When I learned that ESPN2 had aired the masters exhibition 110 hurdles race from Carson nationals, I was thrilled. Today, when I finally got to see the broadcast on tape, my thrills were deflated by dismay at the flubs by announcers Dwight Stones, Larry Rawson and Mark Jones. Also it was apparent that the main reason the race was shown was because a celebrity athlete — Willie Gault — was in the race. His name recognition from football made it possible for ESPN to devote nearly 2 1/2 minutes of its Sunday show to the men’s masters event.

For those who didn’t see the broadcast, I took notes for a transcript of what was shown across the United States. The following is word-for-word, a segment that followed the tearful Erin Gilreath talking about her American record in the hammer:
MARK JONES: A little bit earlier this afternoon — the men’s masters 110-meter hurdles — and I don’t know about you guys, but when I grow up I want to be like Willie Gault. (LARRY RAWSON chuckles) Still looks to be in phenomenal shape.
RAWSON: We’re talking 44 years of age right now. The hurdles they run in masters competition — meaning 40 and over here principally, and they have age-group competitions every five years — are 39 inches, which are the high school height. The open competition have 42 inches to climb up and over.
JONES: Willie Gault is out there in lane 7, moving pretty well — just like old times back in Tennessee and then on the USA national team. Willie Gault has done wonderful things in track and field — and outside of track and field as well. Like I say, he’s in phenomenal shape at 44 years old.
DWIGHT STONES: He’s the world masters record holder — 44 years old. And he won a world championship bronze medal in the inaugural World Championships in Helsinki 22 years ago — and he looks like he can go out and play (football) right now.
LAWSON: It’s scary when you sit at home and say to yourself, “I remember Willie Gault.” And then, Dwight, you say that was 22 years ago.
STONES: I know. It seems like yesterday.
RAWSON: Oh, geez, I know. They say with youth that 20 years older than you are is old age.
JONES: Willie Gault also a former football player for a while in the NFL. And still doing great things on the track. The time was an ageless Willie Gault. That’s what it looked like a little earlier today as he ran and won the men’s 110 meter hurdles in 13.87 — as we look at the top 3 in the event. Gault in 13.87, Ashford in 14.20 and Dexter McCloud in 14.53. Great performances. Let’s go down to Leslie Maxie.
LESLIE MAXIE: Alright, you guys. You say masters — but it’s with a wink — because he looks soooooo good. Willie Gault — you mention football, but you gotta remember he’s a Super Bowl champion. Willie, why run today? Why now?
WILLIE GAULT: I love the sport. I never really stopped running. It’s probably the purest sport in the world. It’s mano-a-mano, it’s you against the clock, and you can run till you’re 100. I mean, there are people running till they’re 100. I’m very fortunate to be able to train with HSI, Maurice Greene, all those guys, Leonard Scott, and Larry Wade’s my coach and John Smith. And it just makes for amazing atmosphere. Makes you run younger and feel younger.
MAXIE: Thank you so much. We’ll talk about how you feel a little later (laughs).
End of segment.
ESPN2 aired the whole race twice — first showing the whole field and again isolating on left-leg-lead Willie. Then, in slow motion, it showed the last few hurdles nearly head on. Good camera work, poor race calling.
Rawson meant to say that masters compete in five-year age groups. Stones probably meant to say that Gault held some masters records (but not in the hurdles).
Ashford, the current world record holder at 13.73, got no mention at all, except when the results were read on screen. And no mention of the time being wind-aided. Ashford is shown embracing Gault and holding his hand above his head.
It’s apparent that the ESPN plan from the get-go was to focus on Willie, since a graphic was prepared for showing an American flag next to “1983 World Champion (4X100m), 12-year NFL career.”
And, of course, the exciting masters women’s 1500 race wasn’t mentioned at all. Had Mary Slaney been running — as she was set to do at the 2004 Olympic Trials masters exhibition before getting injured — that race would have been shown as well.
Nitpicking, you say? Well, yeah. The Junior (under 20) champions weren’t mentioned either. But one wonders whether masters exhibition races would ever be shown on TV without a name participant. Check that. They have — at Penn Relays a few years ago, 100-year-old Everett Hosack was shown in the M75-plus 100-meter dash. But at nationals? Willie was the sole reason for showing the race.
Thankfully, Willie said all the right things — even mentioning the involvement of 100-year-olds. Leslie’s performance, however, was dreadful by comparison to Willie — a Hollywood actor, after all. But you can’t expect much from Leslie Maxie, a former world-class hurdler who later in the ESPN2 broadcast interviewed Greg Foster and Renaldo Nehemiah (who represent hurdlers Joanna Hayes and Michelle Perry). TWICE Maxie referred to Foster as an Olympic champion (nope, he won silver in 1984 behind Roger Kingdom.)
So I won’t be too hard on the masters segment. It’s par for the course, when your on-the-field “expert” addresses Greg Foster as a gold medalist. Masters got no worse treatment than the elites.