Track and field, more than most sports, is about chasing incremental goals, striving for personal bests and the little victories along a wider path that if followed long enough, can lead to the very top.
Clint pole vaulter Matthew Portillo is on the cusp of one mountaintop when he heads to the Texas Class 4A UIL meet in Austin Thursday, May 14, coming off his Region I-4A championship earned with a school-record leap of 15 feet.
His climb there has been steady, almost inevitable, since he took up the event his freshman year, and along his journey, one of those incremental goals stood out. Portillo got into the vault because it was the event of his father Juan, a vaulter for Clint more than a quarter century ago (Class of 1999).
For all the marks he’s cleared, the records he leaped over, the accomplishments he’s stacked up, Portillo remembers one in particular.
Like father, like son
“I thought it was such an amazing feeling the first time I vaulted higher than my dad,” he recalls of the moment as a junior when he beat his dad’s 13-1. “He was proud of me, but I was so proud to beat him. It was amazing.
“When I broke his record it was excitement everywhere. Honestly, from my dad’s point of view, helping me become a better pole vaulter, it’s amazing.”
The moment certainly was a reminder of how Matthew got his start in the event.
“For me and my wife (Jennifer), sports has always been a huge part of us, a way of growing into adulthood,” Juan Portillo recalled. “It requires sacrifice and all those things. He had the opportunity, ‘I want to do something.’
“Basketball season had ended (his freshman year) and I was like, ‘Son, do track.’ I told him I did pole vault, I showed him a couple of pictures when I vaulted in ’99. He took a look. Then the first time he got up on a pole, jumped and cleared, he was set.”
Matthew Portillo’s version of his origin story is almost identical.
“I didn’t think about doing it before, until my dad said, ‘I used to do it,’ and wanted to know if I wanted to try it,” he said. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll try it. I’ll give a shot.’ Then I ended up being okay at it, that’s when I got into.
“Having that mindset of me being able to set records here and to try to beat my dad, that was one of the biggest ones.”
Matthew Portillo chases records
Portillo is a good enough athlete that he could excel in many places, and there are even thoughts that he could be a decathlete at the next level. His coach Rosvel Martinez’s first thought was to put him in the hurdles, where Clint has a good history (his sophomore teammate Emmanuel Navarette is going to state Thursday as a 110-meter hurdler).
“Once in a blue moon you get an athlete like that, and whatever he’s going to compete in he’s going to be good,” Martinez said. “We tried to make him a hurdler when he came in as a freshman because we knew how great an athlete he was. But he chose pole vault and the results are there.”
For his parents, the moment they remember is his school record last year in a meet at nearby San Elizario when he went 14-0 to beat the old record of 13-9.
“Everyone started the slow clap, I told my wife, ‘Babe, he’s going to clear it,'” Juan Portillo said. “My wife was telling me not to jinx it. ‘I’m telling you, I can feel it. It’s going to happen.’ It was awesome.”
His wife knows what makes her son special. “He’s fearless,” Jennifer said.
Reaching for more
Portillo has hit a new level this year, taking his personal best from 14-0 to 15-0. His 15-0 at regionals sends him to Austin in a four-way tie for the second-best mark (based on regional performances) behind 15-3 from Wimberly’s Dane Mignerey, giving him a chance to win a wide-open event.
As mundane as this sounds, some of his improvement comes from Clint finding him better equipment. Pole vault poles, which come in different lengths and weights (longer and heavier for higher bars), run around $900, a large expense for a 4A school given that it may be a while before Clint has a vaulter good enough to use Portillo’s pole after he graduates.
But mostly, Portillo’s steady improvement came the obvious way.
“Putting in the work,” Portillo said. “From wherever I started off my freshman year, then getting where I was last year at 14-feet, getting the Clint High School record, now getting 15 feet, working hard, getting consistent — it all paid off.”
That will allow him to finish his senior year on the biggest stage in Texas track.
Bret Bloomquist can be reached, bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on X.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Clint pole vaulter Matthew Portillo follows family footsteps to state
Reporting by Bret Bloomquist, El Paso Times / El Paso Times
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
