Motorists whizzing along Interstate 70 between Rifle and Grand Junction are unlikely to notice tiny De Beque, a tumbleweed town of fewer than 500 souls with only four students in the high school’s graduating class.
A CHSAA official measures out seven feet, four-and-one-quarter inches before De Beque high-jumper Scottie Vines attempts to break the Colorado high school high jump record during a track meet at Stocker Stadium in Grand Junction, Colo. on Friday, April 12, 2024. (Photo by William Woody/Special to The Denver Post)
“If you blink, you’ll miss it,” says kindergarten teacher Leslie Weis, whose son, Scottie Vines, is bringing attention to the town with his exploits as a budding track and field sensation in the high jump.
The De Beque High School senior jumped 7 feet, 4.25 inches three weeks ago in the prestigious Texas Relays at the University of Texas, which automatically qualified him for this year’s U.S. Olympic Trials and surpassed the Colorado high school record of 7-4 set in 1991 by Matt Hemingway of Buena Vista High School. Thirteen years later, Hemingway won an Olympic silver medal.
Vines’ jump in Texas was ineligible to be recognized as a state high school record because it happened out of state, but he went to a meet two weeks later in Grand Junction and leaped 7-4.25 again to claim the record.
After clearing the bar, Vines pounded his chest and bellowed, “It’s mine!” Later he told Hemingway, who coached him the past two summers at his summer camp and continues to advise him, how it felt to claim his mentor’s 33-year-old record.
Scottie Vines reacts after leaping over seven feet, four-and-one-quarter inches to break the Colorado high school high jump record during a track meet at Stocker Stadium in Grand Junction, Colo. on Friday, April 12, 2024. (Photo by William Woody/Special to The Denver Post)
“He was like, ‘I felt a little banged up, but I wanted it really bad. It really kind of irked me that they didn’t count the one in Texas,’” Hemingway said.
Currently the top-ranked under-20 high jumper in the world, Vines will compete on scholarship next year for the University of Colorado knowing he’s already leaped higher than the school’s high jump record. The CU record of 7-4 was set in 1975 by Bill Jankunis, who won the U.S. title a year later en route to making the 1976 U.S. Olympic team.
Hemingway was pulling for Vines to break his record and was happy to see it fall.
“It’s time,” Hemingway said. “I want somebody to strive beyond where I went. I had it a really, really long time.”
Vines, who is 6-foot-4, has athletic genes. His mother played basketball at a Utah junior college. His father, also named Scottie Vines, won the Alabama high school 6A high jump title in 1998 with a jump of 6-10 — a height his son achieved as a sophomore — and played three seasons for the Detroit Lions at wide receiver.
“He’s fast and he’s quick,” Hemingway said. “He’s long jumped further than I did. He’s faster than I was at that age. He’s got the right frame. Obviously (he has) height, and those are the building blocks.”
Vines also excelled at basketball, which was his first love until his elite high jump potential became obvious.
“I have never seen a kid in high school play basketball like he does,” said his mother. “He can take three dribbles the entire length of the court and slam it. He’s all legs and arms. Literally, three dribbles and he’s dunking the basketball.”
Scottie Vines measures out his jump line with coach Melissa Rigsby, not pictured, before the high-jump competition during a meet at Stocker Stadium in Grand Junction, Colo. on Friday, April 12, 2024. (Photo by William Woody/Special to The Denver Post)
De Beque calls itself “Gateway to Wild Horse Country” because of its location near the Little Book Cliffs Wild Horse Range, one of three such ranges in the U.S. set aside to protect wild horses. More than 100 roam free in sagebrush parks and pinyon-juniper woodlands southwest of town on BLM land. A sign on the hotel at the town center, the Wild Horse Inn, declares “Wranglers Welcome,” and its tiny town square has a statue of a horse standing on its hind legs.
Vines is very much a free spirit, too, although his mother says Scottie’s grandfather was the inspiration, not the equine influences where he grew up.
“His Papa played a huge part of his life when he was younger, and his Papa was a wild spirit,” she said. “He would take Scottie out on the ranch. He would work on the tractors, take care of the baby calves and ride four-wheelers. His wild spirit comes from my dad.”
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Vines remembers those days fondly.
