Norm Green fesses up to not handing off the Hall of Fame baton
Norm Green, 79, is a masters distance legend and a saint when it comes to the USATF Masters T&F Hall of Fame. He has run the show for nearly 15 years — all by his lonesome. But not having a committee to speak of, or any help beyond the Hall of Fame voters, meant this year was a dark hole. No inductions were announced at the annual meeting just completed. Norm explains: “There were no Masters Hall of Fame honorees for 2011. At the St. Louis annual meeting, I announced my failure to produce a class of 2011 and my resignation from the position of Masters Hall of Fame manager, a post I have had since 1997. Early this year I encountered medical issues and fatigue related to the overwhelming task set at the Virginia Beach meeting last year. Consequently, there is now a leadership gap related to MHOF management.” I’ll bite my tongue, for once. But let this be a lesson: Nobody should be a committee of one.
Norm Green gestures at Reno annual meeting of USATF in November 2008.
17 Responses
I won’t bite my tongue. This includes Sandy Pashkin as well as Norm Green. Regardless of the best efforts and intentions, a committee of one is administratively wrong. There are too many opportunities for personal preferences to creep in without the checks and balances of other committee members. The workload might prove to be too much and the alarm is not sounded until far too late.
I bite my tongue all the time. Its when a wrong has or is being done and people say or do nothing because they are too scared of what might happen. There is a lack of planning and an overabundance of last minute micro management. What are meetings suppose to accomplish if not to check on the health of the organization?
I appreciate the efforts of Norm Green and Sandy Pashkin but am certain that committees should have more than one member. Norm Green has impressed me greatly over the years in a variety of ways.
As I recall, Norm was a 4:24 miler at Cal-Berkeley, but what a superstar he became as a master. And he has done so much administratively for our program.
I look forward to great events in the future for our masters program (and I hope the “kinks” can be ironed out by our administrators and officials).
First event at Bloomington (March 2012) will be somewhat pricey ($66.00), but that must reflect drug testing, as the $66.00 includes $25.00 for a surcharge.
So far, Bloomington has no entrants, but that should change soon. I expect Jerry Smartt to come in very early in the game. I am sure that our volunteers and administrators will do a great job for us in Bloomington.
In the final sentence (above) I meant “administrators and officials,” not “volunteers and administrators.” We rely on volunteers for essentially everything: to be administrators, to officiate, rake the pit, chase down a javelin, etc.
Sorry.
Roger that, Peter. I gave the entry a shot this morning, Dec. 7th, but it’s still locked into last year. It should be functioning soon. Smartty
Good, Jerry. I just tried it myself (for informational purposes only), and it said that entries had closed on Feb 27. I am sure they will get it fixed fairly soon.
The online entry link is still unavailable for Bloomington. Tickled that I don’t get rattled AND LET SOMETHING LIKE THIS BUG ME.(^_^) Smartty
Yes, Jerry, I just tried it again myself (for scientific purposes only). It does not work. No wonder there are no entrants to this point.
I asked Carmen Triplet about entry and she was kind enough to alert Andy Martin. He wrote immediately and assured me that the entry link is working. It is ready for registration. Thanks, again, to Andy and Carmen. Smartty
Jerry, you now represent 33% of the entrants, but that won’t be for long. Still, I am guessing that the meet lost a few entrants for good, as those who tried to enter early were rebuffed and might have given up permanently in disgust. Hard to believe that the entry mechanism was hooked up to Albuquerque.
If I had been an early entrant (which I was not; the only indoors in which I competed was Princeton 1984) I might have declined to pursue entry after failing for the first few days. Still incredible that for a national championship the online entry would be linked to the meet for the previous year. Oh, well.
Looks like the target is now 866 entrants for Bloomington to move into second place in masters history. No. 1, Landover (2009), was too high to catch. Bloomington will be a good meet.
I am a bit surprised that most of the entries here are about the Indoor meet and not about the obvious problem of allowing for committees of one to exist.
Some worthy masters were denied an opportunity to be elected to the masters HOF for this year. I wondered about that as i did not receive a ballot but I figured it got lost in the pile of mail awaiting me after a long summer of being away from home. And publicizing the newly elected rarely happened until the names appeared on the USATF website – sometimes a couple of years later or by someone managing to find out and sending the info either to NMN or this blog.
What happens now? Is there now a new masters HOF committee – or does this committee just go away? Those of us who do not attend the annual meeting generally hear nothing about what transpires there for months – if ever. The chair of masters T & F is noted for his infrequent and very short email news – and many are not on his email list. My guess is that the Master HOF will go the way of the dodo bird.
That is a shame as there are many masters athletes worthy of the honor.
