Things are getting clearer. One of the reasons Masters is thinking of seceding from USA Track & Field is a potential downsizing of the USATF Board of Directors, which would give more clout to the “professional” (elite, Olympic-class) arm of USATF. From what I’ve been reading on the USATF Associations mailing list, the USOC (U.S. Olympic Committee) is the driving force to shrink the board. Folks posting comments suggest that a smaller board means fewer representatives of the “grass roots” — which includes Youth as well as Masters T&F. In the past 24 hours, some very revealing arguments have been posted.

Alan Roth wrote:
Lopes was 38 when he broke the world record in the marathon by 54
seconds (2:07:12). He was injured that same year (1985) which forced him
to retire from competition and from running . I introduced him at an
event in NYC about 5 or 6 years ago and he was quite plump.
Priscilla Welch was 42 when she won the NYC Marathon in 1987 in 2:30:17.
Miki Gorman was 40 when she took 2nd in the NYC Marathon in 1975. Then
she won the race the next two years. Grete Waitz was 35 when she won the
NYC Marathon in 1988 for her 9th win there. Joe, these may also be
anomalies but I think older people can hang in there for longer
distances better than when more strength is involved such as in sprints.
Recent research shows that max VO2 doesn’t fall very much as people age.
It’s just that as you get older, biomechanical problems can interfere
with the intensive training needed to compete at the international
level. Also, as you get older, it takes much longer to recover from
injuries (as I’m sure you know!).
Associations provide an infrastructure that facilitates Masters T&F
activities. It will be very difficult to replace that.
Craig has spoken with many companies about sponsoring Masters T&F and
Masters LDR. While he hasn’t brought such a sponsor onboard yet, he
continues to pursue that. The Editor of GeezerJock Magazine told me a
few days ago that he is looking for sponsors for masters where
sponsorship would support T&F as well as swimming, tennis, etc. He
thinks that a company may be interested more when more sports are
combined. He didn’t express a preference for how Masters T&F should be
structured. That wasn’t a factor.
Bob Fine is right that we have a lot of votes in USATF General Sessions.
We in grass roots can defend our position very well. Perhaps with that
in mind, Ed Koch, who chairs the restructuring committee is working
closely with us during the restructuring process. Ed is on this list and
can comment on this collaborative process.
Joe Lanzalotto, addressing Alan Roth, wrote:
They are all welcome anomalies and NONE of the ones you mention are recent.
You do not have to sell the value of masters’ competition to me….that
happened when I hit the magic number! Masters comprise the majority of the
LDR members and competitors here in NJ, to the point that you wonder where
all the open women and men went. All that said, the political power is
behind the open runners simply because that is where the majority of the
Olympic medals are and there seems to be a need to be recognized by the
general public. Masters will never be recognized by the general public and
the fools gold is that neither will our very deserving open athletes, except
once every four years.
Cynical or not, that is the realistic manner in which I see it. It is a shame to say the least.
Bob Fine wrote:
I think that these postings are getting “off base”. The point that a miniscule
number of athletes over the age of 35 canstill complete in World OPen
competition is academic to the problem raised.
The issue here is proposed major changes in the structure of USATF, being pushed by the USOC and professional athletes. It would result in the control of track & field by the USOC and less than 1/2 of one per cent of the members of USATF.
Put another way it is the “tail wagging the dog.”
There are legitimate needs and concerns for the professionals and
non-professionals. I submit that these needs are presently being met under the
existing structure. I rebel against any outside organization, such as the USOC,
in effect, trying to take over all aspects of our sport when their concern is
limited to winning Olympic medals. Personally, I am more concerned with the
health and welfare of our citizens from the cradle to the grave. Giving
youngsters a healthy outlet for their energy and older people the benefits of
exercise.
THE MASTERS DO NOT WANT TO LEAVE USATF.
This sport has been the major avocation in my life. It has enabled me to get a
college education, travel all over the world, create friendships and remain in
good health. I wish to give something back to the sport, as does the leadership
in the Masters program.
This problem, created by the USOC and a few athletes can be resolved by the
Youth, Officials, Associations and Masters working in concert to protect the
interests of the professionals, USOC, and the non-professionals.
Steve Vaitones, responding to earlier remarks, wrote:
>The average Master is only concerned about competition. If the Masters
>formed an organization outside of USATF, as has been done in Canada,
>Great Britain, New Zealand and Australia, WMA would recognize such a
>group. Such a group could have an alliance with USATF, similar to AAU
>and the Senior Games.