“I wasn’t actually helping out, I was just kind of being a nuisance,” Vines said. “He was my role model, and he was like my dad at the time. I was really, really close to my grandpa. We would go up to the ranch and I just wanted to do everything with him. De Beque was a place I could hang out with my grandpa and get to do boy things, just be a kid.”
Vines’ sense of adventure remains even as he chases down records.
In fact, after practice at the school’s four-lane synthetic track the day before he broke Hemingway’s mark in Grand Junction, he went out for a ride on his dirt bike in the hills above De Beque.
“I got a lot of flak for letting him ride dirt bikes, but he’s been able to be who he is because of not being scared to let him try it,” said his mom. “De Beque is such a great place for him. He can hop on his bike and be gone. I think that really helps with his mental toughness, just being able to have a mental release. The wide-open spaces are exactly what the kid needs.”
Scottie Vines celebrates with his coach Melissa Rigsby after breaking the Colorado high school high jump record during a track meet at Stocker Stadium in Grand Junction, Colo. on Friday, April 12, 2024. (Photo by William Woody/Special to The Denver Post)
Melissa Rigsby, his high school jump coach, remembers watching him try the high jump in middle school, “cannon-balling over the bar.” She and her husband Brennan, a 7-foot high jumper in college, were amazed as little Scottie kept clearing higher and higher bars.
“I’m like, ‘What is this kid doing? This is insane,’” Rigsby said.
Vines jumped 6-10 as a sophomore and won the 1A state title. At the first practice of his junior year, he informed Rigsby he would jump 7 feet by the end of the season, and he did it one week before the state meet. He started off the competition that day at 6-6.
“He cleared it by quite a bit, and he wanted to go straight to 7 foot,” Rigsby said. “I was trying to talk him out of it. I’m like, ‘Let’s do 6-11, let’s get a PR before state.’ He said, ‘No, I feel it,’ he’s all jacked up. I could tell from his demeanor that I was not going to win, so I’m like, ‘All right, do it.’ When he cleared that thing, it was like chaos. People were running around, screaming. He was going crazy.”
A week later he won his second state title, but not without drama. While warming up, one of his shoes broke and he spiked himself in the ankle, down to the bone.
“Blood starts gushing everywhere,” Rigsby said. “A shoe that is broken, and now we’re profusely bleeding.”
Scottie Vines prepares his track shoes for his high jump attempt to break the Colorado high school high jump record during a track meet at Stocker Stadium in Grand Junction, Colo. on Friday, April 12, 2024. (Photo by William Woody/Special to The Denver Post)
They jerry-rigged a solution for the shoe problem with zip ties. A trainer applied liquid skin to the ankle wound to staunch the bleeding. When the liquid skin dried, there was time for one more warm-up run. The ankle was painful, but that soon passed. He won with a jump of 6-10.
“I was thinking I was going to have to get a W regardless,” Vines said. “I wanted to win. It’s not like they were going to give me a second chance to jump. I had to make do with what I had. As soon as the competition started, the adrenaline kicked in and I totally forgot about my ankle. I just kept my head up, staying active, and the more I did it, the more it loosened up the tendons in my ankle, and everything felt right again.”
Lindsey Malone, who coaches jumping events at CU, saw it all unfold.
“He was absolutely unaffected in doing the job he had at hand, which is one of the best traits for an Olympic-caliber athlete,” Malone said. “The amount of things that can go wrong at any big competition is unbelievable. Your shoes don’t arrive. Your bag doesn’t arrive. There’s a rainout. You’re in a foreign country and you don’t understand what they’re saying. The food is different. If he can say, in an incredibly painful moment where he’s losing a shoe, ‘Hey, I just want to go for the win,’ and that’s the focus, it just shows how mature he is to be able to handle that at such a young age.”
When Malone was recruiting him, she already knew his physical ability was elite. What struck her were the intangibles that don’t show up on performance lists.
“Scottie is just an amazing human,” Malone said. “He’s obviously going to do amazing things as an athlete, but his generosity with the way he competes, the way he will shake the officials’ hands afterward, the way he encourages the other athletes he’s competing against, the way he interacts with his mom, his grandma, his coaches, he’s just an incredible person that I’m excited to have as a part of our team.”
Scottie Vines of De Beque Colo., leaps over seven feet, four-and-one-quarter inches to break the Colorado high school high jump record during a track meet at Stocker Stadium in Grand Junction, Colo. on Friday, April 12, 2024. (Photo by William Woody/Special to The Denver Post)
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