NMN target of a hoax? Case of the M60 ‘All-American’
The March issue of National Masters News has been out for a while, but we have some unfinished business with the February issue — the first under new publisher Randy Sturgeon. A 64-year-old Santa Barbara sprinter named Tony Craddock copied me an exchange of email he had with Randy and USATF Masters T&F Chairman Gary Snyder over a 200-meter mark accorded “All-American” status. Tony wrote NMN and others: “In the February 2007 Issue of NMN, you erroneously award a 200m Men’s Age 60-64 All American Award to Rick Campbell for a time of 28.33 secs. While I laud Mr. Campbell’s performance, the following should be noted. The Age Group Standard for this event is 27.9 secs. hand-time.”
Tony continued:
If the 28.33 is hand-timed, it is well outside the Standard. If it is an auto time, it is still outside, as the conversion rate is 0.24 secs, converting to 28.09 seconds which should be rounded up to 28.1 seconds.
To arbitrarily award All American Awards for times that do not meet the standard cheapens the award, and makes the whole process corrupt. As it is, an award may often be suspect as it is subject to an honor system, and one never knows whether times are wind-aided or not. But to outright miss the standard and still be awarded the Honor is a travesty.
Many of us have “just missed” All American standards during races, and that’s just the way it goes. Please confirm that this Award will be rescinded.
I did a little research, and shared it with Randy:
1. Checking mastersrankings.com and the USATF meet schedule database, I couldn’t even find a meet contested on Oct. 17, 2006 (the date listed in NMN). Oct. 17 was a Tuesday.
http://www.mastersrankings.com/meets.php?pseason=Outdoor&cyear=2006&sort=Date
2. “Rick Campell” didn’t show up in the mastersrankings.com database.
http://www.mastersrankings.com/athletelists.php?pletter=C&sex=MEN&pseason=Outdoor&cyear=2006
3. In my site, I found a “Rick Campbell” M60 racewalker in California, but only one sprint mark for a “Richard Campbell”:
http://www.masterstrack.com/meets2000/west/west.Saddleback.html
So something really odd is afoot.
I’d hate to think NMN is the target of a prank, or a hoax. I’d also like to know who checks these applications.
I’m hoping that this is some product of a bad mix of typos — either the age being off or the date or performance. For whatever reason, this incident needs careful review.
The last I heard, on Feb. 26, Randy Sturgeon wrote: “Yes, I got it (Tony’s query) and Gary Snyder is handling this at this point.”
Hope we get some resolution soon.
