Sports

Aide pulls off four-peat

By Matthew Semisch

05/27/2014

BISMARCK - When it comes to North Dakota high school pole vaulters taking to the skies and clearing high bars, the Aide family’s reign is finally over.

Whereas most dynasties usually have something go against them that causes them to fall, however, the Aides’ kept rolling until the end.

It finally came to a close after 13 years Saturday at the MDU Resources Community Bowl in Bismarck. That morning at the North Dakota state high school track and field meet, Bottineau High senior Harrison Aide capped off his glimmering pole vaulting career by clinching his fourth consecutive state title.

He had hoped to beat the best height of his father Mark, BHS’s pole vault coach and a former celebrated field athlete himself,  at 15 feet and three inches. That didn’t happen Saturday, but Aide’s vault of 14 feet even proved good enough to win him one last state title.

Aide had a difficult 2013-14 school year health-wise, first breaking his wrist in the fall while playing for the Braves’ football team and then suffering shin splints and an injury to his quadriceps in his left thigh during the track and field season.

Even still, though, he came out on the other side a state champion once more.

“You always want to go higher than you end up going, but it was fun and I’m happy with where I finished,” Aide said. “I’ve been struggling with my whole left leg with shin splints and hurting my quad at regionals, and then there’s been the cold in Bottineau to deal with.

“All those things really work against you when you’re in track and field, but pretty much everything came together today.”

Aide’s capstone achievement Saturday marked 2014 as the 13th consecutive year that either a Bottineau boy or girl had won a state high school pole vault title., 11 of which had come from the Aide family.

“The dynasty’s over,” Mark Aide said Saturday with a laugh. “That’s the last Aide for us, but it’s been a good run with those kids.”

“We (at BHS) are going to keep going, though, and now we’ve got a few other really promising kids coming up in the program. We’ll try to get them going and see what they can do.”

Harrison Aide’s sense of drive played a big role, too, as Bottineau head coach David Hoff explained.

“For Harrison, he’s as good as he is because his goals are as lofty as they are,” Hoff said, “Him winning four times here is something I’m not sure any boy in our state meet has ever done in the same event or may ever do again.”

Aide’s pole vaulting career now appears to be over. In the coming months, he will move to Virden, Manitoba to pursue a playing career in hockey.

On Saturday, though, he reflected on his last four years as a high school pole-vaulting king.

“Some people call it a franchise,” Harrison Aide said Saturday, “And I’ve also heard it called a dynasty, but it’s been cool to be a part of.”