conducted on October 3, 2008
by Jimmie Markham, Associate Editor of www.theFinalSprint.com.
Note: interviews with candidates Dee Jensen and Stephanie Hightower will be posted as they become available.
1) What positions have you held at USATF or other athletic governing bodies and what have you accomplished in those positions?
I have a fairly long resume of activity within USATF and, prior to that, the AAU, which was the governing body for track & field prior to 1979. I also have a 27-year history with the IAAF, the international governing body for track & field. My most important positions have been as follows:
-- Vice President of USATF, 1984-88. I developed the strategic planning process & model for USATF and facilitated the development of a 4-year strategic plan for our NGB. I later did the same for our USATF committees and associations, as well as the USOC. We achieved a high percentage of the goals of these strategic programs.
-- President of the Pacific Association of USATF, 2001-05. During my 4-years as President, we increased our membership to become USATF’s largest Association. I chaired the PA Board of Athletics, increased its budget 50%, certified more officials, hosted more national championships—including the 2004 Olympic T&F Trials—than any other Association. Our continued strategic planning process resulted in us achieving a high percentage of our goals.
-- Chair of the IAAF Race Walking Committee, 1991-99. I revised and recertified the international panel
of race walking judges, developed the Level III (International level) judges’ education and examination program, and served as a Level III lecturer and examiner. I also chaired the Organizing Committee for the 1991 World Race Walking Cup which was held in San Jose, CA, and had 22 committees of over 200 volunteers working for me over a two year period. The World Cup was a highly successful event held with no cost to USATF. We raised the entire budget.
-- I’ve also chaired many other USATF committees at the association, national and international levels over the past 40 years…some while still a competing athlete.
2) Could you provide a brief background of any other professional and athletic experience you have?
I was a national champion race walker with over 35 national medals between 1962 and 1975, and am a former American record holder in the 50K race walk. I competed in the 1964, 68, 72 US Olympic Trials and made 5 international teams including the 1966 USA vs. British Commonwealth meet. In later years, I also competed as a Masters long distance runner in both cross country and on the roads. I officiated at 4 Olympic Games, was the Walks Referee at the 1984 & 1996 Games; Chief Judge of Walks at 1992 Games; and judged the Walks at 1988 Games. I also judged or served on the Jury of Appeal for 5 IAAF World Championships and 5 IAAF World Race Walking Cups.
I have served as Senior Editor of Track & Field News for the Walks since 1970 and authored the USATF Annual Race Walk Handbook from 1981-2005, the IAAF Guidance Booklet for Race Walking Judges, and the IAAF Level III Course Text for IAAF Race Walk Judges.
I hold masters degrees in engineering and business. In my professional career as an engineer and business management executive, I chaired the design team for the Voyager Spacecraft while at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in early 70's. This was a successful launch of two spacecraft in the late 70's which were fly-bys of the outer planets. I authored many technical papers and made numerous many presentations in support of this work. While at Intel Corporation, I helped elevate it from #4 to #1 in the semiconductor industry, facilitated a new strategic planning process, and served as their educator for reliability engineering. I have served as a consultant to more than 50 companies in the high tech industry.
3) Two-part question:
A) What traits or skills do you have that make you the best candidate to become the next USATF President?
I believe I have the ability to develop strategic plans aimed at accomplishing goals and objectives with a high
rate of completion and success. I have a thorough knowledge of USATF and our sport as a whole at every level: association, national and international. I am a good communicator and facilitator with the ability to delegate. I have extensive management skills, a good sense of humor, and integrity. I am also a strong practitioner of my religious faith and have always fought for fairness in our sport.
B) What traits or skills do feel that you lack or need to improve upon the most in order to be successful as USATF President?
Probably becoming a better listener…something that my wife has been helping me with. I am seeking more ideas from colleagues who may hold the solutions we are looking for to many of our problems and challenges.
4) What are your thoughts about the USOC's demands for a restructuring of the USATF's leadership. What would you like to see happen at USATF to address the USOC's concerns and to prevent them from pulling back any funding or revoking USATF's charter?
