185 USATF masters records greenlighted, 24 rejected, 62 deferred

The first 20 of 185 records submitted for approval.

The first 20 of 185 records submitted for approval.

In his first year as USATF Masters T&F Records Committee chair, Jeff Brower handled at least 271 marks for consideration. To his credit, he’s giving dozens of folks time to fix problems in paperwork. According to his records report to the Houston annual meeting in early December, he’s recommending 185 be approved and 24 rejected. But Jeff also is recommending 62 marks “for deferral.” So hope remains for them. Best of all, Jeff is revisiting marks as old as 2007 — and making them kosher. I count 33 marks from before 2015 getting his stamp of approval, including Charles Austin’s incredible M45 high jump WR of 2.05 (6-8 3/4). See the list of marks starting on page 23. (Masters LDR and racewalking also submit records, but I don’t care about them. Sorry.) In the same PDF, we also see our national chair Gary Snyder’s minimalist report. How minimal?

Here’s Gary’s report:

2015 was the third year of my second four-year term. We will finish the year within budget and in general our finances are in order. USA Masters Championships were conducted as follows: 1. Indoor Championships were conducted at JDL Fast Track in March 20-22 with 900 competitors. 2. The Combined Events Championships were held at the Park West Athletic Center on June 27-28. 3. The Outdoor Championships were at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Florida on July 23-26. 4. August 29-30, Seattle, WA the Throws Championships was contested. In August 4-16, I attended the World Masters Athletics Outdoor Championships in Lyon France where the USA team of 425 athletes competed.

I guess I’ve been blogging for naught. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along!

By contrast, here’s the masters LDR report, presumably by Don Lein:

We entered 2015 very optimistic about the Membership Growth Initiative which Lloyd Hansen, Pam Fales , and Paul Carlin had worked on so diligently. Although we made significant strides in planning for it, it was unable to be kicked off in 2015, but we are looking for significant results during the 2016 calendar year.

We kicked off our Masters Grand Prix, in Boulder, Co with the Cross Country Championships, followed by the Brea, CA, 8K on 2/22; the 10k in Dedham, MA, on 4/26; the Half Marathon in San Diego, CA on 5/31; the Mile Championships in Flint, MI, on 8/21; the 5K Championships in Syracuse, NY on 10/4; the 5K Masters Cross Country at Saratoga Springs, NY, on 10/18; the 15K in Tulsa, OK, on 10/31; the 12K Championships at Alexandria, VA on 11/15 and concluding with the Club XC Championships in San Francisco, CA on 12/12. Although not part of the Grand Prix, we also conducted a Masters Marathon Championship in St Paul, MN on 10/4. Virtually everyone on the Executive Committee participated in this excellent and growing program, with special plaudits going to Marian Lein, Bill Quinlisk, Tom Bernhard, Lloyd Hansen, Paul Carlin, Dale Campbell, Mary Rosado, Lin Gentling, Madeline Bost and Don Lein.

In addition to this superlative team effort on the Championships/Grand Prix, there were a number of individuals who contributed, as well, in their specialized area of expertise:

—Mary Rosado continued in her multiple roles of WMA Representative, at the WMA convention/track meet at LYON, France, Masters Drug Education Coordinator and this year, most importantly, our long standing L&L representative.

—Marian Lein continued in her role as Secretary and Treasurer, as well as being the coordinator for the Phidippides Awards program.

—Tom Bernhard continued to make improvements in the Masters Hall of Fame process incorporating both the entirety of the Overlooked Athletes as well as the current athlete selection. Tom also undertook the Masters rankings project, working with Running Times and will publish his first set of rankings this Fall.

—Paul Carlin has taken on the role of Media Coordinator and has provided very insightful and popular forecasts/recaps for all of our Championship races – Doreen McCoubrie has assisted him. Paul has also assumed the role of “Mr. Inside” to Lloyd Hansen’s “Mr. Outside” in the Membership Growth Initiative program mentioned above.

We had a very healthy and rewarding 2015 in all respects and that was due to everyone’s hard work and dedication.

We look forward to 2016 anticipating we will improve upon our 2015 performances with a successful Membership Initiative Program opening many doors and offering many challenges for us to continue improvement in our offerings to our Masters Athletes as well as our partners in the running industry.

I’m still awaiting word on who is formally bidding for 2018 indoor and outdoor masters nationals, which will be awarded at the Houston convention. Stay tuned.

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November 18, 2015

5 Responses

  1. Peter L. Taylor - November 19, 2015

    First of all, congratulations to all the new record holders, and second, plaudits to Jeff Brower for doing all this work.

    I did note that seven marks made at masters nationals this year, all of them relays, received an outright rejection.

    As for the deferral list, I found 22 potential records from nationals making that list, including individual and relay marks on the track and some field events.

    I also found, to my dismay, that Anne Sluder’s fabulous 3727 score in the pentathlon in June at SE Masters (Raleigh) did not make the cut. As you recall, Ken, you wrote about that situation on this site.

    Anne made the mistake of competing in an event with no other competitors (three entered, only Anne competed), and thus she is in “deferred status.” Too bad. I announced Anne that day and was extremely proud of her, especially in the final event, the 800, in which she went out way too fast and then hung on courageously to the finish and ring up the wonderful 3727.

  2. Jeff Davison - November 19, 2015

    There are several pending Club Records added to be confirmed at the 2015 Convention.
    Particularly the first of Shuttle Hurdle Relay Club Records. TNT and Over the Hill have started them off … these all were at Nationals.

    More to come in the future. Thank you to Mr. Brower for checking into these.

  3. Jeff Davison - November 19, 2015

    Also W35-39 and M50-59 Shuttle Hurdle Relay American Record waiting approval at the 2015 Convention

  4. Jerry Bookin-Weiner - November 19, 2015

    In looking carefully at the “deferred” list, most of those marks appear to be ones that were surpassed later in the season, with the better marks approved. For “rejected” marks from the nationals, it appears that these were cases where non-citizens (or non-club members in the “Club” category) were on the teams; for the “deferred” relay marks, it also appears there is good reason, namely that Jeff doesn’t appear to have verification of DOB information for one or more of the team members. In other words, he’s dotting all the required “i”s and crossing all the required “t”s and doing the job as intended.

    This can all be gleaned from a careful review of Jeff’s very informative website with detailed spreadsheets at http://www.usatfmasters.org/fa_records.htm.

    Well done Jeff!

  5. Brian Coushay - November 25, 2015

    Jeff has taken on a difficult task of reviewing all these records. His efforts need to be applauded and celebrated. It is a very detailed and time-consuming task. Thank you Jeff! You are a good man!

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