WMA regional seeks officials (no experience necessary)
World Masters Athletics, which recently noted a spate of botched world championships, is fun (and easy) to mock. But I’d prefer it not be at America’s expense as well. So I was shocked to see this note in the Orlando Sentinel: “The National Training Center . . . needs volunteers for the North, Central and Caribbean Masters Track and Field Championships on Aug. 28-31. More than 100 volunteers will be needed each day. Volunteers should have good people skills and will help with events including javelin, weight throw, hammer throw, pole vault, long and triple jump, hurdles, high jump, shot put, race walking, marathon or discus. Track-and-field experience is beneficial, but not necessary. Several shifts are available.”
Oy vey.
People skills indeed.
Good luck.
9 Responses
I have participated in several meets held at the NTC in Clermont and the staff always puts on a very well organised event. My guess is that the volunteers that are being requested are not officials, but additional people to help with registration, parking, and other “non-technical” areas.
Lets be accurate Ken – the request is for volunteers – if you look on the event website you will see that they are seeking Officials and they are seeking Volunteers – two distinct categories. The notice in the paper asks for volunteers – folks to assist – not folks to be judging race walking and officiating at the events. Frankly I think you are trying too hard to look for something going wrong. Give them a chance to put on the meet before you begin a litany of complaints about it.
I plan to run the 5k on the track – will be sure to let you know about the lap counting- one of my favorite things about which to complain!!!
Anyone who’s ever run a track meet knows that volunteers are critically important to running a successful meet. They don’t officiate. They do important tasks like retrieving throwing implements, raking pits, keeping water containers full, handing out water to distance/marathon runners, forming hurdle crews, running errands, etc., etc., etc.
Please don’t confuse the critically important work volunteers do with officiating. One takes training and experience. The other takes a willingness to work and good people skills. Both are essential to a successful meet.
This WMA Regional meet should be huge, but I am guessing that Spokane will outdraw it (right now it looks like Spokane will have somewhere around 975 entrants). In fact,I don’t think this WMA Regional has ever outdrawn the US outdoors of the same year. Wonder why, as so many countries are eligible for this meet, while about 96% of our outdoor nationals is made up of US athletes.
Can’t wait for Mary Harada to put fingertips to keyboard to tell us all about what goes on in the WMA Regional. After all, it is not only a multi-country meet, it is also a preview of our 2009 outdoor nationals (same facility). I am sure that Mary will cover all the major points, which for someone like me are the following (not in order of importance): (1) counting of laps, (2) availability and cleanliness of restrooms, (3) shade (always important in the deep South), (4) heat and humidity for each day of competition, (5) availability of water, (6) first aid and medical.
Hard to believe, but this meet goes off 4 weeks from Thursday. Wow. Is it that soon?
Two good reasons why the WMA regional meet won’t draw what Spokane does (my opinion):
1) Timing- as Ken pointed out, many of us are in the education profession and the date for the WMA regional meet is, sadly, after many of us return to work =(
2) early August already makes for a long season and add another 3 weeks to that and everyone will be on fumes
I am taking notes about what you want to know Pete – will check it all out and report back! Shade, water, abundant and clean rest rooms, lap counting (too frequently not even an afterthought at some meets) first aid, medical, water, and heat and humidity. I hope there is no repeat of the Charoltte fiasco.
I too am curious to see how it all goes –
as for numbers – for some reason the NCCWMA does not draw big crowds -of course it is early in the entry process and we all know how athletes tend to wait until the drop dead date to enter, but I am not expecting a big crowd. As Mellow Johnny points out – lots of teachers back in school, and at the end of a long outdoor season. I will not be in Spokane (for family reasons) so Orlando is my “big” meet of the outdoor season. And frankly I am not looking forward to the heat and humidity.
Thanks so much, Mary; I await your report (I know it will be accurate and in great detail). While I am at it, let me restate why I think that lap counting (which has not been good in certain nationals, such as Hawaii in 2005 and Decatur in 2004) cannot be ultimately the response of the athlete.
