Masters News and Muse

IMO both parties have merit...Ken wanted some results posted and Bill said he was basically understaffed and did not see a need to rush results to folks during the Olympics..

Honestly I was deeply involved in watching the Olympics and didn't think twice about a weight pentathlon...

On a personal note, posting a personal Email is breaking rule 16 of the 'mancode' or is it a rule? Anyway, stay tuned as this could get better as the weekend grows near.

Masters Track and Field is not a very popular sport but a few thousand of us take it very, very seriously.If not for men like Ken Stone. our voice would never be heard.we must support our hard working voluunteers.

I have to admit, I'm uncomfortable having read Bill's email - not because of its contents, but because Bill was so emphatic in his request not to have it posted. While we all know that anything we send to Ken can end up posted, I do think there's something to be said for respecting "off the record."

I won't touch the subject of the dispute, as I certainly don't have an informed opinion.

But I will say this: 2 years ago I asked Bill Roe to add a 10K to his weekly all-comers meet so that I could go for an age 45-49 record. Bill agreed. So I got a plane ticket and flew from So Cal to Seattle. About 3 of us ran the race, tacked onto the end of the meet. Bill and a few volunteers stayed an extra hour to put on the race, to time us (with 3 timers for my finish time), and to wrap up the paperwork. And then, at a pizza place afterward, Bill poured me a beer, shrugging off my thanks with a "it was my pleasure to put on a race for someone who breaks an age group record by 25 seconds!"

Bill Roe is A-okay in my book.

Of course, so is Ken.

This is maybe the second time I've posted a private email against the sender's wishes. The other came from Craig Masback in the Kathy Jager doping case.

In all other instances, I respect the sender's privacy -- or at least provide anonymity by stripping out the sender's name. But this was a case of out-and-out bullying. As I said: Bill is not my boss.

And his rude dismissal of masters track's interests deserves public exposure.

Of course, he has bigger fish to fry given Lynn Cannon's accusations in the next post.

Masters athletics officers can pen some nasty put-downs. Then it is almost a duty to post the contents of their e-mails. I have in mind that insult from the WMA Law and Legislation Committee Chairman: "Also accept the fact, that not everybody may be perfect, or as perfect as you think you are."

But Ken, this specific e-mail from Bill Roe is not as insulting as the above. OK, the tone is nasty and I know you have had your fill of evasions recently. But Bill Roe did give you an explanation for the delay in sending the weight pentathlon results. Furthermore Bill Roe did explicitly forbid you from posting that e-mail. So Ken, you are out of order on this one.

I also have experience of Bill Roe's Civic Courage in my case, so I concur with Peter Magill:

"Bill Roe is A-okay in my book.

Of course, so is Ken."

You were out of line to publish this e mail word for word. I have many complaints to those at the top of usatf who "forced" me out of the organization, but this is not the problem nor the answer.

Requesting that an e-mail response not be posted is like putting a bill-board ad on I-95 and asking that nobody read it. Once you hit "Send" it's "out there".
Buy some stamps, for christ's sake.

The original goal was to find out why the results were not posted as quickly as the participants wanted. Bill provided a reasonable explanation, which could have been paraphrased for us without reprinting his entire email,against his wishes. Another more important goal, however, is to maintain and foster a good working relationship with USATF, who run our biggest masters meets, and do a fine job of it.

All,

It has been pointed out to me that there has been some discussion on this website regarding the posting of the results for the recently completed USA Masters Weight Pentathlon Championships. Let me first compliment Jerry Bookin-Weiner and Carl Reichard for a great event. Both have been a pleasure to work with from this end. A perfect example of how the Masters T&F Committee, the LOC and National Office should work together on events

Regarding the results.....i like Ken am adamant about posting of championship results in a timely fashion. Many know that I worked closely with the LOC in Maine last year to facilitate live results and likewise this year with the LOC in Spokane. Unfortunately due to some technical issues (lack of a live internet connection) in Spokane we were not successful this year.

With respect to the posting of the results for this weekend's meet……… Bill is right we were busy over the weekend with covering the Olympics and staging the Associations Workshop but we were also working on posting accurate and complete results for the Weight Pentathlon. To Carl's credit, the results were sent to me on Saturday night from the company hired to handle the meet scoring. The results were sent at 8:18 p.m. ET. Upon returning from one of the functions of the Associations Workshop I reviewed my email. This was at 10:39 pm ET, specifically looking for the results. Unfortunately the results were sent as a Hy-Tek backup file. I do not personally have Hy-Tek loaded on my computer so I was not able to utilize the results. (note: typically events send the results as either a HTML file or a Text file). At 10:40 pm ET (on Saturday) I responded to the timing company that I need the results in either a HTML or .txt file. To their credit they sent the results in HTML files within the hour but I was already off line by this point preparing for the remainder of the Workshop. As it turned out, due to several on-off meetings on Sunday as well as post-event wrap up activities, I on was not able to get online at all on Sunday. On Monday morning I downloaded the 18 result files that were sent from the meet and combined them into one file for posting. At that point i noticed that the M45 results were not included and immediately asked (12:23 pm on Monday) for that file so we could post the compete set of results. I received that at 4:00pm that day but was in a meeting until 5:30pm and then headed home for the day (as I had not seen much of my family the past 5 days). At some point late on Saturday night I added the M45 results in to the main results file and we posted the results.