Yes, Mary, you are correct. We (mostly I) strayed away from the topic on this one. Agree entirely that we missed the boat on the Hall of Fame committee. Now that we have a committee of none I guess we are in more trouble.
Of course, maybe someone was selected/nominated to be chair; I do not know.
As for another committee of one — records — presumably most of the records designated as “pending” were accepted at the annual meeting. Unfortunately, no update of the records has been published, and so we do not know who made it and who did not.
One of the ones who was not even nominated was that delightful Mary Kirsling, who established a W85 American indoor record for the 800 in Albuquerque. Apparently, her performance was not deemed worthy, as she never made “pending” even though she established the mark at nationals.
On another subject, you were correct that the altitude greatly affected times in the distance races in Albuquerque. In the mile, for example, in Boston (2010) 14 men broke 4 minutes and 40 seconds, with a best time of 4:21.56.
In Albuquerque, by contrast, no man (even in the youngest age groups) could break 4:43 in the mile!! Remarkable. The altitude took a terrible toll, leaving many runners gasping.
In the women’s mile, the best time at Boston was 5:11.93. In Albuquerque, the best time was a far slower 5:29.26. Yes, the altitude exerted a heavy toll at Albuquerque in the distances.
Committee of one?…That just does not sound like it worked according to Norm. Seriously, Maybe Norm should get an award by the next committee for both his hard work and accomplishments. Norm did a great thing for masters track because it motivates people. Coaches, officials, organizers, directors, gave of their own time without much in return to develop meets from nothing to really something! The East Coast Invitational was one very successfull meets over time. The organizer and director of that meet deserve a special place in track and field history.
For me, its about the opportunity to compete. I am so рџ™‚ happy we have masters track. Hey peter, One mark may be considered for a hall of fame but I feel it would have to be on the level of Bob Beamons wrong foot take-off world record. Its more than one performance in general.
If there is a committee of one and its gone, we better find out what went on in that committee. Does he have recommendations based on his experience? Will some other committee adopt it? What other problems were there? What are the rules to be handed off? Why should we retain those rules? Probably yes
рџ™‚ Its worth it to honor those who have loved and given of themself both in the past and future. We ought to have different catagories. ie… Organizers, directors, coaches, officials, and athletes. We all work together to make track and field happen. Do we want a committee of one or none?
Actually there was a “committee” listed with Norm Green as Chair but I have no idea if the others were “in name” only or consulted with Norm by mail, email, etc. Norm was the Chair and apparently did the work – which was considerable – in looking up records for potential honorees, making up the lists, the ballots, mailing out the ballots to all members of the hall of fame and counting the ballots. It was a considerable task and a labor of love.
As I mentioned above – the work of various committees at the annual meeting is not well publicized if publicized at all. Now that Norm has resigned from the HOF committee it will be interesting to see if anyone or some ones are asked to serve on this committee or if it fades away into the sunset. That would be a shame as it recognizes achievements over a minimum of a 10 year span of competition, both athletes and administrators.
But I suspect we will know only by a lack of nominees and awardees sometime next year.
Communication with the masters membership is not the strong suit of the various masters committees.
Mark #13, Peter asked that Mary Kirsling be nominated for a record, as her record-breaking performance should have been nominated and accepted as a record. He did not say she should be nominated for the Hall of Fame.
Thank you, Old Timer. I should have used a word other than “nominated,” but you got my point. Mary Kirsling established an American record at Albuquerque in the 800 for W85, but she never made “pending.” It would be nice to see her get the record, for her sake as well as for ours.
After all, if you can’t establish an American record at nationals, where can you do it? Kind of reminds me of Stacey Nieder, who set an American record in the high jump (W40) at Boston indoor nationals in 2010 and never got any recognition for that record.
In 2011, Stacey broke the W40 record again (this time in Albuquerque), and after a long delay she made “pending.” I am guessing that her record was accepted at the St. Louis convention, but because the record list was never updated, I can’t be sure. Let me take a look. No, still not updated. Oh, well.
Hey ol timer, My mistake, the subject was changed to records as you say. Records are funny things, you make one and your listed if the meet keeps records. The previous one vanishes into thin air. What I find intresting is the history of records. Not just who has the record now. That is very difficult to find from the meet directors. It would be nice to have those listed in a computer data base with links to that persons history.
How is this one? Lets establish standards, a little higher than the all-american ones, and if a person makes it they are automatically considered. They go on a list of people being honored for that consideration. That would actually be a good way to determine those who have stood out. Lets also send those people a letter. That would be a one time thing, not every year they did it. Now the considerations would roll over every year for the winners. A person from 1972 could be a winner in 2012. A database would be developed year after year with additions to previous nominees. Just throwing it out there. I am working on my throws by the way. Probably another short one ranking me about 33 out of 34. Just wait, next year is a whole new one.
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