Pete Taylor looks forward to summer meets
I have a masters track friend in Florida who signs her email notes to me “ecc” and I reply to her by my nom de plume “wcc.” Our own inside joke. She’s “East Coast commie” and I’m “West Coast commie.” Now that Pete Taylor the announcer is contributing so much to this blog, I should give him a nickname, too. But commie is taken. I’ll entertain ideas. In the meantime, here’s his latest take on masters meets on the East Coast he’ll be involved with. (And if you have an essay to contribute on any issue of masters track, don’t be shy. Shoot ’em my way!)
Pete writes:
I have 3 meets I would like to mention, as I will be the primary announcer at each and they will all be good ones.
On May 5-7 we have the Southeastern Masters meet for people from around the United States and abroad. The meet hotel (Millenium Hotel) is nice, the facility (Duke University in Durham) is very good, and there is really nothing not to like.
This is the kind of meet that deserves to draw 600 or more, but it won’t (I expect about 330 and would be delighted with 375). They have 4 cash awards (2 of them large), a weight pentathlon, regular pentathlons, the opportunity for racewalkers to duel on the track (5000) and then come back later in the meet on the road (10,000 or 20,000), a full slate of track and field events, etc.
I had a great time last year announcing the likes of Robert Koontz, Oscar Peyton, Marion McCoy, and Barbara Turkdamar in the sprints (Barbara ran wild as Barbara Cress in the 2001 outdoors at Baton Rouge and completely fooled me last year with a new name and different look).
In the middle distances I saw Lesley Chaplin-Swann run for the first time; she was impressive then but her meet-best performance (at age 48!) at Boston in the mile (5:08.81) shows that she’s now in another place entirely. Steve Nearman (Alexandria, VA) showed his dominance in the middle distances. I will prepare about 1 hour (in total) for this meet but still hope to improve on my mixed performance in Boston (March 24-26).
On August 3-6 we have the national masters outdoors in Charlotte; I have consistently predicted a total of 1313 competitors and will stick with that. The record for national outdoors appears to be 1503, and that could be threatened with big turnouts from New York, California, and Texas. I did a pretty good job in Hawaii last summer and will try to do better in Charlotte (aided by a field events announcer).
On September 2-3 I will announce the Potomac Valley Games in Langley, Virginia (just a few minutes from Washington, DC, and under an hour from Baltimore on a weekend). This is a nice meet on a 6-lane track with jumping and throwing venues; I hope to see everyone there. That will be it for my announcing in 2006 (unless I also announce the Philadelphia Masters/Middle Atlantic meet sometime during the summer).
