Sticking close to the shade of his infield tent, Pete Taylor, 57, recites the starters of a finals field at the 2002 USATF National Masters meet in Orono, Maine. He's become a staple of the masters experience in recent years, calling races like a network professional though he works as an editor in the Washington area. 

Photo by Ken Stone

A national-class announcer:
An interview with Pete Taylor 

Pete Taylor of Fairfax, Virginia, is famed in masters track without ever having won a race or set a record. A bachelor, he’s become married in the movement’s mind to the USATF masters nationals – as the energetic ironman announcer of the Orono outdoor meet in August and many before. But only days after completing an e-mail interview with me, he privately announced that on December 4, 2002, he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.  “How this will affect my future announcing I am not sure,” he wrote. “All I know is that I am crushed.” Further notes were more positive: “The cancer is in a very early stage,” he wrote Dec. 13.  “I am hoping to treat it with radioactive seeds implanted directly in the prostate. ” Please join us in keeping Pete in our prayers.

By Ken Stone

Masterstrack.com: At the 2002 USATF masters nationals in Maine, you were on the field narrating events from morning to night for four days, working as hard as the officials brought in for the meet. How many hours did you work, and what did you get in return for your efforts?

Pete Taylor: I worked approximately 40 hours in the four days.   My customary target for nationals is that my intake will marginally exceed my expenses.  I should note that at Orono one woman gave me a shirt and another a bottle of champagne.

If you’re not paid, should USATF stipulate that national masters meet organizers pay for announcers, instead of rely on slave labor?

Well, I don’t like to use the term “slave labor” – how about “relying on volunteers”? I’m more fortunate than most, I guess.   I believe the issue of compensation for masters announcers will be discussed at the national meeting in Kansas City in early December. (Masterstrack.com Note: Payment of masters national meet announcers was discussed by the USATF Masters’ Executive Committee at the national convention in Kansas City, but despite a consensus that such announcers need to be fairly and consistently compensated -- including travel, accommodations and meals – the means of doing that remained undecided.)

You announced the 1995 world masters meet in Buffalo, New York -- one of your first masters gigs. What was memorable about that meet? How did you deal with the heat and rain?

I remember the unusual circumstances involving my arrival.  I flew from Washington National to Newark International, then flew on toward Buffalo.  The pilot refused to land at Buffalo, citing the bad weather, and flew all the way back to Newark.  We took off again after refueling, getting to Buffalo about 11:35 p.m.   No way they would still have a courtesy bus to the university campus, but they did.  The bus driver got lost, and we were eventually escorted by a police officer.  Got there about 1:30 in the morning.  No way the housing office would still be open, but it was.  I finally got checked in, found my dorm, then couldn’t find my room (look back to 1995 National Masters News for a discussion of the Byzantine layouts of the dorms). 

Finally found my room, then couldn’t open my window.  As I recall, Buffalo has only one 90-plus day per month in July and August and thus there is no air conditioning in the dorms, but there was an unusual heat wave that summer.  What a headline:  “Masters Announcer Dies in Buffalo Dorm:  Unable to Open Window.”  Finally I got it open, slept about three hours, woke up soaked and exhausted.  Later that morning I walked to Stadium 2 to announce my first world championships.  I found that it’s much easier to announce from an open space (Stadium 2) than an enclosed booth (Stadium 1). When you’re shut in, you have to ask yourself constantly, “Is anyone hearing me?”  In addition, you have no idea of crowd response.

What is your announcing experience outside of track?

I have announced road races as short as 10 miles and as long as 26.21875 miles (marathon).  All of my announcing has been either track or road racing.

Unlike broadcasters who narrate baseball or football games with just a few dozen athletes, you have potentially thousands to keep track of. You’ve been a track fan since childhood, but how did you come by your keen knowledge of masters track?

I  credit Al Sheahen, Jerry Wojcik, and Pete Mundle (all three are Masters Hall of Famers, by the way) with keeping me informed through National Masters News and through records publications.  Let me also credit the Internet.  Essentially, it comes down to studying and, more and more, studying in an intelligent way.  I’ve been accused of having a good memory, and it’s true that I’m rather proficient at retaining facts.   For the next Boston, the entrants will plan their training so that they peak in late March; I will have the same goal but will use different tricks.  I’ll say this much:  Bill Collins lives in Texas and was All-American at Texas Christian; Rose Monday went to Cal State Northridge, used to live in California, now lives in San Antonio.  Larry Colbert worked for the Department of Agriculture in the Washington (DC) area, coaches at Eleanor Roosevelt H.S. in Greenbelt, Maryland, lives in Prince George’s County, Maryland; Payton Jordan coached at Stanford and resides in California; Neville Hodge coaches at Morgan State in Baltimore, went to Morgan State, and is from the U.S. Virgin Islands.  I could go on for many hours (sitting here in the office with no references).  Let me just say that my ability to remember makes great use of geographical classification. 