BTW, all you need is a couple of good lapcounters (sometimes even only one), like Steve Vaitones, to get the job done right. To be perfectly frank, I don’t think some of the lapcounters at Decatur were all that interested in masters distance runners (or racewalkers).
Let us say I am running the 5000 on the track, and I believe it is ultimately my responsibility to get my laps right; the officials (as some say) are just there for assistance. My lifetime best is 19:48.00, and I desperately want to run 19:47.99 or better. With one lap to go the clock says 18:18, which means I really have to kick. I kick more strongly than Anselm LeBourne on his best day, and I storm (actually dive) over the finish line with the clock saying 19:46. I fall on my face, but I am victorious. An official then comes over to tell me I have one lap to go. I tell him I’m finished. He greets this news by shouting, “One more lap to go, that’s the last time I’m telling you. And by the way, you’re impeding other runners by lying here on the track.” Just how much would my taking responsibility for my own laps mean at this point?
How about the opposite scenario? Again my heart is set on running 19:47.99 or better, and with one lap to go the clock says 18:05. The only way I won’t get my mark is if someone trips me. My lapcounter screams at me and to all present: “Finisher.” He then says, “Sir, you have to stop, you’re finished. Please get off the track.” How much do you think my insistence that I have a lap to go will mean in this situation?
Again, a couple of good lapcounters like Steve Vaitones (who counted at Orono last year) or the ones who count at Boston indoors are what is needed. It’s very important, it’s not extraordinarily difficult, and yet it often comes up short.
The rules and procedures for proper lap scoring are available through the USATF Officials site.
http://www.usatfofficials.com/training/Monograph-LapScoring(2006).pdf
Its just that not every meet director feels obligated to fulfill such procedures. I’ve lap scored in (Open) World Championships, Olympic Trials and National Championships, where we have run the system to perfection. Even harder; indoor meets with 11 laps to a mile–corporate 2 mile relays with coed teams with 2 minute and 3+ minute half milers on the same team. It could be chaos. The system works–write down a lap time for each athlete. Unless they are exceptionally talented, don’t assign any official more than three athletes to pay attention to. Preferably less. Uh, that does mean you need the bodies present and hopefully breathing. What is it about Masters competition that makes us any different?
The worst I ever had it was the National Championships in Provo. With my credentials I walked on to volunteer to help lap score the 20K walk. The official assigned the duty was also assigned to judge the racewalk–great planning. She handed me the clipboard and walked away (this is not the only time something like this has happened to me at a Masters meet). With 240 some odd athletes about to start, I managed to recruit a husband to score his wife and a wife to score her husband (who was the overall winner). I got to do the rest solo. What would they have possibly done had I decided not to come out to a 7 a.m. race to rest up for my Long Jump later that afternoon (what has turned out to be my best NC long jump competition ever)? I am visualizing a Monty Python sketch.
When I retire from masters competition – or on some dark and stormy night, I am going to write a book about lap counting! Steve Vaitones knows how it should be done, there are lap counting sheets on the USATFNE website that would be useful for any meet director who wanted to do it right. Decatur was bad – in the 5k run – the lap counters not only did not introduce themselves to the competitors, they stood facing each other discussing what they were going to eat for lunch. One male competitor had finished his race, was standing on the side when an announcement was made – has anyone seen “xxxxxxx”. That person was standing next to me, they had missed his finish. Boise was terrible – no clock for anyone but the first finisher, no lap counters, no nothing.
That was not the worst I have seen or experienced – but this is not the time nor place to get into all that. Unless it is a meet run by Steve Vaitones, I assume that I must count my laps or have someone count them for me.
Note to Dartmouth Relays – it is NOT alright to tell competitors in a 3k to count their own laps, turn off the clock after the first finisher – when there is an age spread of 40 years in the race, male and female. Doing it wrong it bad enough, refusing to do it at all is inexcusable.
This is the sort of thing that both runners and walker endure at far too many meets.
The rules say one thing, what is done is far too often not much of anything at all.
Leave a Reply