A tale of two meets: One flies, another crashes

By Ken Stone

An angry Bob Fine informs us that the USATF Southeast Regional Masters Indoor Championships scheduled for March 10-11, 2000, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, have been cancelled.

Fine first learned of the cancellation "secondhand," he says. Fine then contacted meet director Bill Cason, who confirmed the cancellation. Fine writes: "If I didn't contact him, I never would have been notified! This was after I sent out 700 entry forms, which I composed for the meet, plus obtaining medals and making travel arrangements."

Fine -- a longtime meet director and WAVA official who is putting on the USATF Southeast Regional Outdoor Masters Championships on June 24, 2000, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee -- added: "Needless to say, Mr. Cason will never receive a sanction from me for any SE Masters event." When I tried to reach Mr. Cason for comment (calling the contact number listed in National Masters News), I got this recorded message: "(This number) has been temporarily disconnected." The fax number is still working, however. It's (336) 945-2907.

Masters meets have been cancelled before, but rarely in such a high-stature event or with less than two weeks before the meet. A very innocent explanation for the cancellation might exist, such as the meet site being unavailable due to some emergency or meet entries falling dramatically short. But in the absence of a public justification, Bill Cason is leaving the impression of malfeasance. I'd really like to hear the reasons for the meet being spiked.

On the Left Coast, meanwhile, meet director Doug Smith is basking in mostly sunny accolades for his first Saddleback Masters Relays on February 26, 2000, at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California. The meet was a fund-raiser for the Saddleback College track team (whose athletes helped at the meet). A final figure for attendance and proceeds isn't yet available, but Smith is certain the inaugural meet turned a rare profit (helped by dozens of late entries, including many the day of the meet). Best of all, pre-meet publicity from the Orange County edition of the Los Angeles Times and other local papers spurred some people to enter their first masters meet. And coverage of the meet included local TV.

Doug tells me about a novice masters woman who entered a younger age group and cleaned up in five or six events. A one-time world-class jumper named Joe Faust cleared 5 feet in his masters debut at age 57. He writes about his experience as well. My own report is a reply to his posting.

Smith is certain that Saddleback College officials want to make the meet an annual affair. School officials are also thinking of installing a new track, Smith says. (The current all-weather track is torn up in lane one, and some sprint events avoided that degraded lane.) Among the notable results was an American record M60 4x100 relay.

With so many late entries, however, meet officials encountered problems in updating heat sheets. The upshot was a set of meet results rife with errors -- and not ready for public dissemination. Smith is going through the automatic-timing data to sort out the mistakes. As a USATF-sanctioned meet with computer help from Arnie Robinson from San Diego, the event shouldn't have such flubs. This prompts me to ask: Why can't USATF provide meet directors a cheat sheet of do's and don'ts? It seems that meet directors find themselves re-inventing the wheel. It shouldn't be like this -- even at new meets.