Because there was no way Ed Dare could have saved his son's life, he is now working to ensure no others will have to endure his type of grief.

Kevin Dare, a member of the Penn State track and field team, was killed Feb. 23 in a freak pole vaulting accident at the Big Ten indoor track and field championships.

Shortly after Kevin's death, Ed Dare promised himself that he would make the sport of pole vaulting safer, with hopes of mandating helmets and improved padding around the landing area.

In the month since the tragedy, Dare has already moved his initiative forward.

On Feb. 27, Dare, along with Frank Kachurak, launched www.VaultForLife.com, a web site "dedicated to improving the safety of participants in pole-vaulting" according to the site's opening statement. The site includes a memorial to Kevin Dare, along with articles about the hazards present in the sport and ways in which they can be improved and a link for direct e-mails to the Dare family.

Despite being relatively new to the web, VaultForLife.com has already garnered a lot of attention.

"We just got the counter on it the other day and we've gotten over 1,700 hits in a week and a half," Ed Dare said.

According to Kachurak, who works in the department of Geoscience's computer support staff, the next goal for the site is to link to other organizations' sites throughout the sport. More importantly for Dare, the effects of his work are already being felt. New York and Minnesota, where the family previously lived for eight years, have both passed laws in Kevin's honor requiring vaulters to wear helmets in high school competition, something Dare thinks needs to be extended nationwide.

"The most important thing is the helmet issue, without a doubt," Dare said. "Then the box collar (padding to surround the eight inch metal box where the pole is planted)."

Dare has also received positive feedback from Penn State and the Big Ten, which offered him assistance in any way possible as well as condolence e-mails from total strangers.

The VaultForLife site is not the only one to memorialize the fallen athlete. David Roush (sophomore-broadcast journalism) created a site the night after Kevin's death at www.personal.psu.edu/users/d/l/dlr213/psukditty.html.

Much to the surprise of its creator, the web site has taken off in popularity, with over 20,000 people viewing it.

"I am absolutely shocked by the amount of response," said Roush, who met Kevin in a Math 110 class before developing a friendship. "When I first put the site up I didn't think it would get more than 200 people...as the night went on it spread like wildfire. Every minute or two it was jumping by 15 or 20 hits."

Roush, who is also a creative consultant on the VaultForLife site, said he wanted to create a memorial for all the people that never got to meet Kevin.

"It didn't matter to him that I wasn't a star athlete or that I wasn't on the track team," Roush said.

"The fact of the matter was if you wanted to be his friend he would put the time in."