|
INDIANAPOLIS – Scott Roth’s summer itinerary is enough to give a travel agent a bad case of the heebie jeebies. Since the first of June, Roth’s been commuting from his hometown of Granite Bay, California, to places like North Carolina, Morocco and Indiana.
Complicating Roth’s peregrinations is his traveling companion. The Lone Ranger never went anywhere without Tonto. Beavis and Butthead were inseparable. Mention Trinidad, and Tobago’s never too far behind. And everywhere Roth goes, a fifteen-foot, seven-inch pole is sure to follow. Roth is the premier prep pole vaulter in the nation this year. He’s also one of the world’s best young vault specialists. Born June 25, 1988, in Roseville, Calif., to Curt and Laurie Roth, Scott checks in at 5-feet-10 and 150 pounds. The Roths told their sons, Scott and Derek, that they had to compete in a sport year-around. “If they were involved in sports, they were less likely to get into mischief,” said Curt. Derek, younger by fourteen months, started out as a gymnast but switched to diving due to injuries. He qualified for last April’s Junior Spring West National Junior Championships at The Woodlands, Texas. Baseball and soccer were Scott’s first sports. In sixth grade he took up pole vaulting, much to his dad’s delight. Curt Roth was a 16-4 vaulter at Sacramento State in the mid-1980s. “I coached him from the very beginning,” Curt said proudly. Granite Bay lies about twenty-five miles east of Sacramento. Some homes there have above-ground pools while others feature basketball goals at the end of the driveway. The Roths’ backyard is the only one that includes a vaulting facility. Scott came into his own in 2004, winning the vault at the California state meet. His season best of 16-4 topped all high school sophomores throughout the nation by a whopping ten inches. Last April 30, Roth cleared the 17-foot barrier for the first time with a mark of 17-1 at the Meet of Champions in Sacramento. Back in Sacramento on June 4, he repeated as state champ with a meet-record 17-1 performance. Two weeks later, Scott and Curt flew to Greensboro, N.C., for the prestigious Nike Outdoor Nationals. They changed planes in Chicago, and Scott’s poles wouldn’t fit on the Greensboro-bound flight. The airlines promised to make other arrangements, but long after the Roths reached their final destination, Scott’s poles were nowhere in sight. Track and field is rife with horror stories about transporting vaulting poles. At a foreign airport years ago, an American vaulter found his pole at baggage claim in two pieces. To make the pole fit in the plane’s cargo bay, a baggage handler had neatly sawed it in half. Over the next few days at the Greensboro airport, the Roths kept trying to track down Scott’s missing poles. “We went from one counter to another, and hardly anyone could help us,” said Scott. “They sent us upstairs and then they sent us downstairs, talking to different people. It was crazy. You can always borrow another one, but you can’t do your best with someone else’s pole. You really want to have your own.” The poles finally arrived the night before the vault competition. Roth finished first, upping his personal best to 17-2.25 and solidifying his rank as the national high school leader. USA Track & Field named Roth to the United States squad for July’s World Youth Championships in Marrakech, Morocco. Roth’s roommate was Jordan Scott of Oconee County High School in Watkinsville, Ga. Also a rising senior, Jordan (left in photo below) had placed third at the Nike meet and had a season best of 17-0. The two vaulters knew each other from the 2004 U.S. Junior Olympics in Eugene, Ore. “We talked for a while in Eugene and we seemed to have a lot in common,” said Roth. “The next time I saw him was this year at Nike, and we were rooting for each other. Pole vaulters are good like that. We pull for one another.” Shortly after arriving in Marrakech, illness struck several members of the American squad, including Roth. “It was a travelers bug, the kind you get from food or the water,” Roth explained. “I was sick for a few days, really sick. I couldn’t even walk across the room. I had chills and I was lying in bed with a ton of blankets on me. I was still freezing.” Jordan Scott hovered over his stricken roommate like Florence Nightingale. “He helped me out quite a bit when I got sick,” said Roth. “He would come every time I needed help, and when