There´s not much of an alliance with those two groups, in reality.
>Since most of the Masters meets are on the local level ,the average
>competitor would not care who is sponsoring same.
>
>USATF would not be able to host meets if it’s officials and
>administrators, in the Masters program, started our own group outside of
>USATF.
There´s already comments that there aren´t enough masters meets, and a derth of officials. So who in the new organization is going to host meets and officiate them?
As a guy who directs these in the New England association, I have enough to do
without offering the same services at the usual rate of pay for another group.
Same, I suspect, with most of our officials So my choice is that USATF NE continues to put them on for our own organization or just say ´¨fuggeddabout it¨¨ on anything to do with masters. I know what´s easiest for us, but what´s best for the sport?
>This is not something the Masters are pushing for, although financially
>we probably would be in better shape. The reason being that at the
>present $20 dues $7.50 goes to the national and $12.50 to the
>Association. If there was a separate Masters orgaization the full $20
>would go to that organization. With 8500 Masters paying $20 per that
>comes to $170,00.
That´s a big assumtion that 8500 masters are going to join a new organization
with no history. ¨Better the devil you know than the devil you don´t¨´
At present the Masters’ Committees receive less than
>half of that. In addition, USATF dues will be increased and over the
>course of a few years could reach $40 per year.
The organization is like a family – preferring to have a favorite rich uncle
than a benevolent father.
All committees – or at least those with the loudest voices – are looking to get
a return of just what they put in as dues, and that´s never going to happen when you have a central organization that needs general funding. Masters want more … programs? someone has to put them on, and if they´re not being run now, as I said above, who´s going to run them later? … money? for
what – travel to Worlds? (I´ve heard that one). If there are no qualifying
standards and more than 20 age groups, how is that divvied up? …. political
voice? It´s available now. So I´m as stumped as Ed as to just what is going
to be gained beyond the mythical 8500 x $20 and starting from scratch.
On the other comments about masters age athletes performing well
internationally, they don´t consider themselves masters and suspect few are
looking forward to competing as masters. There´s a big difference in those
athletes compared with the general masters crowd.
Edward Koch wrote:
I believe also Carl Lewis was 36 when he won his final Olympic Gold Medal.
While the discussion among the Task Force is not for public disclosure, I can
tell you that I had already planned to share the comments from this listserve
with the Task Force during their conference call next week and that the Task
Force is well aware that a 2/3’s vote of approval is needed to pass anything, so
there will be lots of consultation along the way. I can also tell you that the
Task Force is looking at other stuff than just the size and makup of the Board
and it has been a slow go of it so far. While I expect at least some items to be
proposed at the 2006 convention, everything may not get done until the 2007
convention. That would be the absolute deadline before the 2008 elections.
Alan Roth wrote:
I don’t see anything contentious here. I haven’t seen any support for
masters leaving USATF and Bob Fine who is an excellent source of info
re: the masters as an insider says it won’t happen. I think the only
factor that would support such a move would be the USOC forcing USATF to
disenfranchise the masters. If that were to occur, grass roots in
general would be disenfranchised.
While it is not impossible, I don’t see a scenario for that. A
consulting firm did a study of USATF performance last year for the USOC
and it was a glowing report. We scored high in every category they
evaluated. As you all know, our performance on the world stage was
excellent last year. Our open athletes dominated the World Championships
but we were also outstanding in youth and masters world championships.
The report praised the efficiency of our volunteer governance with the
cost being only half of what is normally encountered in organizations
such as ours.
The report is quite comprehensive regarding their evaluation of
management and governance. They looked at so many different things. I’ll
focus on a few of them that are most relevant to our discussion. They
express satisfaction with the degree that athletes are included in
decision making. I don’t see any push to give high performance a greater
role in governance. Also, they made recommendations that are supportive
of grass roots such as:
Utilize more demographic and statistical information to enable targeted
membership development efforts in Associations that are not at full
potential membership levels.
Target youth fitness and drug education as key initiatives that
complement track and field partnerships with youth-serving agencies.
Determine feasibility of partnerships with the American College of
Sports Medicine, the President’s Council for Physical Fitness and Sport,
and the Center for Disease Control to allow greater emphasis on physical
fitness and drug-free lifestyles.
Ensure that all stakeholders have input into outcome quality improvement.
Consider, evaluate, and act on membership dues increases to benefit both
USATF and Association programming.
Consider other membership products, including multi-year memberships.
Consider separate membership categories for athletes, coaches, and
volunteers/officials, with differential pricing and benefit packages.
