed back … and I forgot how to fall, I just landed on my own in my knee.”

Thota sustained fractures in both bones in his right forearm and an ACL tear in his right leg. 

“That was actually the, I want to say, the fourth time he landed on the ground that session without any adjustment made from Will,” Fornari said. “This, [is] like a core thing. I was like, ‘Holy shit, this guy’s actually like really endangering his athletes.’”

Fornari said that when he observed Freeman continuing to push Thota’s abilities, he brought up his concerns with Freeman, then with the athletic department, both of which yielded little response. 

“I was improving very fast. I was making these big strides, and I kept on moving up holds, but my form still remained the same,” Thota said. “Luca was really worried about that. He thought that I was being pushed too hard. I could have spoken up for myself, but I didn’t have that foresight to just say maybe I should stop and maybe I should focus on this, because, you know, it’s a great feeling to start being really good at something that you’ve been good at for a while.”

After Thota’s fall, the department was quick to cut the program, which Fornari protested. 

“I’ve just been telling them to push for it, to ensure a future for the sport here,” Fornari said. “It can be done safely, but it requires proper coaching … What gets dangerous is then when coaches become obsessed with heights and just push athletes too much, especially for the DIII level, to where we’re not like pro athletes.”

For Fornari, an early end to the season has allowed him freedom to enjoy his last few months at Grinnell without athletic responsibilities. But the indefinite halt to pole vaulting has left questions for the future of remaining pole vaulters, Thota and Barringer, and for the track and field team as well.

“By losing our pole vaulters, we lose points at Conference,” Barringer said. “Rohan and Luca would have added on 18 points alone, which is a substantial amount, because it’s like the first and second place.”

Barringer, Thota and Barney expressed that the loss of pole vaulting as an event could cost the track team the points necessary to bring home a conference championship. Barney brought up the additional concern of having athletes from other colleges compete in pole vault at home meets.

“We’re having other schools come to jump as well. Why are we not allowing the students that are on our team to jump when we have people come visit, come jump?” Barney said. “I mean, it seems kind of counterintuitive.”

In an email to The S&B, Jeff Pedersen, head track and field coach, wrote that “it’s desirable for a successful team to field a full lineup in all events” but “it’s not imperative” to do so, especially due to the absence of certain events for various schools in the Midwest Conference (MWC). “There are a variety of reasons for this –– limitations on staff size, fewer coaches with expertise in those events, safety of the event [and] fewer high school athletes with experience in those events,” to name a few. 

“I know most like higher-ups see pole vaulting as a waste, like it’s a liability. You know, why are you doing this dangerous thing? … it’s not just an event, it’s a test of someone’s physical and mental capabilities like no other,” Thota said. “There’s not really any other sport that does that. Just because overall it could be more risky, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. It means we need some other safety measure that we can negotiate on, but just saying outright, we should never do it again –– that’s not right.”

“It’s such an elegant and beautiful sport, there’s nothing like it … when you take the right precautions the risk is minimized,” Barney said. “You’ll never have zero risk but you can minimize the risk. The top priority is do what we can, whatever we need to do, safety will always be first.”

In response to a request for comment to Freeman, Ellen de Graffenreid, director of communications,  wrote in an email to The S&B that “Grinnell College is legally obligated to protect the privacy of students (in this case both FERPA and HIPAA apply)… and will not be able to comment on any individual student.”

She added that Freeman’s coaching philosophy prior to his retirement can be reviewed in his books, papers and coaching video series as he is “a nationally recognized coach and expert on several track and field events.”