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A long, rewarding journey for Isaac Lavala |
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May 27, 2017 |
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Badger senior Isaac Lavala caps his high
school athletic career May 19, setting
the Idaho State 3A pole vault record
with a 15'2" effort to win the 2017
Idaho State championship at Middleton
High School. |
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Story and photos by Robert Lavala
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| Isaac Lavala |
Isaac Lavala loves the game of football. He has
been playing tackle football since the sixth
grade and it has always been his favorite sport.
When he is not getting the ball thrown or handed
to him to gain yardage, he is on the defensive
side of the ball.
Lavala usually plays every game on both offense
and defense and plays for the entire game — if
possible.
For those of us who are die-hard fans, we have
had to endure a few seasons of ups and downs,
especially in the area of coaching. In 2015 the
coaching staff gained solid footing and then
there was a shortage of players. Needless to say
(but I will) the games we have endured against
much bigger teams from both Idaho, Washington
and Oregon were tough on our boys.
Lavala, however, tried to make the best of this
and worked as hard as possible to do his best on
the field.
One of the things he decided to do was to join
the track and field team. His goal was to do
sprint training so that he could get quicker for
football. Yes, everything revolved around
football.
So he joined the track team and started working
toward getting faster and having even more
endurance.
A few weeks into practice, then head coach
George Hays asked Isaac if he had ever
considered pole vaulting. Lavala told Coach Hays
that he was not interested and then gave him his
reasons for even joining track — again,
football.
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Robert and
Sheila Lavala |
Mr. Hays was persistent, however, and continued
to badger — pun intended — Lavala to try the
pole vault. He continued to refuse until one day
Mr. Hays didn’t ask. Instead, he took Lavala
over to the pole vault pit and put a pole in his
hand. The time for asking was obviously over and
now here he was, doing something he had no
intention of doing.
By the end of that first practice (or maybe one
more), Coach Hays told Lavala that he was signed
up to pole vault in the upcoming Bonners Ferry
Invite.
Isaac jumped over his first bar at this meet,
clearing 8 feet, 6 inches. As the season
progressed, Lavala continued to pole vault and
got a season record of 12 feet. He went to State
but did not do well.
In his second season of track and field, Lavala
didn’t have to be persuaded to pole vault. He
now loved the sport almost as much as his
beloved football. The 2016 season would see a
40-year-old record fall to the wayside. What
Coach Hays saw clearly in Lavala would now play
out in the breaking of the record he himself set
back in 1976.
The old Bonners Ferry High School pole vault
record was 13’ 6”, set by George Hays.
Isaac jumped in front of the home crowd and
cleared 13’ 7” and thrilled everyone in
attendance — including Mr. Hays, who was at the
track meet helping to run various events.
Story continued below photo
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The Bonners
Ferry Badgers make their way onto the
field of competition May 19 at Middleton
High School. |
Isaac would go on to break the District record
at Timberlake three weeks later by jumping 14’
6”. This would also raise the record for BFHS.
Heading to state, we were greeted by harsh
weather on the field at Middleton High School.
The temperature was hovering around 37 degrees
Fahrenheit with blowing rain. Lavala didn’t live
up to his potential at this meet and would come
away with fifth place.
He was disappointed in this outcome but not
defeated and he would enter into a regimen of
off-season training to keep up his skills.
Fast-forward to 2017 and we see Lavala
concentrating solely on the pole vault after
gaining offensive Most Valuable Player for
football.
Some athletes do multiple events and that is
fine, in most cases.
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Badger junior
Nik Bertling, right, set personal bests
in the 200 meter dash with a time of
24.11, and in the pole vault at 13-feet,
good for a fourth place finish at state.
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For Lavala, however, his goal was to break the
State of Idaho 3A record this season and he
desired to train only with the pole vault. His
dad, Robert, took Iasaac and another Badger pole
vaulter, Nikolas Bertling, to a pole vault camp
in Seattle where they could get honed up for the
upcoming season.
The first meet of the 2017 season Lavala came
out and jumped 14’ 3”, winning the first meet at
Timberlake. From there, the coaching staff
decided that it would be best for him to seek
competition outside the district so pressure
could be added.
To set the stage for this, you need to
understand that every track meet Lavala attended
last year went like this. Everyone jumped and
finished at around 12 feet. Lavala would jump
once, win, and then go for records.
This year that would be different.
Pasco, one of the largest one-day track meets in
the country, would feature 20 pole vaulters
jumping at the 14-foot level. Out of the 40-plus
jumpers at Pasco, Lavala took eighth place with
14 feet. The winning jump that day would be 15
feet.
Two more big meets in Washington would yield a
fourth and then a third place finish and then it
came to the Meet of Champions May 4 in Post
Falls.
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Badger senior
Jill Alexander cleared 7'6" at state for
a 12th place finish. |
The best of the best in District 1 (1A through
5A schools) would gather to see who would be
crowned Champion of Champions. Corbin Maltba,
Priest River, gave Lavala good competition
jumping up to 14’ but then failed on 14’ 6”.
Lavala cleared 14’ 6” on his first try and then
went on the break the Idaho State 3A record with
a jump of 15’ 2”, one inch better than the
current standing record.
The catch with this record is Lavala will have
to replicate the jump at the State competition
May 19 for it to be permanent.
