Top 2009 masters honored at Sacramento athletes banquet
Rita Hanscom went to Monte Carlo to collect her IAAF Masters Athlete of the Year Award, but she wasn’t yet done. Saturday night at masters nationals, she formally (and finally) received her USATF Masters Athlete of the Year plaque from Mary Trotto, wearing a Hawaiian cowboy hat. Mary succeeded Dave Clingan as Masters Awards Committee chair. Bill Murray, who set an M55 American record in the decathlon at Lahti last summer, was named USATF Male Masters Athlete of the Year. But he wasn’t present at the banquet. (See our final Sacto gallery.) Bill Collins gave folks a scare when his leg cramped at the dinner. After a few minutes, he hobbled up to the podium and got his age-group award. Gary Snyder, masters chair, provided comic relief by naming moi the winner of his first “Crash and Burn Award,” citing my head-conking at the 2009 Oshkosh nationals high jump. He handed me a pink helmet and a toy bicycle horn.
Mary (left) congratulates Rita at Sacramento banquet. (Photo by Ken Stone)
2 Responses
It was a nice ceremony – short and sweet – to the point. thanks Mary T- nice job.
so – off topic – when do the Masters Hall of Fame awardees get recognized – other than by the mailman when the plaque arrives in the mail?
Perhaps a new tradition could be started of at least calling out the names of those for the year’s Hall of Fame at the same banquet at the Outdoor Nationals – starting with the class of 2010. Bring the Masters HOF out of the shadows into daylight – it is not a secret club of who you know – or should not be seen as such.
I have long had a wish to build up the presence of the Hall of Fame on mastershistory.org The problem is getting the information to post. Somewhere exists a set of dossiers about each of the candidates for the Hall of Fame. It originates with Norm Green and is distributed to all of the selectors, including existing members of the Hall of Fame. If we can just get our hands on that material, it should provide the majority of what is needed to give each member their due, publicly, on line, on our own site.
I’ve written to several members of the Hall and each defers to get it from Norm. Jeff Davison and myself have asked Norm in person and via e-mail to get us what he has already compiled. I started this effort before mastershistory was created two and a half years ago. Norm must be very busy, he’s never sent us a thing. So Hall of Fame members, electors or collectors: we need your information.
Of my own volition, I have also tried to create a presence for some of our legends on Wikipedia–the number one information source on the internet. When an article does get there, it will come up at the top of any search–that is about the best recognition we could hope to provide. I write this stuff up as I have the time and happen to find the information about someone. My google is working overtime. I don’t need to be the only one wasting my time on this, anybody else who knows anything can write these.
Wikipedia is a fickle place to write for–there are hordes of small minded individuals who take pleasure in deleting articles because he deem your subject not “notable” enough. So I’ve learned how to fight those battles. For future wikipedians: everything needs to be referenced–you have to find another source that backs up what you say (and name that source). But you can’t copy, except for short quotes, that would be a copyright violation. And as July 17, I worked behind the scenes to establish WP:NSPORTS (look it up) which establishes that members of the National Track and Field Hall of Fame (which the Masters Hall of Fame is part of), Gold Medalists at World Championships (specifically including WMA) and recognized Age-Group World Record-holders are eligible for articles. In other words, if you establish those facts, you have far less to worry about an article being deleted. The “List of Masters Athletes” contains the articles that already exist.
Mary, sorry, I haven’t written your article yet.
If anybody wishes to contribute to the world’s knowledge about what we do in Masters by writing something up, but you need some tips to get started, please write me.
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