Reno report: Cleary tells exhibition events: 400, 1500

Elite masters quarter-milers and milers, rejoice! Your events have been chosen as masters exhibitions at the USATF open nationals. The rest of you, especially field eventers, can go back to your cave. At yesterday’s Masters T&F Committee meeting at the USATF annual meeting, Mark Cleary (masters invitational program coordinator for life) announced his picks for our showcase events: Indoor nationals will feature the 1,500 for men and 400 for women. Outdoor nationals (aka IAAF worlds trials) will have the 400 for men and 1,500 for women.


In presenting this year’s slate of events, Mark took pains to justify the picks. He said there’s “been some concern about too much middle-distance events” at USATF open nationals. (Ya think?) So he prepared a list of all masters events contested at indoor and outdoor masters nationals in his eight years of doing this.
Mark said these events were run:
60 — once
100 — once
200 — seven times
400 — five times
800 — six times
1,000 — two times
1,500 — once
Mile — seven times
3,000 — twice
110 hurdles — once
In telling of his annual selections, Mark said he was “trying to spread it around to the event groups.” As long as those groups met some exacting criteria of his choosing.
Here’s why field events aren’t included in the exhibition program:
1. It’s hard enough to persuade meet organizers to make room for running events. Mark tells horror stories of having to deal with John Chaplin of the USATF Men’s T&F Committee and others involved in the meet schedule.
2. It’s hard to get an exciting field in the field events. “We’re not going to do a women’s high jump,” he said as an example. “We (may) have one good jumper and four average jumpers.” He says that when he asks folks who will be in that event, “there’s a big dead silence.”
On top of that, add the complexity of getting people to pay their own way to the event and stuff.
And don’t even THINK of having masters events with older athletes (60-plus). Mark apparently focuses on the 40-55 age range because they’re easier to arrange. But have you checked out the M70 sprinters lately? Incredible talent.
On the other hand, finding good middle-distance runners is a breeze, Mark says. An M50 middle-distancer himself, Mark crowed about the quality of the men’s 3K field at the Eugene Olympic Trials, where he fought hard with Chaplin to add four men to the field. (Tony Young won, you’ll recall.) “We had a final that was unbelievable,” Mark told masters delegates. A dozen were under 9:01 and 10 were sub-9, he said.
Mark also answered critics who say the qualifying standards are too high. In fact, he says, the standards helped improve the field, since “people will start going after that (standard).” But Mark confessed that in choosing the 3000 for the Trials, he shot himself in the foot” for the Drake masters mile exhibition, since folks who might otherwise have run at Drake stayed out to save their nickels for a trip to Eugene. The 2008 Drake masters mile was relatively weak, with only five entrants.
Of course, setting the bar high might work as well for non-running events. What field event might generate great competition with excellent marks? Try the men’s high jump. (Bruce McBarnette will travel ANYWHERE to compete, BTW.)
Mark held out the hope that the 2009 USATF indoor nationals (scheduled for Boston in late February and early March) might accommodate an additional masters event.
Moreover, I reminded Mark (and the rest of the audience) that newly elected USATF President Stephanie Hightower had told us she supported more masters events at open nationals, “so why not call her bluff?”
“Use the bluff and ask for more,” said Bob Weiner, the masters media chair.
“OK,” Mark replied weakly.
Masters will produce great fields in the 400, no doubt. America owns the event, delegate and masters sprinter Thomas Jones noted. He told Mark that he’d get online and “have your fields by Christmas.” Details will be posted here eventually.
In other masters exhibition news, Mary Rosado — Mark’s program sidekick on the East Coast — announced that she had just “confirmed that Millrose will be running masters relays.” As usual, men’s and women’s 4×4 relays will be contested at the Millrose Games. Mary said: “Get your teams ready and start running your qualifiers (for time).” She didn’t specify the qualifying time.
She also didn’t mention when in the Millrose schedule the relays will be contested. If tradition holds, the masters relays will go first on the track — before many people arrive for the elite events.
And as long as we’re on the subject, Mary, raise some hell with meet orgainizers. Demand better treatment for the masters entrants. Last year, masters women were barred from the best warmup areas.

