If two teams both claim victory, where exactly does the truth lie?
That’s the situation facing the Mohawk Trail Regional High School girls’ track and field team. The Warriors took to the road for an away meet at West Springfield High School on April 14. It was an independent meet, not counting towards the Intercounty League standings, but the meet counts in the overall standings just the same.
The day got off to an inauspicious start. Mohawk’s bus arrived late, and when head coach Joe Chadwick walked off, he was immediately greeted.
“I was first off the bus and, right away, officials and coaches called for first call (for several events),” said Chadwick. “We hadn’t even started to warm up and they were calling for it. The whole thing was a mess from the beginning.”
From there, the day only grew more frustrating for Chadwick and his team.
“One of the first things they said was that they didn’t have pole vaulters,” explained the Hall of Fame coach. “And that they couldn’t find a (crossbar) but ‘if you want to jump, then go ahead.’ We did jump (the pole vault). They had the setup. Just because a coach doesn’t want his team to do it, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be able to.”
Chadwick said his team had no indication that the pole vault wouldn’t be contested on April 14. West Springfield hosts the annual George Steele Relays, which are coincidentally scheduled for this Saturday. In last year’s meet, also at West Side, several Warriors competed in the pole vault. So when Mohawk made the trip down Route 91, Chadwick said his pole vaulters expected to take part.
“It’s one thing if a place doesn’t have pole-vault mats, but (West Springfield) has the setup and it’s a beautiful setup. It’s better than ours,” Chadwick said.
The meet turned from strange to weird for Mohawk from there.
“So then, I’ve got people (from West Springfield) telling me it doesn’t matter about the pole vault because we’re not going to keep score (for the meet) anyways,” Chadwick revealed. “If you’re gonna do it, do it right. We have kids trying to qualify for postseason meets and you’re telling me you don’t want to keep score?”
With no crossbar in sight or available, Mohawk’s four pole vaulters competed in the event using a bungee cord for the bar. Erin Laffond was deemed the winner after clearing 7 feet, and her three teammates also cleared a height to figure into the scoring. Chadwick, a certified official himself, presided over the event. It’s not uncommon for coaches to officiate certain events during dual meets. Under normal circumstances, that would be nine points for Mohawk towards the team score after sweeping the event.
“The report I was given was that there were no officials for pole vault and that the (crossbar) was broken,” said West Springfield athletic director Glenn Doulette. “So that’s what (girls’ track) coach (Matt Griffin) informed me of, and that’s where he said he thought the source of the discrepancy was… in the pole vault. So whatever scores came from the event, those scores weren’t used in the final tally.”
A problem for Mohawk likely lies with the bungee cord. Chadwick said the team wasn’t given a crossbar despite the facility having state-of-the-art equipment otherwise.
“According to the rule book, that is not a legal event,” said Bill Kane, rules interpreter for the Western Massachusetts Track and Field Officials Association (WMTFOA). Kane did not have direct knowledge of the Mohawk-West Springfield meet. “You have to have a hard crossbar. There’s no interpretation. If they have a facility and the event is able to be contested, you would assume they would have the crossbar available. But if they don’t have a crossbar, you can’t legally contest the event.”
When the meet was over, Chadwick believed his score, which included the nine points from the pole vault, gave Mohawk a 74-71 win. He had the head official sign his score sheet that said as much, and the Warriors got on the bus back to Buckland thinking they had won the meet.
“As far as I was concerned, we had won the meet,” Chadwick said. “We left there thinking we won. There was nothing from coaches and officials that said it wasn’t going to count (as a win).”
West Springfield had other ideas. When the Terriers reported the score to the sports department at Masslive, they did not include the nine points Mohawk had apparently obtained from the vault. That put the final at 71-65, with West Springfield claiming victory.
“I think we’ve won and then the next minute, I read Masslive and they beat us,” said Chadwick with a laugh.
The situation called into question the larger issue of how to handle pole vaulting at high school meets. Springfield-area schools and several others do not participate in the event. When Frontier Regional School went to West Springfield for a meet a few years ago, head coach Bob Smith said that the pole vault was not contested. Smith runs into that same issue throughout the year, and when the Red Hawks take on Suburban League foe Southwick High School in a dual meet on May 15, that issue will once again be on display because the Rams don’t have the proper facilities to hold the event.
“As far as I’m concerned, I believe the pole vault ought to be a part of every track meet,” began Smith. “To me, it’s like having a softball game and everyone agreeing that we’re going to play without second base. I think it’s crazy.
“The Springfield-area schools and Southwick don’t have pole vault,” he continued. “So (Frontier) gets kicked out of (the Intercounty League), where almost everybody pole vaults into one (the Suburban League) where nobody wants to do it. If Southwick comes to me (for a home meet in South Deerfield), I get nine points. If we go there, I don’t. I always have (Frontier athletic director) Marty (Sanderson) call ahead and ask schools if we’ll contest the pole vault? Because, if not, I’ll take my kids and put them in somewhere else.”
Moving athletes to other events was something Chadwick pointed to during the West Springfield meet.
“If they had told me it wasn’t going to count, we could’ve had those kids in other events because we counted that as one of their events,” Chadwick said. “Why didn’t they tell us before? We didn’t know that. We brought our poles and everything. They had Steele Relays last year and we jumped then. What changed?”
Several officials contacted said the actual results of the vault shouldn’t have mattered. With a pole vaulting facility not capable of hosting a safe and legal event, the by-laws are pretty cut and dried. The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) rule book for track & field states that:
“In the absence of prior mutual agreement, if in a track meet normally contested under the standard order of events (excluding “specialty” meets), the host school does not provide one or more of the events, points for each noncontested event shall be totalled and divided equally among the visiting teams. The host team shall receive no points.”
That rule would seem to make a case for Mohawk being awarded the points without even having to contest the pole vault. As long as three Warriors were entered into the event with the expectation that they would compete, the nine points would go to the visiting team from Buckland.
“It sounds like there was a giant failure to communicate,” Kane offered.
So far, there hasn’t been any information provided to Chadwick from officials.
“They need to clarify that rule,” said Frontier’s Smith. “If I hosted a meet and the officials declared my long-jump runway can’t be used, I have to forfeit those points to the visiting team. We need to have some clarity with the pole vault. They ought to appoint a panel of coaches to make those rulings because those nine points have been a bone of contention for a long, long time.”
Chadwick isn’t sure what will happen with the result of the meet moving forward. He hasn’t spoken to anyone from West Springfield or any officials on the subject.
“The bottom line is that I assumed the pole vault was going to count and (West Springfield) assumed it wasn’t,” he offered. “I don’t have any hard feelings about it, but if you don’t want to pole vault, give us the nine points. It should be as simple as that. Because they didn’t have anybody, we’re not going to count it?”
Doulette said that his girls’ team was unaware of the situation with the crossbar until the day of the meet. He said the issue has been taken care of in preparation for Saturday’s Steele Relays, which Mohawk will also be competing in along with Frontier.
“Since I’ve been (at West Springfield), we’ve used the pole vault in the past, but it was reported to my coach, and he found out the day-of right at the event from our boys’ coach, that the bar was broken,” Doulette said. “And that facilitated me to order replacement bars so we could get them in time for the Steele Relays this weekend. The (new) bars just came in (Wednesday).”
There was no word from the PVIAC as of press time what the next step for the two schools will be. Pioneer Valley Regional School serves as the chair school for spring track and field, with Pioneer athletic director Gina Johnson and Pope Francis High School AD Jon Goda serving as chairpeople of the sport.