Send questions for USATF prez candidates, masters chair hopefuls
Anyone with the motto “Make Track & Field Great Again!” has my vote. Except I won’t be a delegate or visitor to the Orlando annual meeting of USATF in December. But I’ll be there in muck-raking spirit. I plan to quiz the candidates for USATF national masters chair (Rex Harvey and Robert Thomas) as well as USATF presidency seekers Vin Lananna and perhaps others. Amanda Scotti of National Masters News would become the third national officer from NMN if she wins election to secretary. (She announced in the current issue.) The late Al Sheahen and still-kicking Suzy Hess were earlier NMN publishers to hold national masters office. (It’s a tightrope they walk — balancing reader and commercial principles with committee politics, and avoiding conflicts of interest.) For the sake of a savvy Q&A, I’d like your ideas for topics and queries. Post them here, or email me privately at TrackCEO@aol.com. I have no shame. All subjects are fair game.
26 Responses
Go Amanda!! Carry on the National Masters News tradition!!
“Still kicking” Suzy Hess (Wojcik)
I should add: Questions should be related to masters track. Just becuz.
Robert and Rex: I have many questions, but I will limit myself to two.
1. In the 1989-2000 period, 25% of our outdoor masters nationals drew more than 1400 entrants. In contrast, of the last 16 outdoors (2001-2016), just 1 (6%) drew that many. This is remarkable for many reasons, not least of all the fact that there has been a great increase in the US population since 1989 (up 29%).
How do you plan to “make masters T&F popular again”?
2. At both indoor and outdoor nationals the management of the track races has gotten completely out of control. For example, at Albuquerque 2016 the 6 entrants in the M55 400 were split into two races, one of 2 runners and the other of 4. As things turned out, the winner ran in the smaller race, and the silver and bronze medalists competed in the race of 4. I’m sure they would have liked to engage the winner directly.
Other bad things happened in terms of designing the Albuquerque races, while Grand Rapids outdoors was completely out of control in terms of race design. Do you have plans to bring rationality back to the conduct of track races at nationals?
Pete–I don’t have your statistics but let me suggest a possible answer to your first question: different meet locations. I expect that factors such as nearness to centers with large masters’ populations, weather in July/August, and cost to get to the location are key determinants of participation.
I looked at the last 10 years (2007-16) where our outdoor nationals were held: Orono, Spokane, Oshkosh, Sacramento, Berea OH, Lisle IL, Olathe KS, Winston-Salem, Jacksonville, and Grand Rapids. Then I looked at 1989-2000. You said 25% had more than 1400 entrants. I’m going to guess that San Diego (1989), Eugene (1994 and 2000), San Jose (1997), and East Lansing (1995 and a week before Worlds in Buffalo) were the high-entry locations. Pete, tell me if I’m right. If so, this would make a strong case for locating in places like southern Cal, the Bay Area, Eugene–and maybe New England or the NY/Philly area. I realize we are captive to who bids but location of the meets may be the answer to your question.
Yes, Steve, I made it a little too simple. There is really no excuse for having fewer than 1400 entrants now, and I kept that front and center in my mind. We had an estimated 1450 in 1989 (San Diego), and my calculator tells me that 1.29 times 1450 is 1871.
Thus, all things being equal, we should have been able to get 1871 in Grand Rapids. Instead, we got 1019 or thereabouts, which is so disgraceful as to be almost beyond belief.
Two other things I kept in mind were (1) the great increase over the years in the participation of women; and (2) my belief that the site should only matter a great deal if it has so many negatives as to overwhelm all positives. The masters nationals are our World Series or Super Bowl; just going there and experiencing the thrills should be enough.
The meet with the worst attendance in the modern era was Honolulu in 2005. There, the negatives simply overwhelmed the fact that the meet was “in paradise.” Regardless, in terms of the apparent predictive variables that you have listed, I agree with all three.
In any event, my central point is that we should be climbing steadily, with high points hit when we locate in California or Oregon. Under no circumstances should we have less in 2016 than we did in 1989.
The high-entry locations were San Diego (1989), Eugene (1994), and Eugene (2000). That makes 25% of 12. As you know, Michigan is a high-population state, and it is near some other populous states (Illinois and Ohio).
We should have crushed the 1400 barrier in Grand Rapids, and instead we barely got over 1000. As I recall, East Lansing got 1259 in 1995. That meet was hurt by the necessity for many Americans, especially those with jobs, to make a choice, Buffalo for worlds or East Lansing for nationals. Many people simply chose Buffalo. Some, of course, went to both meets.
