Bum record for relay: last straw for Sandy Pashkin?
Silly me. Yesterday I reported that Bill Collins had anchored Houston Elite to an M50 national “club” record in the 4×100 relay at Penn. Wrong. The official USATF record page is in error. Today I learned that Bill’s team fell short of the winning time in the 2005 edition of this race. In fact, the 2007 time (46.49) would have gotten fourth in 2005! So what gives? Forgive me (again) for this rant: But Sandy Pashkin, USATF Masters Records chair, is operating outside the reality-based world.
There’s no better organized masters invitational event than Penn, so if a fully-automatic time at the Penn Relays isn’t good enough for record ratification, then God help anyone else who aspires to masters recordom. And I assume Penn masters coordinator Phil Felton has made sure that every club is kosher.
So I’m renewing my call for Sandy’s dismissal as master chair. For ample cause: her gross incompetence and failure to maintain accurate and timely posted USATF masters records.
Obviously, my opinion and $1.79 will buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So it’s gonna take more than my lone screechy voice to impeach President Pashkin.
Sandy’s job is not elected, BTW. She serves at the pleasure of USATF Masters T&F Chair Gary Snyder. She can be removed at any time.
So what say you? Should she stay or should she go?
Here are combined M50 result from 2005 Penn Relays:
Pl Time ID Affiliation/Runners SEC
1 45.66 B Sprint Force America
Neil Steinberg, Ed Gonera, Archy Glasby, Bob Bowen
2 45.96 A Houston Elite
3 46.09 D Maryland Masters
4 48.57 C AURA International
5 50.58 F Tendonitis Athletic Club
6 51.88 E Pony Express TC
1 49.22 K Tendonitis Athletic Club
D. Pelkey, M. Fortunato, H. Hudson, T. Gillem
2 49.27 J Shore AC
3 50.47 G Team Ohio TC
4 54.62 I Mass Velocity
Related posts:
- Sandy Pashkin says Kalembo, Singh can kiss records bye-bye
- Sandy Pashkin responds to post, gets 4×8 record fixed on USATF
- Sandy Pashkin keeps job as WMA Records Committee chair
- Why doesn’t Sandy Pashkin have help vetting records?
- Sandy Pashkin, as roadblock to records, has to go
4 Responses
Sorry, Ken. I think you are way off base on this one and here is my $1.79 worth.
Sandy does an amazing job. I estimate that there are over 890 possible American records. Then, double that number to get the number of possible world records. (That is not counting club marks.) With Sandy?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s and the committee?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s excellent work, athletes from all over the world are training hard to break these marks. And, they fall in an amazing fashion. I believe at least 60 applications were received from the US Indoor Nationals alone this year. Each one must be checked and verified to be sure all rules are met. We should be thankful and proud that so much is done to ensure that Masters USATF records are valid. I don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t think this has always been the case. The rules are there for a reason and they should be uniformly applied. If the rules are not fair, they should be changed.
I know it is frustrating to have valid records not recognized. Bud and I each have two world marks that were not recognized. But, it was never Sandy?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s or the committee?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s fault. They were always due to meet mismanagement or lost paperwork. I don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t know what the situation or history was with these relay records. And, I am sure it is difficult to research among the mountains of paperwork that has been received over the years. But, it is the responsibility of each athlete to know the rules and find out what must be done to get a record certified. It is the least any of us can do.
I suggest that it would be more fruitful to suggest that Sandy have assistance. I will volunteer. Are there any others out there who would like to help?
The record-keeping debacle is not the product of Sandy’s incompetence; it is the completely predictable result of a process that does not serve the interest of masters competition.
The basic problem is this: the requirment for validating records is the same for open and masters athletes.
Why is this a problem?
Because meet organizers are enthusiastic about claiming open records for their meets and are motivated to see through the paperwork themselves. Unfortunately, they are not similarly motivated on behalf of masters records – an understandable sentiment.
This leaves masters athletes responsible for completing and submitting paperwork for their records. Most are inexperienced in the process, and problems arise – often ones that cannot be overcome. Even worse, it often forces the masters athlete to hound the people involved in the meet for weeks or months afterward to get necessary signatures, etc., leaving some profoundly discouraged and destroying the sense of accomplishment they felt when setting the record.
When I set the American M45 10K track record last August in Seattle, it took me months to get Bill Roe to collect the signatures necessary for the paperwork. After our third or fourth email exchange, Bill told me to keep emailing him – to remind him this needed to get done. I replied that I had no intention of emailing him ever again, that I was tired of begging him (as meet director) to give a damn about my mark. Any sense of accomplishment I’d felt in setting the record was long gone (I don’t mean to single out Bill, whom I admire tremendously – every one of my records required similar efforts on my part).
Here’s the thing: it’s ridiculous to have a system that puts as great an emphasis on paperwork as it does on performance when it comes to validating records. It’s simply assinine to suggest athletes don’t deserve records if they can’t gather a half-dozen signatures, USATF certification numbers, etc.
So what’s the answer?
Streamline the process.
For running events: an FAT photo, the meet director’s signature, and a link to meet results. That’s it.
For field events … I don’t know. I don’t compete in field events.
But seriously, folks, let’s find a way to include our best times as records! The ways things stand, we’re a joke.
And FYI, I no longer carry paperwork with me to meets in the event I set a record. Been there, done that – won’t do it again.
Pete
Sorry, folks, but I have to agree with Ken. If the system is this badly broken, it is part of the job of the records coordinator to lobby hard for the repair of the system — or resign in protest. We should not sit by in good conscience and let things get this badly out of joint. The USATF should not maintain records anymore if it really can’t do the job. Another organization, better equipped to streamline the process and make these decisions might then take over. Ken is absolutely right to protest — and if Sandy sits in that chair, that’s where the buck stops, honestly, even if not fair to her. We can be sympathetic to and appreciate Ms. Pashkin, but we can’t say the job is being done if it isn’t. I, myself, emailed a few times about a record attempt and never even received a reply email, so she is either overwhelmed or has given up — or both.
For those who have not received an email response from Sandy. Are you aware that her email address has changed? The new address is spashkin@willamette.net
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