Scottie Vines Jr.: De Beque’s Record-Breaking Track Phenom
Earlier this month, De Beque Junior/Senior High School’s Scottie Vines Jr. broke the state’s fifth-oldest track and field record and the third-oldest boys track and field record, with a 7-foot-4.25 high jump that qualified him for this summer’s Olympic Trials.
In the process, Vines made De Beque the smallest school in the state to own a track and field record, by a wide margin. De Beque’s 2022-2024 enrollment of just 39 is more than seven times smaller than Buena Vista High School – the next smallest program to boast a record. On top of that, Buena Vista and De Beque are the only two schools with enrollment under 1,000 to own one of Colorado’s high school track and field records.
Plus, considering his rapid ascension, it seems likely that he can still improve on that all-time mark. He’s already improved by more than half-a-foot in the past two seasons.
“I mean, his sophomore year, he hit 6-foot-10 one time and he was consistently at 6-foot-6 that year, which is freaking amazing,” Melissa Rigsby, the athletic director and one of the track and field coaches at De Beque Junior/Senior High School recalled. “So I knew, this kid’s definitely going places, and that’s when I really started talking to him about how he should do this and how track was his thing.”
Despite the rare promise he displayed though, Vines didn’t immediately embrace track and field.
“I 100% had my heart set on basketball,” Vines said, with a laugh.
“I mean, he’s a teenage boy who loves basketball and just wanted to play basketball,” Rigsby said. “But that sophomore year, when he was consistently hitting 6-foot-6, and we were expecting it every week, I was like, ‘Scotty, this is not normal. This isn’t what other high school kids are doing. You are special at this. This is your thing.’ But he was still saying, ‘Yeah, ok. I like it,’ but then he had a 6-foot-8 jump and a 6-foot-10 jump right before state, and I think that got his attention.”
It didn’t only get Vines’ attention though. It also caught the eye of Matt Hemingway, who owned the state’s high school high jump record before the star De Beque jumper, thanks to a 7-foot-4 high jump in 1991. Hemingway went on to become an Olympic silver medalist in the high jump before opening his own high jump camp.
Soon, Hemingway reached out to Vines to take him under his wing and develop his elite high jumping ability.
“Matt [Hemingway] was at the 2022 state meet, saw Scottie, and went, ‘Dude, this kid is special,’” Rigsby remembered. “Hemingway talked to Scottie and his mom and convinced them to come to his high jump camp over the summer. When Scottie came back from that, he was a whole lot more focused and like, ‘Yeah, I like this. This is what I want to do. I want to excel at this.’ In fact, he actually went into the season last year with the goal of leaping seven feet.”
When Rigsby first had this then-junior-year student come up to her with the dream of clearing seven feet in the high jump, she didn’t know what to say.
“It’s just not the norm,” Rigsby explained. “Even though he had already hit 6-foot-10, I really wasn’t expecting the seven-foot jump. He kept saying, ‘That’s my goal. That’s my goal.’ And I was like, ‘Alright, that’s a great goal! Let’s keep fighting for it!’ But I didn’t expect it.”
Very quickly though, Scottie showed he could accomplish just about anything he set his mind to.
“When he hit the seven-foot jump, it was a shock and awe situation,” Rigsby said. “Just because I’m not sure that many people had been paying attention. You get down to the spring sports and, at least at our school, not as many kids participate in track. I mean, our track team is pretty small, so, I don’t know that anyone was paying attention. But then he hit the seven-foot jump and everybody was like, ‘Whoa, wait a second, what’s going on over there?’ And then this year, people have been asking every week, “What’s he doing? What’s he doing?”
Once he finally broke the seven-foot threshold, Vines already had his next goal in mind – breaking the high school state record.
Owning Colorado’s high school high-jumping record was a motivator for Vines ever since he leapt 6-foot-10 as a sophomore.
“When I went to jump 6-foot-10, that’s what everything really changed for me,” Vines explained. “I felt like, ‘I have to really get my act together and I gotta start being more mature. I gotta start acting like a young adult.’ Because I knew that from that point on, high jumping was what I wanted to do and it was something I could be great at. So I started setting my sights higher.”
Now that he’s accomplished that feat, he hopes to qualify for Team USA during the Olympic Trials this summer, and stamp his name in the national record books.
“You already know it’s the national [high school] record that I want to break,” Vines said. “The record is 7-foot-6, so the goal is 7-foot-6.25 by the end of this year.”
Only a fool would bet against him now.