On the other hand, a couple hundred foreigners made it a “twofer” and went to both nationals and worlds. It’s impossible to know whether that made up for the many Americans who could not afford to go to both meets and opted for worlds.
In terms of your list, as you know, Florida recently passed New York to move into third place among the states in population, and it’s a “vacationer’s paradise.” To have poor attendance as we had in Jacksonville last year is just unacceptable.
Hence the question is … what are the several methods that will be used to increase attendance at Nationals and Local meets?
For example
Advertising ? [videos that masters has been using] [Web based newspaper adds]
Websites ? [usatf, mastershistory.org Wikipedia. Facebook. Masterstrack.com
Trackinfo.org ]
More clubs participation [not all clubs send all their members]
More places for Masters to train and gain exposure.
Should Masters seek adding athletes from similar activities to USATF Master meets:
Transplant Games of America.
Senior Olympics. Senior Games.
Road Races.
Para.
Special Olympics.
Etc.
Maybe if we were able to have the meets in easily accessible, more desirable locations, there would be better attendance. Obviously we can only hold the meet in places that bid, and nothing against some of the locations, but most of us would NEVER go to many of these places if it wasn’t for the meet. Also many of the small-ish cities are very expensive to get to. I’m in California, it’s cheaper for me to go to New York than Osh Kosh. I haven’t been to nationals in a few years but do plan on going in 2017.
I would simply ask for the schedule of events to be published early enough to make rational travel decisions. My calculations are that I wasted about $400 in travel trying to be certain that I could attend my events and get back to work on Monday. For example, I could have flown into Detroit and rented a car rather than flying into Grand Rapids. I also could have flown from Charlotte instead of the local airport (we don’t all live in big cities) had the information been provided in a timely manner. This would have resulted in a much cheaper airfare.
A second request is for some common sense and apparently the rules to be applied regarding the number of competitors when age groups are combined. Sitting around in the high jump or pole vault waiting for 60 jumps before the athletes who have any chance of placing would start should not happen in a national championship meet.
Can the national organization provide some type of incentive for participating in the regional meets? Some sort of seeding or discount advantage might produce some enthusiasm for participating in both. Perhaps some sort of competition among the regions could spur interest in both. As it is, competing in both has a great deal of redundancy instead of the regional meets acting like a stepping stone accomplishment.
Good points Glenn. The schedule problem is ridiculous. Also why in the world does the registration deadline have to be sooooo early. Going back to the schedule if you have the entry deadline so early why cant a detailed schedule be made after the entries are completed? I don’t understand. I coach a high school team and big high school invitational(Saturday) meets can often have over 1000 entrants and usually have an entry deadline about a week before the meet.
I have missed several National Masters indoor and outdoor meets the past number of years -partly due to family and personal health reasons and partly due to location. I will never again attend a meet in Albuquerque because of the altitude. It may be fine for sprinters, jumpers but not for middle distance. I am slow enough without adding altitude issues into the mix. Indoors/ outdoors – does not matter to me – altitude is altitude.
I am also very reluctant to attend outdoor meets in locations where the heat and humidity are normally very high in the summer. Difficulty in getting to a track location, distance from the track facility to housing is also an issue for many. Flying into locations that have small and expensive airports cause financial issues for some.
Add to that the weird scheduling of the outdoor meets of late.
What gives with scheduling the 800 and the 5000 run on the track on the same day? Why would I spend the time, effort, and money to attend a meet where my events are crammed into the first 2 days and then nothing after that? What was wrong with the sort of schedules used in the past that allowed a little bit of rest for middle and distance runners and not asking them to run their events literally back to back?
Why is it that the daily schedule is not available until almost the last minute making it impossible to buy airline tickets in advance or forcing athletes to spend an extra night for no good reason or turn up a day early because of guessing wrong as to when one’s events will be held.
Attractive destination will attract more folks to attend – many use the meet as part of a family vacation. Florida is an attractive location for many …..in the winter -not in the summer, in my opinion. I chose to go the WMA in Lyon, FR rather than to the NationalMasters in Jacksonville, Florida. Do not dismiss location as being unimportant.
Looking forward to the selection of a new USATF Masters Chairman.
I have several questions, primary is; how can we get the best leader,
if all the members don’t have a vote?
