The Last Vault: Emmett’s Landon Helms looks to end one of Idaho's most decorated track and field careers on a (very) high note

With the wind howling in his face, Emmett High School’s Landon Helms knew it wasn’t going to be his best mark.

The rest of his pole-vaulting competition and the crowd seemingly realized that, too, leaving the Huskies’ track and field standout practically standing alone inside Dona Larsen Park at the Boise Relays in mid-April.

But the senior, who had already wrapped up first place in his previous attempts, didn’t care. He was determined to take home the meet record. 

And that’s why the Texas A&M signee is regarded as one of the best high school track athletes the state has ever seen.

Helms will bring that same steadfast mentality back to Dona Larsen Park for this week’s Idaho Class 4A state championships that get underway Friday.

Can he grab the biggest of Idaho meet records - the all-time state-meet mark of 16 feet, 6 inches, set by Eagle's Donovan Kilmartin in 2003?

"I have an idea on what’s going to happen," said father and coach Mark Helms. "But regardless of however he ends his high school career, it’s been nothing short of absolutely phenomenal."

A career that began in the sixth grade.

Back then, Landon went directly from middle-school practice over to the high school where Mark was coaching his older brother, Kimball. Landon vaulted on his own while waiting for them to finish.

Less than two years later, Landon was training with the likes of U.S. Olympic gold medalists Stacy Dragila and Jenn Suhr. Dragila was the inaugural champion in the women’s pole vault at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. Suhr won the title 12 years later - and still owns the world indoor record at 16-6.

In fact, the Helms' family didn't even know who Suhr or her husband, Rick - an Olympic coach - were when they traveled to the Altius Pole Vault Facility in Jacksonville, Texas to buy and test equipment.

While practicing, Mark said he noticed the owner make a phone call to somebody and say, "You ought to come down here."

Sometime later, Jenn and Rick Suhr arrived. And when Rick started offering tips to Landon, the owner got Mark's attention and pointed to a poster up on the wall of his facility. It was of the Suhrs.

In eighth grade Landon was already clearing 15 feet - a mark that would have won him an Idaho high school title in all but the Class 5A classification in 2018.

Needless to say, even before his first official high school meet for Emmett, Landon had already garnered a lot of buzz. It was hype that he more than lived up to.

Landon claimed titles in every meet he entered in 2019 except two, and one of them was the first of the season. This included at state where he broke the Class 4A record with a mark of 15-6 on his final attempt. Landon also won a state title in the 110-meter hurdles and finished third in the 300 hurdles.

That summer, Landon went on to break Armand Duplantis’ 15-16 age group record with a mark of 16-01/4 at the Junior Olympics. Duplantis just won gold at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and is the current world indoor record holder at 20-4.

The following year at the 2020 National Pole Vault Summit, Landon actually got to meet Duplantis and tell him he was the one that had broken his record.

"Those were both kind of special moments for us," Mark said. "They were really realizations of just how far we had come in such a short time and the potential of just how good Landon could be at this, too."

That bright future was interrupted a string of injuries, starting with the lingering effects of a stress fracture in his left foot at that National Pole Vault Summit. It was so painful, he began vaulting in tennis shoes.

Right when the 2020 spring high school season was canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic, Landon had surgery to put a screw in his his foot. It didn't heal properly, so the teenager had back-to-back surgeries six weeks apart to inject stem cells directly into the fractured bone.

After a long layoff, Landon didn't return to pole vaulting until midway through his junior season. But he got going again quickly, and repeated as state champion in both the pole vault and 110 hurdles while placing fourth in the long jump.

"If you have the mentality of, 'I’m scared of everybody, I have no idea if I’m going to lose, if I’m going to win and have no confidence' - then you’re essentially setting yourself up for failure," Landon said. "So, even though I was hurt and sore, I just had the mentality of, ‘OK, we’re going to be smart about what we do and when we do it.' But I don’t like losing. So, I always had that competitor mentality.”

Last summer, Landon had another injury scare - another stress fracture, this time in his right foot. Thankfully, it wasn't as serious, and only required a few months of rest.

Now fully healthy, Landon has considered this spring his "redemption year."

Because Idaho doesn't have a lot of pole-vault training facilities, Landon has traveled 10 hours to the Utah Pole Vault Academy in Riverton to train.

He's also an astute student of the sport, constantly watching film of not only his own vaults, but others across the country at all levels as well.

It paid off very quickly to start his senior season.

In his first 4A SIC quad-meet at home April 1, Landon set a new personal record of 17-2, which currently stands as the fourth-best mark in the nation.

His only meet loss in the event happened at the prestigious Arcadia Invitational in California. He was the runner-up to Hunter O'Brien, who cracked the top 10 in the country at 16-9; Landon was 16-3.

But Landon is unbeaten in the 110 hurdles - an event in which he set his personal-best 13.81 seconds at the BYU Invitational in early May. That is just outside the top 20 in the nation.

He also owns the state's top spring time in the 300 hurdles at 38.07, and 4A's top mark in the long jump (22-63/4).

A four-event participant at the state meet, Landon is also aiming to become the first Idaho athlete in nearly two decades to win three state pole-vaulting and 110 hurdles titles. Kilmartin, who went on to become a six-time All-American and a three-time NCAA Division I champion at the University of Texas, accomplished it in 2003.

"Well, a part of me is quite sad that it’s my last meet," Landon said. "But, on the other hand, I also have the mentality of, ‘OK, this is your last meet, leave nothing on the field.'"

However, no matter what happens this weekend, Landon knows he is going on to bigger and better things at Texas A&M, which has won four national titles since 2009.

With the Aggies he will compete in pole vault, heptathlon and the decathlon. They currently don’t have a male multi-event athlete on their roster.

"I’ve had a lot of ups, and I’ve had a lot of downs, and I wouldn’t have traded it for anything," Landon said. "Because the experiences that I’ve had, they’ve helped me grow in so many different aspects. Some things you just can’t learn without experiencing certain situations. So, especially for me, I definitely think that through the good and the bad, I was blessed through it all."