I’ve known Johnnye Valien for close to 10 years, and she never ceases to amaze. Yesterday, she finally got recognition from the Mother Ship, being named USATF Athlete of the Week. A week earlier, it was Bill Collins’ turn for that tip-top track honor. Now if only USATF would recognize meet announcers, all would be right with the world. Here’s Pete Taylor’s latest thoughts on the recently completed Boston indoor nationals:

First, my two mottos are “be positive” and “be accurate.” You may have noticed that I always accentuate the good about people, to the point that I never even call a person “last” during a race.
Rather, I say they are “6th,” “8th,” or whatever their position is. Being accurate is essential because what good is an announcer who doesn’t have the facts straight? Occasionally, one goal interferes with the other.
In my desire to praise B.J. Freeman (of Canada) as an impressive newcomer I neglected to mention that as a noncitizen she can’t really win US events. Liz Palmer, another promising newcomer (from California) won the W45 pentathlon, and Pam Gunneson (believe she is from Connecticut) won the W45 hurdles.
To make things worse, B.J. Freeman was actually second overall finisher in the W45 hurdles behind another foreign athlete, Marie Kay of Australia (I had her as the “winner”). Sometimes when we try to be extremely quick we end up stumbling — my apologies.
There are three kinds of “international” athletes at our meets, and all three groups added so much to Boston. One type is the “pure” foreign competitor, such as Peter Crombie, Marie Kay, and Carmel Papworth of Australia — what a thrill to have such fine athletes from “The Land Down Under.”
Another type lives in the US but competes for another country, such as Stefan Waltermann of North Carolina (believe he ran 4 x 400 relay for Germany in 2003 worlds) and Hillen von Maltzahn (lives in New York, competes with great proficiency for Germany in the worlds).
A third type would be represented by Lesley Chaplin-Swann (from the UK, lives in Georgia, became a US citizen on October 26). As much as possible, I present these international backgrounds when I announce, as I believe that doing so gives the meet a certain richness, a very pleasing texture.
For those who were not familiar with my announcing, you saw that my style is more elaborate than that of some other announcers. I try not to drown the audience in detail, but I believe there is quite a difference between saying “Bill Collins is in lane 5” and “In lane 5, Bill Collins, the world indoor champ in the 60, 200, and 400.
Bill was an All-American at Texas Christian University, and he ran on the record-breaking US 4 x100 team in Dusseldorf in 1977 that uncorked a 38.03.” Of course, I can’t usually get all of that in, but I believe the geographic and historical details add something to the meet — one imagines Bill flying down the track as a young man at TCU, sees him slightly later in Germany, then looks down and sees him standing in lane 5 at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston in 2006.
He was a superstar as an open athlete and, can you believe it, he runs with us. Bill is unusual; we also have types such as Oscar Peyton (M50, Maryland) and Sid Howard (M65, New Jersey) who had no college career whatsoever and are now national champions (Sid is a Hall of Famer who grew up a few miles from me in New Jersey. He was a 2:03 half-miler in high school and then gave the sport up. At age 39, I believe, his son informed him of a mile race for “old people,” and the rest is history.)
We also have some younger women and men who are not yet stars or superstars but are already very good and are adding so much to our meets. I cannot stress the following point enough — the two major changes I have seen in the last few years (and they overlap greatly) are (a) the tremendous improvement among the women and (b) the fact that so much of our championship meet looks like college competition.
We now have women in their 50s and even 60s (think of Nadine O’Connor) who could compete today for many US colleges. Can you believe it? Again and again at Boston I thought of how much some parts of the championship looked (and felt) like a college meet. The intensity, the uniforms, the almost frightening speed, the resurgence of club competion; it’s all wonderful.
Continuing on a personal note (for those who do not know me), my regular job has nothing to do with track and field (as an editor, my main concerns are type 2 diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and dyslipidemia, which are often seen together; the epidemiology of certain viral diseases; and epidemiologic patterns for certain cancers).
I no longer compete in track meets and have nothing to do with USATF. I spend very little time reading about masters track and field. I say this because there are many other announcers, and there is no particular requirement that I be the announcer at Boston or anywhere else. Not everything was easy for me at Boston, and some people were pleased by my performance while others were apparently less than happy.
I won’t venture a guess here as to what the future holds.