Photos posted from awards ceremony at Oshkosh banquet
USATF 2008 Masters Athletes of the Year Bill Collins, Kay Glynn and Kathy Martin were present for the awards ceremony at the Oshkosh Athletes Banquet a week ago at nationals. Click here for photos. The most touching moment was when Bill took the microphone and nearly choked up in sharing his appreciation for masters track and his world of friendships. Almost cried. Bill, who fought through the pain of a stress fracture at nationals, has rarely been this emotional in public. Several hundred age-groupers dined on salmon and steak at the banquet, held at the Oshkosh Convention Center, but there was no entertainment, music or dancing this year. (Hawaii had hula dancers, Charlotte featured clog dancers and Spokane had a band, for example.) My wife, Chris, took the vast majority of these shots. If you’re interested in a high-resolution image, write her at ESLChris@aol.com. Action shots from Oshkosh will be online soon.
USATF Masters Athletes of 2008 were honored at Saturday night banquet.
8 Responses
Congratulations to all of the 2008 award winners! You are all great athletes and you all clean-up really well…as evidenced by the photos! 🙂
Congratulations are also in order for those athletes that had truly world-class performances that the USATF Masters T&F Awards Committee chose to ignore! ðŸ™
1. Jeff Hartwig (M40-44) Pole Vault – 2nd Place 2008 US Olympic Trials
2. Roald Bradstock (M45-49) Javelin – 16th Place 2008 US Olympic Trials
3. Alisa Harvey (W40-44) 800 Meters – 6th Place 2008 USATF Indoor Championships
For the record, I nominated Jeff, Alisa and Roald for USATF masters track awards. The rest of the committee didn’t share my enthusiasm for these folks.
I’ll take a wild guess here. As far as I know, neither Jeff Hartwig nor Roald Bradstock has ever competed in a masters meet. Alisa Harvey has competed in masters meets, but in 2008 she did not compete in Boston (indoors) or Spokane (outdoors). I’m just guessing that people in their 40s who do not compete in masters meets are considered open athletes and do not draw many votes for that reason.
When Alisa has competed more in masters meets she has been selected for honors.
Mr. Taylor,
I have great respect and admiration for the contributions that you have made to our sport, but my point is that the Masters T&F Awards Comittee –except for Ken Stone– continually fails to recognize athletes performing at the highest levels of the sport.
Please keep in mind that the overall 2008 Masters Athlete of the Year –for all sports– was a swimmer that won medals at the Beijing Olympics. Now, whether or not someone who lives with a doctor that specializes in hormone manipulation (endocrinology) is drug-free, is a topic for another day.
Also, Roald Bradstock chucked the spear 63.32 meters at the 2008 Southeastern Masters Championship in Raleigh, NC.
I’m afraid that one throw at one masters meet (and that not a national championship) is not enough. My belief is that people who do not compete in masters T&F should not be honored by masters T&F. If someone wants to honor Mr. Bradstock, Mr. Hartwig, and others, let them do it through some other means.
Guess I sounded a bit harsh above. Sorry. My point is that we have enough trouble attracting competitors for our meets — I would hate to discourage people further by having them come to ceremonies such as the one depicted above (in Oshkosh) and find that the awards are going to men and women who don’t even compete in our events.
I remember a couple of years ago when Gail Devers was selected — one of our sprinters (a woman) expressed her dismay to me — Gail Devers? Why not honor someone who actually competes with us?
Peter,
You have a valid point about competing in masters meets, but please keep in mind that most of us will compete in any meet that is available to us including; open, masters, college, all-comers, senior games, and state games.
I do not know the criteria that the awards committee uses, but I do think that they would be justified in making it a requirement that you compete in at least one of the national championships (indoor, outdoor, weight pent, hep or deca) to be considered for an award in a particular year.
Also, recognizing the top masters male & female performances of the year in both the track events and the field events, based on the open scoring tables would not be a bad idea either.
Again, my main point is that there should be more recongnition for those athletes that are performing at the highest levels on the track and in the field. As it stands now, age-graded performances seem to take precedence over intrinsically better marks.
FYI – I am sure that I will become a bigger fan of age-grading, lower hurdles, and lighter implements if I am fortunate enough to live and compete for another 20 or 30 years! 🙂
I had no idea a masters track circuit existed. I am looking up the schedule as I know has several people in our area who should be competing. In 2008 my good friend was inducted into his college hall of fame. He should still be competing. Congrats to the 2008 award recipients!
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