The USOC has made reasonable requests regarding the restructuring of the USATF Board of Directors. The fact that the current Board has been terribly dysfunctional certainly increased the urgency to get this accomplished. We need a smaller Board made up of members whose sole interest is achieving the goals of our organization. To do that, we need a strategic plan for all our constituent groups—youth, masters, LDR, track & field, race walking, officials, associations, and coaches. We can’t continue to have a Board that spends most of its time fighting among itself, the national office staff, and the USOC. Too many of its members have been more concerned about achieving their personal goals, rather than the goals of the constituent committees that put them there. A cooperative relationship with the USOC is in the best interests of USATF. If we achieve our goals, they, in turn, will achieve their goals. We are not in competition with the USOC. They are our partner.
5) If the USOC's reforms are put into place, what would be the best way for the USATF president to work with a potentially new leadership structure?
Make no mistake, these reforms will be put into place. Conflicts of interest, which have plagued the previous Board, will be eliminated. This, as well as other reforms regarding ethical violations, open and fair bidding for the Olympic Trials and national championships, and exercising fairness and honesty in all our dealings will greatly facilitate the work of the new Board. Having a strong President will be essential to the success of the new Board.
6) Are you in sync with Doug Logan in regards to implementing his reform priorities? (If so) How will you work with him to implement them? (If not) Why not and where do your views differ from his?
So far, I am in 100% agreement with Doug Logan. He has gotten off to a good start and has already cleaned house in some areas that needed it. Since he is relatively new to our sport, I can provide him with a great deal of support. That said, there are a significant number of things we need to address. Especially critical are improving the ways we try to develop our weaker events, how we promote our efforts to curb doping to the general public, improving our relationship with the USOC, improving our influence within the IAAF, increasing our revenue streams, increasing memberships, revitalizing our weak Associations, increasing support for our officials, youth, masters & clubs, and establishing higher standards for the coaches we select for our USA teams.
7) If you ask the casual fan to tell you what first comes to mind when they think about track & field, more often then not they'll say "doping." This perception has to change. How do you propose to do this?
USATF has done a poor job of countering that impression. We just can't leave that to USADA and WADA. Track & Field was the first sport to test for drugs, the first sport to test out of competition, and the first sport to ban athletes for testing positive. Our "Zero Tolerance" policy is the toughest of any IAAF member—by far. The consequence of us not broadcasting that message from the beginning of our drug testing program was the media labeling track & field as a "drug sport". We need a strategy to change that. We need to promote our marquee athletes and the many positive stories that take place every day within our sport.
However, we also need to stop sending mixed messages with regards to doping issues. We still have coaches
involved in our sport who have history of drug associations and violations. We have an athlete on the current Board who was suspended for 2-years for drug violations, and another athlete on the Board who was arrested and held in lieu of $20,000 bail for trying to transport 2-pounds of marijuana through an airport terminal. Since then, he's been assigned as a relay coach to two USA teams. How is that possible? Our “Zero Tolerance” policy shouldn’t ignore these people and any others like them.
8) The current one-shot Olympic Selection process has been the topic of considerable debate lately, as it is in every Olympiad. After the less-than-ideal performance by Team USA in Beijing, what are your thoughts about this subject?
I'm not sure you can correctly call the current selection process, one-shot. Prior to the introduction of qualifying standards by the IAAF, it was a one-shot process. But now it is a combination of performance standards and trials competition results. All athletes are required to compete in the Trials competition, then those with either an “A” or “B” qualifying standard are ranked according to their order of finish in the Olympic Trials. This is really the only fair and practical way to do it. A problem did occur in 2008 when that the selection process was modified by the chairs of the High Performance Division and the respective
chairs of the Men's & Women's Track & Field Committees when they insisted that only finishers or finalists in each event would be included in the selection rankings. This was unfair to those athletes who had an Olympic Games qualifying standard, competed in good faith, but failed to finish their event or be a finalist, due to injury, illness, or any other valid reason. They should have been ranked at the end of the list accordingly, as they have been in the past. This could have prevented one or more athletes from making the USA Team without displacing anyone else. I can give you an example of this, if needed. Then they violated their own policy by allowing a field event athlete to go to Beijing, even though he was not a Trials finalist. I authored legislation several years ago to eliminate just such inconsistencies in the implementation of this policy. Unfortunately, it was rejected by our Law & Legislation Committee who felt it did not belong in our
Bylaws or Operating Regulations. I will try and reintroduce this.
