Masters Track News and Muse

The Hayward Classic (which is a great, great meet) is also billed as the NW Masters Regional Championships. So it looks like the NW Masters Regional is in jeopardy as well. One would think that you could go up the road to Oregon State University at Corvallis, OR, but they are a PAC 10 school that dropped men's track (no doubt in order to keep all their football scholarships). Sigh.

Since it was my email (to those runners on my email list for running an invitational 1500 and 2000 at this meet) that let the cat out of the bag on Hayward's troubles, I'd like to say what I said in my email: I think we should all wait until we hear what the final outcome is on this. We'll know more after the meet directors get together with the University - later today (Tuesday, March 14) according to Ruth's email to me. So let's see what's really going on before we move into panic mode!

I always look forward to this meet, and I hope it won't be moved or rescheduled. I also hope that meet info will be distributed a little more widely than it has been up to this point. When I first heard (5th or 6th hand) about the proposed changes to the schedule, I was a little irritated, but then figured a 2000 sounded like fun. Then I saw a very brief mention of the new "invitational" events with no explanation a couple months later in the OTCM newsletter. What exactly does "invitational" mean in this context? No offense, but if you campaign to get your own special events included in a meet, doesn't that amount to inviting yourself? This may not be the most appropriate venue to mention this, but since I haven't found much, if any, information about the meet anywhere else, it's the best place I can find.

Joe, your questions are valid and I'll make an effort to answer them. Before I get started, please recognize that my only role with the HC this year is as Coordinator of Officials, so I suppose I am not an "official" spokesperson for the meet. The primary reason that more information hasn't been distributed has to do with the fact that at about the time we would normally start advertising in NMN and sending out entry forms to our mailing list, our meet was put into limbo. You can be assured that the moment we get the final word (supposedly tomorrow--but we've been hearing that for awhile), we will get the word out--whatever that word is. Regarding the "Invitational" events: Please understand that in the context that the HC is also the NW Regional Championship this year, we will have a difficult job and a very tight schedule. When the guys came up with the innovative request for a couple special record attempt events, we tried to accomodate since they have had an excellent record of both showing up and racing well in the past few years. The primary reason for "invitational status" was to try to avoid record-setting efforts being stymied by a track crowded with slower runners (don't get us wrong, we love our slower runners as much as the Magill's and Young's of this world). Partially out of respect for what Peter has done for our meet in the past, and because we were confident that the two events could be interjected into the meet without disrupting the normal Regional Championship events, the HC Committee decided to grant the request--but only if they set the criteria and selected the fields. Once that is done, we will make sure that the race(s) is conducted properly. I hope I have done justice in trying to explain the process that the HC Committee went through. At this point, I hope you can have empathy for the fact that a ton of work has already been put into this year's HC since October. We have been energized by an incredible group of organizers, loyal sponsors and great masters athletes who are lining up to the starting line. The peripheral stuff has been discouraging to say the least.

I certainly appreciate the effort that goes into planning, organizing, and running any meet, especially Hayward. I just think there's got to be a better way of keeping ALL masters athletes informed than a few scattershot, hit-or-miss emails that only reach a subset of the people that have an interest in masters track & field. Keeping the Hayward Classic and USATF websites updated would be a good start. (And I appreciate that that takes time and effort too.)

I couldn't agree more with you about the website information. We have had an ongoing (internal) conflict over control of the Hayward Classic website, but that was recently resolved. With things now reorganized, we are proud to announce that Sandy Pashkin is our new Webmaster. With her at the helm, I think you can appreciate the quality that the Hayward Classic website will emanate. I know that her product will be out soon, and I'm looking forward to what Sandy will come up with. Thanks for your suggestions about publicity, Joe.