Lavala’s attitude toward practice and going out
and doing his best can be summed up with a quote
from Vince Lombardi; “The difference between a
successful person and others is not a lack of
strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a
lack of will.”
Riding a natural high from the Meet of Champions
in Post Falls and then on to the District
competition at Timberlake, Isaac was feeling
well-prepared for the IHSAA 3A State Track Meet
held at the Middleton High School in Middleton,
Idaho. As it would turn out, the weather at the
Meet of Champions would transpose itself to
Middleton, providing for an amazing experience
for everyone at the meet.
For the past two years in a row the weather at
the state meet in Middleton has been miserable.
The average temperature for both years was a
crisp 40 degrees and each year featured both
rain and wind. When you are a pole vault
athlete, both physical elements can be extremely
detrimental to your performance, not to mention
the risk factor that increases exponentially.
Leading up to the track meet on Friday, May 19,
southern Idaho would get snow on Wednesday, May
17, with temperatures in the low 40s. Everyone,
especially the pole vault team, watched the
weather and hoped that the various news outlets
had predicted correctly: Sunny with temperatures
in the mid-70s.
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Isaac Lavala,
center, Mr. BFHS. |
Arriving on the Thursday before the meet, the
team went to the field to practice and found the
weather dry, warm and with only a touch of wind.
Then the big day arrived and the sky was clear,
temperatures as forecast, and the anticipation
of the athletes was palpable.
Everyone applied the necessary sunscreen and
into the arena they went, each to do what they
had prepared for up to this moment.
It was around 2 p.m. when the boys 3A pole vault
was announced and the guys started practicing.
The poles were bending well and with the warm
weather, the run to the vault was even faster
than usual. Practice ended after about 30
minutes of the scheduled 60 and the vaulters
listened intently for their name to be called.
We had two vaulters in the boy’s division and
one in the girl’s division (Jill Alexander).
First up would be Nikolous Bertling with a
personal record up to this point of 11’ 6”. Nik
would best his PR by 1’6” and clear the bar at
13-feet, which would secure him a fourth place
finish!
There was a level of drama and excitement as
Lavala, ranked all year as #1, entered the
competition. He entered at 14’ and the only
other young man to remain with Lavala at that
height was Corbin Maltba from Priest River.
Maltba and Lavala have been competing against
each other for the past three years and now,
both as seniors, it would come down to this last
competition.
Maltba’s first attempt at 14 feet failed and
Lavala came in and cleared the bar. Now Maltba
would have two more attempts to clear at this
height or Lavala would win outright.
On Maltba’s next attempt, he would not clear and
he would land on the mat wrong and drive his
knee into his mouth and nose. Blood was pouring
from his face as the medical staff came and
attended to him and to clean up the mat. After
he was cleaned up the result was two front,
bottom teeth were broken off. There was a
fifteen-minute break in the action to allow for
both the cleanup of Maltba and the bloodied mat.
Like the true athlete and fierce competitor that
he is, Maltba grabbed the vaulting pole and
attempted the 14’ barrier again. This time he
cleared it amidst cheers from everyone in
attendance.
Now he would have only two minutes to do the
next jump, as he was first in the rotation. The
new height was set at 14’6”, Maltba’s current
PR, and he would have three tries. He failed on
the first attempt and Lavala also failed the
first attempt. Maltba tried again but failed and
Lavala cleared.
Then Maltba failed the third time and Lavala had
won the State 3A Championship.
However, there was one bit of unfinished
business to attend to. Isaac needed to confirm
that he could jump 15’2” to establish the new 3A
State classification record. The bar was set,
the crowd was electrified with anticipation, the
coaches – Shasta Baisden and Robert Lavala, were
barely breathing, each family member clutched
the fence, and now was the moment.
Lavala took off on the run, planted well, and
cleared the 15’2” jump the first attempt,
setting the new record! The crowd, coaches and
family all went wild and Lavala’s journey as a
high school athlete was complete.
In his senior year, Lavala would begin by taking
Grand Champion at a karate tournament in
Spokane, going undefeated against the Black Belt
division ages 16-30 years old, he would receive
the Offensive MVP award for football, he won the
Mr. BFHS competition, he set the new BFHS Pole
Vault record at 15’2”, the new State record at
the same, and accomplished his goal of becoming
the state champion.
Next on Lavala’s radar is shipping out to the
United States Air Force in August. He will do
boot camp in Texas and then his technical
training there as well. He plans to join a pole
vault club while enlisted and continue to push
the limits and break the barriers of higher
heights.
Special thanks goes out to George Hays, as
without his insistence Lavala would not have
tried the pole vault, Shasta Baisden, the
current head pole vault coach, Tim Cheney, who
assisted in Lavala’s junior year of pole
vaulting with coach Baisden, Travis Hinthorn,
head coach of the Badgers track and field team
who encouraged Isaac to go to larger
competitions in Washington to prepare for the
pressure of state, Tim Rielly, NW Pole Vault
Academy, where Issac and his father trained in
the off-season, Sandpoint High School and Coach
Paul, who loaned us the pole Lavala used to
break the record, Sheila Lavala, Isaac's mother,
for traveling to every meet and encouraging both
the athlete and the coach (me) to “go for it,”
and last but certainly not least to the Lord for
keeping Isaac Lavala safe and providing the
means necessary to do everything we did over
these exciting years |
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