USATF Masters awards revamped to calendar year
Dave Clingan, chairman of the USATF Masters T&F Awards Committee, met with some of his committee members at the Hawaii annual meeting of USATF. They made some changes in how awards will be decided. The main difference is that the calendar year will decide the hottest of hot. This modifies the previous system (in use only one year) where the previous outdoor season and later indoor season were taken as a whole for deciding the Male and Female (and other) Athletes of the Year. (This isn't to be confused with the recent USATF Masters Athlete of the Year award, which went to the distance runner and not Phil Raschker. That's a different award.)
But the Awards Committee will keep the practice of honoring the awardees at the outdoor nationals Athletes Banquet, as we did in August in Orono.
So the upshot is this: All of 2007 will decide the Athletes of the Year -- to be awarded in August 2008.
And don't be surprised if the top vote-getter among women has the initials PR.