What I do not understand is how this election process works and WHY
after paying annual USATF membership fees we are required to pay another fee to attend the USATF State/Local annual meetings, where officers are chosen and decisions are made on the governance of the sport.
Then comes the USATF national annual meeting where we must pay $195 to attend and then not all members are allowed to vote!! Can someone explain how all members are represented in this process?
AND WHY would we want to belong to an organization that’s run in this manner?
My wife and I both pay annually to join USATF. We would love to attend the annual meeting and vote for president, which would cost us $195 each. We live in central Florida, but how about all the athletes who have to pay for lodging, food and travel in addition to the meeting/registration fee. Is this election stacked for the wealthy voter? (not for the senior retired on fixed income, not for the athlete with a young family)
If we decide to take a major hit on our finances, we will attend the USATF Annual meeting in Orlando and try/hope to vote for Rex Harvey.
We met Rex Harvey 30+ years ago when we traveled to Des Moines, Iowa for the National Masters Decathlon. This was the first, but not the last time we experienced Rex’s extraordinary organizational skills, along with his goals of strengthening the track and field community. For the Iowa meet, he found all the athletes, who requested lodging, places to stay at the homes of his friends, family and community members, as well as running off the meet while competing and winning the decathlon.
Because Rex was an excellent athlete himself and an engineer, he is also a fair, unflappable, official with a wealth of knowledge. An official who always leans to the side of the athlete. Rex knows the rules down to the smallest detail (and is one of the few officials who can set up the hurdles for masters track athletes!). He also finds joy and excitement in the competition and is one of the officials who really enjoys his role in track and field.
Rex has vast experience in most all track & field events (I don’t think Rex ever competed in the Race Walk); from school days, throughout an outstanding competitive career at the international elite level and many more years in the masters program. At the time he retired from competition, Rex had competed in & completed more decathlons than anyone in the world. He then channeled his energy and expertise to officiating and he has probably officiated more track meets than anyone.
If you already know Rex Harvey, you know Rex is very generous with his time, his talents, and his vast knowledge about track and field and deserves your vote. If you don’t know Rex, ask the athletes who have been involved in track and field for decades and they will tell you, Rex would be the best person for the job.
So with the type of thinking that I am seeing here those that live in the South should always be traveling to Nationals because they should always be in northern climes for comfort. They should always be in the Northeast, Northwest or upper Mid-America if you want to attract numbers because more people will attend in these locations. Therefore anyone below the Mason-Dixon line need not apply to host a National Championship, it just aggravates too many people. I am not saying that is wrong, I am just trying to get clarification.
I do have to admit that, when the Nationals is in a Northern Region, I do enjoy the break from the Texas summer heat. There are, However some economic considerations to consider and that is why I think that it does occasionally occur in the South in the spirit of fairness.
I agree with many of the comments mentioned in the earlier posts. Location is part of the problem, yes and I agree larger ,travel friendly cities are better. The other reason could be by simply looking at the National Senior Games. I have participated in many National Outdoor and Indoor Nationals and only 1 National Senior Games before injuries and surgeries forced me to mostly stop competing since 2011. The Senior Games ,in my opinion are more enjoyable for the average competitor vs. the NMG. Partition and entrants are usually larger allowing for more heats vs the one race and your out experience for me at the NMG. My goal at Nationals is simply to make a final in one of the sprint prelims. I have accomplished that goal a few times, but not enough to justify a cross country trip. For whatever reason the Senior Games have reached the recreational runner; maybe drawing from local 5ks, 10ks, etc where 100’s will show up on a weekend morning. in my opinion at the NMG the top 5 in each age group do not change that often through the years as they move up in age groups, perhaps intimidating the casual possible newbie entrant. I agree that if one wants to run in a final then get faster ,right? But the larger picture could be that if the NMG doesn’t want to see lower entrant totals, as Peter Taylor correctly mentions or worse,the same 5 or less athletes in each age group every year at the NMG, then we need to reach the “everyday” casual athlete, somehow, some way.
I have been a masters thrower for about 6-7 years now. I also happen to be a professional videographer. About 7 years ago I started filming a lot of throwing events, and have captured dozens of american records, world records, regional records, etc. etc. all on video. In fact, I must have thousands of hours of throwing video spread out on my 30 hard drives, and have spent many hundreds of hours putting together very good looking videos for all to enjoy. In fact, my main goal was to get more awareness of the sport of masters throwing to grow it, as I fell in love with the sport, and NO ONE was taking any video of the throwers.
