State College, PA –For hours, after Eric Dare finished his own practice he would watch his brother and other teammates practice pole-vaulting at the State College High School track. The pole-vaulters parked their cars by the vault-pit, pumping music from one of them as they honed their skills. “I spent many afternoons right here,” says Eric Dare. Sadly, Eric Dare’s brother, Kevin Dare, died tragically in a terrible pole vaulting accident while competing for Penn State in 2002 in Minneapolis. Something went wrong, and Kevin Dare landed on his head – a fatal injury. His head landed on the box with a steel casing that the pole locks into as the pole-vaulter rises into the air. Eric Dare, State High track and field coaches and others gathered Tuesday at one of the school’s two pole-vault pits to celebrate a donation made by the Kevin Dare Foundation – a pole-vault Soft Box. The Soft Box is intended to be much safer than a traditional box and reduce the risk of injury. State High’s box was originally made of steel and concrete. “Kevin would want this sport to be safe,” Eric Dare says. more