I am sure that is way more detail than anyone wanted but it seems as though it might be worth the time to lay out all of the details rather than have anyone try to pick apart the situation. Yes, we need to continue to do a better job at providing event information (including timely results) but other factors come into play that sometimes cause delays to occur.

Andy Martin
Director of Grass Roots Program
USA Track & Field

Ken is right to complain about delayed results. Too many administrators believe that making results available within a day or two is acceptable. It's a question of organizational priorities, expectations, and forethought.

An idea: engineer the site to allow meet directors (or those they designate) to post results directly.

By the way, Bill Roe is a true class act who works very hard for the sport, including at the grass roots level. USATF is lucky to have him. The All-Comers series which he organizes is a great resource for masters athletes in the Seattle area. Check clubnorthwest.org for details.

Mark Alexander
800m masters guy
USATF official
Former webmaster, Pacific Northwest Association of USATF

"yellow journalism" ?

Was that meant as a racist comment? A lot of Asians (particularly the Chinese) will take offense to that.

Jimson, you're kidding, right?

If not and you really do believe that, rest assured that Ken is not being racist, but rather using the phrase 'yellow journalism' that means sensationizing stories to attact interest and reader circulation. Specifically, the term originated at the turn of the 19th-20th century with the circulation battles between Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal running from 1895 to about 1898. Both papers were accused by critics of sensationalizing the news in order to drive up circulation, although the newspapers did serious reporting as well. The New York Press coined the term 'yellow kid journalism' in early 1897 after a then-popular comic strip to describe the down-market papers of Pulitzer and Hearst, which both published versions of it during a circulation war. This was soon shortened to 'yellow journalism' with the New York Press insisting, "We called them Yellow because they are Yellow."

Hope that puts that issue to rest.

On the more serious issue of the topic of this posting, I think that both my friend Ken Stone and Mr. Bill Roe are right for reasons well-enumerated in the postings previous to ours.

But I think that you, Ken, maybe should not have leaked Bill's personal email, at least not so verbatim. You could have reported it a little differently and still let it be known that the results were late.

We're in bed with the USATF and should try to work with them. Remember: in North America Track&Field is an underpaid, under-appreciated, under-staffed sport, under-funded sport. Best that those that are involved in it try to work together to promote it in a positive light.

First off, just to get the facts straight, it was Bill Roe that used the term "yellow journalism" in his e-mail, not Ken.

Next, I'm new to masters track and field but coached high school track and XC for several years. I was one of those coaches that wanted results ASAP.

However, I've had to tone back and gain some patience now returning to compete as a master's athlete.

For example, the people is USATF-Oregon have all been very friendly and helpful. However, they no longer send out the Oregon Association newsletter (which is fine) but the latest edition online is the one from January! Nothing from May at all. So I feel a little short on information and news that's recent.

Not saying that as a complaint against anyone at all but just pointing out that things take time and the delay of results for the weight pentathalon just don't seem all that late relatively speaking! And Andy Martin's explanation is very reasonable as to why the results weren't posted sooner.

In a digital world I think we've become accustomed to immediate results, whether in the world of news, politics, or sport.

With USA track and field I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the same with any major championship event. I followed the recent Olympic Games via the USATF website, which provided a link to the IAAF site which had instant results. I would expect the same quick results for the USATF Open Championships as well as events as the Olympic Trials.

When it comes to Master's results, I usually expect the results within a couple of days. I competed in the afore mentioned Weight Pentathlon, and as athletes, we were given results for our age group after each event. This was a great service to the athletes competing. I have competed in several (7) track pentathlon's at the Nat'l Masters Meet, and in only two of them, did I know what my score, and the scores of my competitors were, after each event. On that front, the recent Weight Pentathlon provided excellent service to the athletes competing.

Since the meet was held on a Saturday, I would have liked to have seen the overall results sooner, but my expectations were to hopefully see them by Monday, but realistically by Tuesday. I believe they were posted during the day on Monday.

Can the results be available quicker-certainly, which is Ken's point. My kid's compete in high school track in Massachusetts, and often the results of the larger invitational meets are available on line, by the time we arrive home after the meet. Other times it takes days to get them. The technology is available to post results quickly, and in this case would have been, if Andy had received complete results in the original file.

Ugghhh. I let the collective addle my brain and sway my emotions. My previous posting was not objective and was unworthy of me.

On closer examination I see that USATF President Bill Roe CC:ed that e-mail to "creich51 @…." So what the USATF President effectively did then was to insult Ken Stone and forbid him to publish and thus refute the insult. At the same time he informed "creich51 @…." - who is then presumably free to display the e-mail to his colleagues as proof of the USATF President's support and displeasure with Ken. That is unfairly placing Ken at a disadvantage, while restricting Ken's freedom of expression. That is not good.

Ken would only have been at an obligation not to publish the e-mail if Bill Roe had likewise also forbidden - and in the same uncompromising terms - "creich51 @…." not to publish the contents of the e-mail. That was not the case. So, irrespective of the e-mail content and the facts and personalities involved, it is now my finding that Ken Stone was fully justified in publishing that e-mail and that it was his journalistic duty to do so.