Thanks to savvy marketing and stunning scenery, the Huntsman World Senior Games is capitalizing on masters again this month. Its three-day track meet allegedly began yesterday. (Still no results.) But high-class meet organization isn’t Huntsman’s forte, as we learned a year ago. However, because masters track has to follow the money, attention must be paid. Whether it’s the National Senior Olympics or the various World Masters Games (unrelated to the Huntsman affair), this seems to be the future of masters sports. M60 sprinter Jim Creech is among the entrants, and his story is told by his local paper in Northern California.

Here’s the story about Jim in case the link goes buh-bye:

Creech shaving time
By Richard Myers/Appeal-Democrat
October 8, 2007 – 10:55PM
Even two marriages can’t keep Jim Creech from doing what he loves.
Creech, 60, will compete today in the Huntsman World Senior Games in St. George, Utah, running in the 50-meter dash.
“My strength is my speed out of the blocks,” said Creech, a Gridley barber who lives in Biggs. “I’m extremely fast.”
Creech didn’t start out to run the 50 at the games. Instead, he was hoping to compete in one of his favorite events which earned him notoriety more than 30 years ago – either the hurdles or the pole vault. But the World Senior Games, which started Monday and continue through Oct. 20, didn’t offer either, so he opted to run the 50.
“I want to see how I do against runners from around the world,” Creech said.
Creech already has proven himself against top athletes from the West Coast. Competing in the U.S. Track and Field Pacific Division Championships at San Mateo in July. Creech won the gold medal in the 100-meter hurdles and a silver in the 100-meter dash, while running in the 60-64 age division.
His time of 19.2 seconds in the hurdles was fast enough to earn him All-America status, based on a standard of excellence formula. His time in the 100 was 14.4.
His efforts are a culmination of a fast-track program Creech begun only a few months earlier. In reality, though, his love for track began much earlier.
“I was pretty fast in grammar school,” recalled Creech, who grew up in North Carolina. He moved to California when he was in eighth grade and when he reached high school age, he went out for the track team at Sacramento High.
He fell in love with the pole vault because “I love flying,” Creech said. “I love free falling. I was a always a daredevil as a kid.”
In 1964, Creech cleared 13-4 1/2 in the pole vault and the following year he soared 14-6.
“I was No. 1 in Northern California my junior and senior years,” Creech recalled.
His senior year, Creech decided to try the hurdles. He tied the school record in the low hurdles and went unbeaten in the high hurdles in league.
Because of his exploits, Creech received a scholarship offer from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to run track for the Mustangs. While he still has the letter to this day, Creech turned down the offer.
“I turned 18 in January, married in March and graduated in June,” Creech said, adding instead of Cal Poly, he went to barber school in North Carolina.
Four years later, Creech got divorced and moved back to California where he decided to run track at Sacramento City College. He was on the 1969 Sac City team that won the state meet. He also ran on the shuttle hurdles relay team that was victorious at the NorCal Relays.
“We were three-tenths off the national record,” Creech said of the shuttle hurdles relay team, adding that year he also ran 12.8 in the 110 low hurdles and cleared 15-3 in the pole vault.
“I was going to train for the decathlon at Sac City and then go to USC the following year but I got married again” so those track plans fell through. Instead, he settled into his profession.
While working at a barber shop in Yuba City at the age of 32, Creech got the track bug again. Because he had one year of eligibility left, Creech enrolled art Yuba College. That was 1979 and he ran the 100 and pole vaulted.
“I was going out there just to be able to pole vault,” Creech said. “To me, it was just about having fun.”
In his 40s, Creech satisfied his urge to compete by running in 5-kilometer and 10k events, as well as the Bay to Breakers, where he broke 50 minutes for the more than eight-mile race. When he was 46, Creech ran the mile in 5:58.
Gradually, though, his interest turned from track to skiing. “My passion is powder snow,” he said “and I very rarely ran at all any more.”
It was his son, Kevin, 14, however, who got him back into running. Creech recalled ever since his son was 8, he would time him in the 100, 400, half-mile and mile to monitor his progress.
“Earlier this year, while timing him at Geweke Field, just for fun I asked him to time me in the 100,” Creech said. “I ran 14.2.”
That, plus a national Masters runners paper, got him interested in track again. “Looking at the paper, I saw that my times were comparable with some of those Masters runners,” he said, so he began training again.
Now that he’s fallen back in love with the sport, Creech has grandiose plans for the World Senior Games in 2008.
“I’d like to compete in the decathlon,” he said, adding he has joined Golden West Flyers Track Club of Sacramento so that he can pole vault again as well as train for the decathlon.
“I’ll just see how my body holds up,” Creech said.

Now I wish Jim all the best in Utah, but I also wish the story had its facts straight.
There is no “World Senior Games” in 2008 (unless he’s talking about the Huntsman 2008 edition.) And Huntsman doesn’t offer the deca anyway, or even the hurdles. (But you can do the standing long jump. Wooo-hoo!)
The real World Masters Games are in 2009 — in Sydney, Australia. And there’s no such thing as a Golden West Flyers Track Club. The story probably was referring to the Sacto-based GWAC.
And the reference to Jim “competing in the U.S. Track and Field Pacific Division Championships at San Mateo in July,” where he supposedly ran the 100 in 14.4, is all boogered up. The meet was the USATF Pacific Association Masters Championships, and he ran 14.68. And his 100-meter hurdle time was 19.44, not 19.2.
You could look it up.
Finally, Jim is quoted as saying he entered Huntsman to “see how I do against runners from around the world.”
Uhm, wasn’t there a masters meet in Italy recently?