Like a Chick Hearn of masters track, you have some pet phrases during meets. You don’t refer to Canadian Earl Fee without saying, “The Great Earl Fee.” You call Wilford Scott “The Texas Flash.” What are some of your favorite unique expressions for events or athletes?

I refer to Bill Daprano, the fine pentathlete from Georgia, as “The Luckiest Man in Georgia.”  Bill, who is in M75, met his wife Jeanne (a triple gold medalist at Durban) at Gateshead in 1999 – enough said.   I call Billy Johnson of NFL fame either “Billy White Shoes” or “the Hummingbird,” but I didn’t make either moniker up.  I’ve described Phil Raschker simply as “She’s All-World.”  Jim Stookey is “my favorite veterinary pathologist,” or some such.  Actually, I don’t make up a lot of names, but my presentation can be pretty good.

Announcing national meets from the infield affords you a chance to see some great moments in masters track. What are some of the most dramatic or exciting races or events you’ve seen?

The1982 National Masters Sports Festival provided one of the greatest thrills ever through its sprint medley relay (440, 220, 220 and 880 yards).  As I recall, the Southern Cal Striders won in a record 3:36.1 with a team of Bill Knocke, Paul Edens, Lewis Smith and George Cohen.  Philadelphia Masters, in turn, had a team of Dawson Pratt, Dhamiri Abayomi (formerly Donald Council), the late Bob Stanford and Jim Burnett – they ran 3:36.4 (again, I’m at my office with no references).  The race was a thriller from the beginning, with Jim Burnett (whose specialty was the 440/400) and the great 800-meter man Cohen putting on a titanic battle on the anchor leg, the classic “I’m going by you; oh, no, you’re not” that goes all the way to the finish.  After Cohen held off Burnett to the wire, spectators poured out of the stands (this was at Franklin Field in Philadelphia).   I have had many other great races to call, with the 2001 indoor mile involving Angel Roman, Conor O’Driscoll and Chris Yorges being one of the best.  The three hit the finish line together (see National Masters News photo from May 2001).

In masters track, I’m aware of only one other person who has done a professional job at announcing masters meets – Al Sheahen. He recommended you for the Buffalo announcing role. What did he teach you about announcing masters track?

Actually, I hadn’t seen much of Al’s work before I announced at Buffalo, and he and I essentially worked separately there (I had very much a secondary role at Buffalo and generally announced Stadium 2).  The principal influences on my track announcing have been Jack O’Reilly, the No. 1 announcer at the Penn Relays for some 40 years, and Dave Johnson, the premier TV announcer in the U.S. for horse racing.  Jack O’Reilly showed me, by example, how to call a race in a clear, unbiased manner, and Dave Johnson demonstrated how to put emotion and feeling into a race.  If you listen to me for an entire meet and write down the feelings you perceive, I think you’ll get a pretty long list --  awe, respect, reverence, amazement, drama, fear, peacefulness, humor.

Remember, it’s not really about my feelings – what if I’m having a bad day?  What I do, in effect, is suggest various feelings for the audience.   If it’s the great Earl Fee in lane 4 and the very rapid Harry Brown in lane 6 in the 400, you can start with respect, move to amazement, go to excitement, build the excitement, crown the king (in this case it was Earl Fee, I’m talking about the Orono final), go back to amazement, then come down to peacefulness.  Some of it is intentional, some of it is simply responding to what is happening.  The point is that it’s not necessarily about me or my personal feelings.  I am suggesting to the spectator a variety of ways to experience the competition, and I’m doing this through what I choose to say, the tone of my voice, and so forth.     

Would you like to announce at another world masters championships? If so, how would you go about landing the gig?

I’ve let the people in Puerto Rico know I’m interested, and I’ve talked to Rex Harvey about it.

You told another interviewer that you haven’t competed in many years but still train often. What keeps you from stepping on the track at a masters meet?

I don’t step on the track (to compete) because I’m too slow.  I will compete in road races, where it doesn’t matter if you’re not all that good.  My best time for 5000 on the road is 19:48. For five miles it’s 32:57.  Way back in M30, I ran the mile indoors in 5:31 and finished a resounding last.  When I was in my  40s, I ran 5:58 indoors; now that I’m in my 50s there is no way I could break 6:30 for the mile  – that’s too slow.  I run 18 miles a week but am troubled by a minor problem in my right foot – I can’t do any more running than that.  I also do Concept II rowing and the recumbent bike, plus some weights.  Some people may have noticed that I am not as heavy as I used to be.