Target a small number of communities with “pilot” projects to stimulate
membership growth, particularly where track and field is underdeveloped
and where the community demographic is conducive to expansion.
Consider ways in which Associations can be transformed from their
emphasis on registration and sanctioning to provision of services that
stimulate promotion of the sport and image enhancement.
Create ways to motivate high schools and collegiate track athletes to
join USATF, particularly by the strength of perceived benefits and services.
I’m not quoting these items in the report to create a debate on each
item. So far, the Board has not looked at the report in detail. Some of
these items have been discussed and there is some implementation but not
because of the report. For example, we are trying to alleviate the
burden of registration and sanctioning by associations through the
expanding use of the national website. Membership dues and products are
major topics for us at the moment.
While the above recommendations show that the evaluation was not biased
against grass roots, there was a disturbing aspect and that is in regard
to governance. There are two recommendations I find troubling:
Reduce the size of the Board and eliminate constituency-based
representation.
Create a Nominating Committee to allow identification and solicitation
of potential candidates and to ensure diversity of ethnicity and gender.
Of course I don’t oppose diversity, but we are tackling diversity
through an active program to educate our leaders about diversity and to
implement mentoring and leadership development so that we will have more
diversity in our leadership. A nominating committee should not decide
who represents our committees because the candidates would not be tied
to their specific constituencies for whom they should be working. I
don’t buy into the idea that Board members should be independent of our
constituencies. I’ve heard the arguments for this independence, but I
prefer the democratic ideal even though it’s not perfect.
One way that we could lose our strength on the Board would be a
reduction in the size of the Board that would give us less
representation. I wouldn’t mind a smaller Board so long as we are
adequately represented and we determine who is representing us. While
the report doesn’t show a bias away from grass roots seats on the Board,
there is risk if the nominating committee happens to have such a bias or
if there are so few seats that youth, masters and associations are not
all sitting on the Board. Of course coaches and officials should also be
represented. One argument is that we have a Board of Directors with very
few members and then have an advisory board with representation from all
the committees. I don’t see that working because the advisory board
would not need to meet as a whole if the Board of Directors is making
policy decisions and the staff is taking care of implementation. I think
the committees would end up just working with their respective staff
members and the staff members would report to the BOD.
So the size and composition of the Board is important to us and also how
candidates are chosen.
The good news is that any changes in our bylaws require a two-thirds
vote, as Ed just reminded us, and we certainly can muster enough votes
to stop bylaws that are unacceptable to us. The USOC would have to
ignore the success we have in international competition, the glowing
report of our current management and governance, and the recommendations
of their consultants, to insist that we disenfranchise grass roots.
While the USATF High Performance folks would like to see our presence in
governance diminished, I think we are in a pretty good position but we
need to remain vigilant and work closely with the restructuring task force.
Joe Lanzalotto wrote:
Help me understand how the USOC could force USATF to make these type of
changes if they require a two-thirds majority vote. I know money talks, but
if the by-laws are written that way, how???
There are lots of good ideas in that report as you detail them. It is too
bad that they also needed to present such a negative recommendation.
BTW, is the whole report available for members to see?
Ed Parrot wrote:
To some extent, the USOC is empowered by the amateur sports act to
decide what things they want to see in the bylaws of each governing
body. They are the ones who “approve” USATF being the governing body.
They cannot force 2/3 of the delegates to change the bylaws of
course. But if they feel strongly enough about what they want changed,
there are a number of things they can do, including withholding funding,
criticizing USATF publicly (thus hurting our ability to obtain or retain
sponsors), or potentially even decertification of USATf as the national
governing body. This latter is complicated and would take a long time,
but is nevertheless theoretically possible.
Now, I’m not saying that if the USOC did any of these things due to
failure to pass their requested change that it would stand up to a
lawsuit by USATF. I imagine the lawyers on the list could tell us more,
but my gut tells me that it wouldn’t. They’d have to come up with
pretty compelling reasons – “diversity” would be the only one I imagine
would have a prayer of working.
However, I’m sure that the last thing USATF wants is to get into
another legal battle with USOC. The wrangling over Jerome Young did
some damage to us, even though we were essentially in the right. The
USOC has a history of not backing down, so its anyone’s guess where
things will go. Hopefully there is some sort of compromise out there
that will be acceptable to all parties.
If not, I highly doubt that 2/3 of the delegates at a convention
will ever vote to create a scenario where masters, youth, associations
and officials have no Board representation. Where that leaves us is
anyone’s guess.