National Senior Olympic shenanigans
Recently I ragged on USATF Masters for choosing Charlotte, North Carolina, to host the 2006 masters outdoor nationals even though bids for that year weren’t supposed to be entertained until December 2003. Other potential bid cities — including Los Angeles, Spokane and Orono, Maine — were effectively aced out of the process. But now I realize USATF Masters delegates were pikers compared with the folks at the National Senior Games Association.
In mid-2002, some 19 cities were bidding to host the 12,000-athlete National Senior Olympics for 2005. (That’s about 15 cities more than seek the USATF Masters meets in a given year.) By late last year, the National Senior Games Association board had settled on three finalists — Pittsburgh, Louisville and Des Moines. On Nov. 26, 2002, the NSGA in Baton Rouge announced it had picked Pitt for the plum multisport event. But did the NSGA wait another two years to assign the next meet host? Heck no!
A week later, the Baton Rouge-based organization announced Louisville would be the 2007 host.
How interesting. A group that was on the verge of financial meltdown only two years ago was now being courted by big-money civic sports/tourism associations. And instead of waiting until 2004 to choose the next host site — when cities might have bid even more for the 2007 Games — the NSGA board apparently decided to take the current money and run.
Maybe Louisville — home of the Run for the Roses — just looked like a good bet for 2007. But what was the rush? The odds of hanky-panky rose with the stunningly quick turnaround.
USATF Masters decisions are made by mostly athlete-delegates at the annual national convention. The NSGA board is an entirely different beast — it’s way less beholden to its core constituencies (the masters masses). It does what it thinks best for the national body. But with 19 cities begging (and offering what inducements?) to host the 2005 meet, one wonders what led the NSGA to jump the gun on 2007.
In the meantime, local Pittsburgh columnists are treating the National Senior Games as a joke more than a legit news event. They said the same thing about Salt Lake City until some IOC members were caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