What are your takes on some of the Big Questions in masters track? Should nationals have qualifying standards?

In the present format, qualifying standards would reduce the number of competitors.  I am not, however, in favor of the present format.  Instead, I would like to see masters track be like most other sports and have a qualifying round of some sort at another site(s).  In 2001, there were two big meets at Baton Rouge in the summer for the “mature athlete” -- one the Seniors (the National Senior Games) and one the USATF masters nationals. One guess which was more successful. 

Let’s quote Jerry Wojcik (September 2001 NMN):  “Why then, did they have 18 W55 shot putters at the NSG and we had one W55 at the Nationals?  There were 19 M70 shot putters at the NSG; we had five.”    The answer is that the National Senior Games are built on something --  the state programs with their qualifying meets.  For many people, it’s a thrill to make the National Senior Games and to represent one’s state there.  Did you hear similar sentiments at Orono this past summer?

Having a national championship with no foundation is like having someone become a neurosurgeon or a urologist without attending medical school or completing a residency.  Instead, you would check out books from the library, buy medical instruments, and then engage in endless self-study and solitary practice sessions in which you try to imitate the procedures outlined in the textbooks. 

How good would our surgeons be if that was the way they were educated and trained?  Correspondingly, we simply can’t have our championships float freely out in space.  Looking to 2004, for example, how many people even know where Decatur, Illinois, is (in relation to Chicago or St. Louis, let’s say)?

How many masters know that the meet (our outdoor nationals) will be held at Millikin University?  And yet masters should already be eagerly contemplating that meet, figuring out where to qualify and what that will require, where they might stay in Decatur and how to fly there, etc.  When they go (in 2003) to the Southeastern Masters in Raleigh or the Hayward Masters Classic in Eugene (or to any of our regional championships), they should find that the meet has a dual billing, with the second line reading “A Qualifying Meet for the 2004 Outdoor Nationals at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois.”  There should be an informational packet at the meet about the nationals and how to qualify, perhaps even a little booth where one can view tapes of previous nationals.

The national championships themselves, of course, should be grand affairs, with singing each day, additional entertainment on the side, plenty of booths, and so forth.  In short, the nationals must rest on top of our established meets around the country, and everyone should have to compete in one of these meets if he/she wishes to compete in the following year’s nationals.  Because of historical reasons, of course, some groups will have an easier time than others -- for some the qualification process will involve no more than completing the event. 

Even so, the person will have qualified, and that will strengthen the concept that our nationals are truly a championship. The USATF regional meets, the Raleigh meet, the Hayward Classic and so forth will all benefit because athletes have to go to at least one to qualify.  Additionally, because those meets all report to the National Masters News, it will be easy to confirm the applications of the athletes.  So what are we doing?  We are having our national championships rest on top of our “middle-tier” meets around the country; we are making the nationals “true championships,” and we are doing all we can at the championship site to make it a wonderful event for everyone who attends.   Before we do these things, let’s not even talk about qualifying standards.   

Should masters have the same anti-doping rules as open athletes?

They should have rules that are appropriate for their age and sex – I haven’t studied the issue.

How can we best grow the masters track movement?

We need to have bigger and better national championships that are supported by our other meets.  Again, when you go to Raleigh in May or to Hayward in June or to other qualifying meets, you should have one eye on the meet and another on qualifying for the following year’s nationals.

If you had a million dollars for the benefit of American masters track, how would you spend it?

Well, if there were an extra million dollars lying around, I wouldn’t spend it on masters track.  How about using the money to address the drug issue?   In this case I mean the many issues of the affordability of drugs, insurance, drug trials, and so forth.   Just think of AIDS, hepatitis C, and schizophrenia, to name three huge problems, and reflect on all the people who can’t get the drugs they need.

What’s your day job like at Palladian Partners? What do your co-workers and bosses think of your masters track obsession?

Because I’m not obsessed with masters track and virtually never talk about it at work, they don’t have much of a reaction.  They do know that I’m an announcer who is considered pretty good in some quarters.   Actually, I spend very little time on masters track over the course of a year.   I asked Cate Timmerman (co-president of Palladian) to provide a bit of background on me.

(Timmerman wrote: “When Peter Taylor is not announcing track events, he is a star in a completely different arena.  As a senior scientific editor for Palladian Partners, he spends his workdays editing and polishing articles for publication about scientific advances.  Many researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rely on Peter to massage their research articles for such scientific publications as the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine.  Peter combines his knowledge of epidemiology, public health and specific disease areas, such a diabetes, with editing skills that result in helping to get news of scientific advances to the broader health and medical community. Peter is a top-notch editor. He is so consistently superb at his work that we get specific request for him almost every week.”)