9) What are some other challenges facing the USATF today and what would you do as President to help overcome them?
The grass roots side of our sport has been neglected by USATF. Too many of our 57 local Associations are not providing support and programming for athletes in their area. As President, I will form a committee to study the current status of every Association. Our Member Services Committee already has much of this data. We then need to identify key people who reside within those Associations…new and enthusiastic people who are willing to help revitalize it. To do so, we should provide some resource to help them, including training in meet management, office procedures, etc.. We should use successful Association programs as models, such as the Pacific Association cross country and LDR circuits, and the success track & field grand prix series held in other Associations.
As I mentioned earlier, we need to greatly improve our influence within the IAAF, which is now at an all-time low. Last year we lost two incumbents on important IAAF Committees—something that has never happened before. As President, I will try to insure this does not happen again. Having U.S. members on IAAF Committees increases our sphere of influence and gives us the ability to promote the interests of the world’s number-one track & field team among other federations and to affect positive changes at the international level of our sport. I've been involved in the IAAF since 1981. I've been awarded the prestigious IAAF
veteran pin and I know all the key people within the IAAF. Our President is an automatic delegate to the IAAF Congress and our North America Area organization, NACAC. At the meetings of those bodies is where our USATF President needs to network with fellow presidents to gain support for our candidates for various IAAF Committees.
10) Besides getting rid of the dopers and the cheaters, how else can the sport of track & field become more popular again in the USA and what can the USATF do to help?
We need to define and present our sport so that it can be understood and followed more easily by the general public. Right now, it is a confusing mess. As Doug Logan has correctly pointed out, America’s most successful sports have a well-defined program that builds to a crescendo…such as the World Series at the end of the baseball season. The only time most of the general public pays attention to our track & field is during the Olympic Games. We need a special task force or summit meeting to analyze the scheduling of all track & field competitions. Some competitions are not negotiable, such as high school events. But many are, such as our open meets. In that regard, having two major Relay Meets (Drake & Penn) on the same day is probably not a good idea. We need to improve the way we promote our events and our stars to all the various media that covers our sport. This could be a great strategic program. We need to work with television on the best way to televise our major events and look at what has been successful in the past, and what is attracting viewership in other parts of the world.
We also need to pursue hosting an IAAF World Championship or World Cup event in the near future. This will be a difficult challenge financially and we need a track & field stadium needs that can hold 50,000 or more spectators (less for a World Cup). If Chicago gets the 2016 Olympic Games, we may have an opportunity there for an adjoining year. A deal would have to be made with the IAAF as to finances, however (i.e., one where we keep the television and sponsor revenue). The fact that the country with the most potential sponsorship dollars has not been available to the IAAF, hampers the growth of the sport worldwide. The IAAF knows this and would love to find a solution with us.
11) If you were to be elected president, what sort of legacy do you hope to leave?
That we accomplished a most of our goals and objectives. That we did so in an ethical and honest manner.
That we made significant progress in the fight against doping. And that track & field improved its image, overall participation, and following by the general public.
12) Finally, this is the free-form part of the interview. You're free to say whatever you want.
In order to accomplish the goals I've mentioned, we need a new Board and a president who have not been a member of the old dysfunctional Board. Too many members of that Board were troublemakers who had their own agendas, fought among themselves, misappropriated and mismanaged budgets, gave away the 2008, and possibly the 2012, Olympic Trials for no money to USATF, and prevented any real progress being made in our sport. The USOC, being fully aware of this, has mandated that we make several needed reforms. I've never seen things this bad in my 40-years in the sport. The sad part of this is the good people on the Board were not able to counter much of this bad behavior. They, too, let our sport down. We need a house cleaning of the Board and will do much better with new people who will seek to achieve only the goals and best interests of USA Track & Field.
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