Before I continue on, here is a link to a youtube playlist of some of the throwing videos I have done, which includes Jud Logan’s M55 Weight World Record, A.G. Kruger M35 world throws pent record, etc. etc. :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLobfsmXF13VZVbcqtMIfzLbzyTpSOLhNR&v=uzhvLovmlQk
So about 1-2 years ago, I was allowed by the head masters committee to video all throwing events as long as I had the permission by the meet director. As a result of that, only one meet out of four was I allowed to video tape, and that was only because the meet director was a thrower. The reason the other three meet directors said no was that they felt it was not allowed by USATF, yet when I told them I already had permission by the masters USATF committee, they either did not return phone calls, or answer emails.. I pushed really hard to get this done for the indoor nationals in Winston Salem, and I was ignored for three months…. then a week before the meet I was finally told by the meet director that “no video was allowed”. Now anyone that was there saw there were thirty different video cameras from 30 different people everywhere… What a joke that was… So end result, I stopped taking video…
So what I want to make perfectly clear, is that the USATF had a person willing to video tape all throws at all the big meets, spend hundreds of hours editing it to make a great final product that would be really enjoyable for the participants, and could be used to promote the sport, all for free, and they basically said no thanks…
So to wrap this up, Whoever makes these kinds of decisions in the future, should not piss off the little guys who are willing to bust their ass for the love of the sport and to help promote it.
Patrick Toland
Masters Thrower
Former Masters Video Editor
Announcers. Still pictures. And video all definitely improve our meet experience.
Response to Rick (#13&14). You make a valid point. We shouldn’t discriminate against bids from southern cities because of summer heat. Are we locked into having the Nationals in July or August? The Huntsman Games are in October and they seem to draw pretty well. When southern cities bid and win, why couldn’t we push the date into October when the summer heat is past? If WAVA can push Perth’s Worlds into October/November to bypass AU winter, why can’t we show flexibility on scheduling our Nationals to better align with the weather?
I think it’s the cost of getting to a location and the fact that a true schedule isn’t known until a week prior to any nationals. I went to Honolulu because I could afford to. Lots of people can’t. The schedule factors in when one sees his particular event on particular day….purchases an airline ticket….then finds out he may have to stay an extra day because he can’t get a flight until the next day. The result is an extra fee to the airlines to change a flight; as well as an extra day with a hotel room and car rental. The best flight deals are three weeks out. How often do we actually know our start times three weeks out ??
Should date of Nationals be set by when Worlds are or when the weather is best?
Next year’s nationals are scheduled for July 13-16. If entries are due 30 days before that, many in the northeast will not have a chance to have even one good weather meet before they need to commit money and a seed time to the meet. For me, in Rochester, NY, the later the meet the better. What will the candidates do to ensure either a shorter entry deadline or a later meet?
I agree that the date(s) location do affect attendance at the nationals but wonder if the lack of meets in many areas of the country contributes. It is hard to work up interest for a “big” meet if that is about all that there is. What if anything is the USATF doing to increase the number of competitions.
The schedule for the championships are suppose to be posted 6 months in advance. ABQ has been up for several weeks. Baton Rouge should be up by late Jan early Feb.
As a high school teacher I would really hope that we don’t push the Outdoor Nationals to later in the year. Many other athletes also work in education and enjoy the fact that they have the time to travel during the summer months and compete without taking time off from work. But that is just me and may not reflect the opinion of others.
Moving the outdoor Nats to fall or earlier than July would put us in a direct clash with collegiate sports. No college would have us during those times. I don’t see this ever happening.
Mike Travers
Although schedules may be up within 6 months of the event, a more precise schedule is needed for making efficient travel plans. Specifying am or pm is often not sufficient. Those of us still working need to make intelligent decisions regarding staying over an extra night or being able to travel the same day as a “pm” event as well as determining which airport makes most sense. Sometimes an extra hour’s drive to a different airport can make $300-$400 difference in fare. Knowing the schedule in advance can allow the flexibility to find the best fare and reduce unneeded overnight stays.
Moving the 2017 Indoor meet to February this coming year may be the result of who bids and what dates are available at that location, but it has consequences for some potential competitors, especially those still working.
My request simply is for those who schedule the meets to be more sensitive to those who have less flexibility in travel to meets, to provide as much information as early as possible, and to maintain the dates within a consistent time frame to allow us to prepare.
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