I got cold he threw more blankets on me. All the time he had a look on his face like, ‘Are you okay? Should I call the doctor?’” Jordan eventually summoned team medics, who helped Roth recover in time for the July 17 competition. Jordan went out at 16-6.75, good for fifth, while Roth went down to the wire with China’s Yang Yansheng for the gold medal. Roth and Yang both cleared a meet-record 17-2.75, but Yang was awarded first place on fewer misses. “When I came into that meet, I just wanted a medal,” said Roth. “When there were three guys left and I knew I was going to medal, I was pretty excited. The only thing that wasn’t satisfying was when I thought about how close I came to being a world champion. That would have been great. But I got a silver and jumped a PR.” Roth also made an impression on team media liaison Melvin Jackson. “He’s dedicated to the pole vault,” said Jackson. “He seems very humble for someone with so much talent.” On July 28, Roth was in Indianapolis for the Junior Olympics, where he and Jordan Scott stood out in the vault field like Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio at a local dinner theater. Competing in the Junior Olympics after Marrakech may seem anticlimactic, but not to the Roths. “It was kind of my call, to try and keep him motivated,” said Curt. “I figured if he goes to Juniors next year, he won’t come here. This gives him a shot at the meet record.” As his son warmed up, Curt watched from the sidelines while Laurie sat in the stands and Derek went next door to check out the famed Indianapolis Natatorium. With a thirty-three-man field, Roth cooled his heels for more than four hours before making his first attempt. “Luckily, I had someone to talk to,” said Roth. “Jordan, of course. We just sat in the shade and talked about stuff like other vaulters and different guys we met. We talked about Morocco a lot. That was a really good experience and we came back with a lot of good memories.” Easy to spot in their national team singlets, Roth and Jordan stayed in the shade until just before 2:00 p.m., when the bar reached 15-11 and only nine vaulters were left. By then Curt Roth was fretting quietly. “I’m fairly confident he can get 5.22 [17-1.50],” said Curt. “Then I’d like him to do 5.26 [17-3.25], but he’ll want to do 5.30 [17-4.75]. He’s 17 and he’s starting to get his own opinions.” Jordan Scott cleared 15-11 on his first attempt, but Scott Roth needed a second try. With just Roth, Scott, Phil Hanson and Jonathan Hall left, the bar went to 16-5. Roth and Scott needed just one attempt, while Hanson and Hall bowed out. Hanson earned the bronze on the countback. Officials raised the bar to 17-1.50, higher than the meet record of 16-6 by Patrick Frederick in 1986. Again, Jordan cleared it on his first try for a PR while Roth took two tries. That turned out to be the deciding factor. The bar then went to 17-4.75, a height neither Roth nor Scott was able to clear. Jordan was awarded first place on fewer misses. “We both had some good attempts at 5.30 [17-4.75],” said Roth. “But you only have so many jumps.” Roth said he wasn’t thinking about beating his old friend and roommate. “When we set that meet record, he was happy for me and I was happy for him,” said Roth. “I was pretty happy with a meet record and a silver medal.” After the competition, the Roths remained in Indianapolis for a few days to do some sightseeing. Curt said his son’s next outing will be in Clovis, Calif., in August. “It’s a street vault,” said Curt. “Last year they had something like 7,000 spectators.” Before the year is out, Scott will select a college. He carries a 4.26 grade point average and credits his classroom success to his mother. “She’s the one that’s taught me the most about academics,” he said. “She told me homework comes before sport, and she always spends a lot of time helping me with my studies.” Roth is looking at UCLA, California and Stanford. “I’ll probably decide this November,” he said. “I’ll see which one is the best fit academically.” Roth’s future plans include the Olympics and dentistry. Shades of Fred Hansen, the pole vault gold medalist at the 1964 Games in Tokyo. A Rice University graduate and the first vaulter to clear 17-feet, Hansen eventually became a dentist in Dallas. “Dental school isn’t set in stone,” said Roth. “But I’d like to make the Olympic team some day. I’m starting to think it could come true.” #
|