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December 7, 2008

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Reno report: Cleveland wins 2011 masters nationals

The Harrison Dillard Track Complex at Baldwin-Wallace College in the Cleveland suburb of Berea will host the summer 2011 USATF Masters National T&F Outdoor Championships, master delegates decided this morning. Spokane was said to have expressed interest earlier, but Marla Emde of Spokane LOC, told me that reconstruction work at Spokane Falls Community College won’t be done until after 2011, so they’l probably vie for 2012 or 2103. Despite a brief bid from the floor to award the 2012 nationals, masters chair Gary Snyder said, Nah, we’ll wait for next year to award 2012. So Spokane is the front-runner to land another nationals, after a good show in 2008.

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December 5, 2008

7 Responses

  1. rich wallace - December 5, 2008

    I ran the D3 nationals at Baldwin-Wallace way back in 1979. Nice little stadium. I’ll go back!

  2. mellow johnny - December 5, 2008

    Great news. After things looked pretty dire with ’09 in Clermont, have to be excited how things have turned out.
    2009 @ Oshkosh- great facility, management, etc.- i have no doubts this will be a great meet
    2010 @ Sacto- track has hosted Oly Trials and NCAAs and will host Worlds in 2011…need I say more?
    2011 @ Cleveland- word is one of the best 5 tracks in the country; another new location with good weather
    2012 back in Spokane possibly?- and they’re doing renovations too?
    Let’s just say the next 4 years could be great nat’l meets for masters track…
    Just need to somehow get Eugene in the rotation, right?

  3. Herb Stein - December 6, 2008

    Date of Senior Games for 2011 is correct, but the site is Houston; Cleveland is 2013. Concur with Mellow Johnny about getting Eugene back in the rotation – I’ve never been there and competing there at least once is on my Bucket List. Also, it would be nice to get back to Orono at some point – Maine is a really nice place to be in the summertime.

  4. mellow johnny - December 6, 2008

    Back at you, Herb. I was also thinking that Orono should get in there again as well. Hope they a consider a bid down the road…perhaps 2012 then back to Eugene in 2013 so we keep this “western/eastern” thing going which I fully support.

  5. peter taylor - December 7, 2008

    Mellow Johnny (and others): I think that Berea, Ohio, is a very good site (it seems to be about 4 miles or so from Cleveland’s airport, and everything I have heard about the venue is very positive). Linda Carty gave it a big thumbs up, as I recall, and that is good enough for me.
    I find it interesting that Baldwin-Wallace (the host site for Berea) has hosted the national Div III champs before, as has Oshkosh, of course. In fact, one could do a lot worse than to simply go through the list of Div III sites over the years to see what we might want.
    I had that idea, which is where I discovered Oshkosh (forgot to mention it to the powers that be), and the fit looks very good.
    I had a similar idea (look at who is hosting the Youth Nationals), and that is where I discovered Ypsilanti (Michigan), the home of Eastern Michigan Univ (which I previously recommended).
    You’re an avid student of the masters game, Mellow Johnny, and thus I will note something I mentioned earlier. No state with a small population has ever had a good turnout in our outdoor nationals (1300 or better). In fact, only 4 states have been successful at getting 1300 or more: California, Oregon, Michigan, and North Carolina. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
    Wisconsin could become the fifth state to draw 1300+ (a staggering number of people live within 500 miles of the venue). We will see, Mellow Johnny.

  6. mellow johnny - December 7, 2008

    As usual, great insight, Peter. Thank you and thanks for taking a break from your “vacation” to comment on this.
    I am encouraged that Oshkosh, Sacramento, and Berea all have a good chance to draw 1300+ athletes. All are close to several areas with large populations.
    Eugene would also draw again because, well, it’s Eugene.
    A return to Spokane or Orono in 2012 would likely dip back under 1300 because they aren’t located near population centers and are also difficult to get to.
    That’s not a criticism of the jobs done by the LOCs for those meets as I went to Spokane and had a great exprience and heard similarly about Orono.
    I’m just glad the next 3 years are locked in and I except all will be great meets.

  7. Eric Braschwitz - December 17, 2008

    The Baldwin Wallace facility is excellent, should provide some excellent performances and the surrounding campus is well maintained, a private college with a couple thousand students. As I recall, the track is somewhat protected from any wind due to a sunken bowl set-up. Personally, while in high school in the mid 70s I had many PRs at BW and was even competing at a meet there the day I heard Pre died in 1975. Although not a guarantee, the weather can be very pleasant that time of year. It should be a good venue. Since he lives close by, I’ll try to get my Dad out of retirement to do a racewalk or something. Thanks to Ken Stone and all the work he does with this site.

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