Contents 579-5392

August 2015 Track and Field President’s Message Writers of America It’s all about Parking

If you work meets at Hayward Field, this first item is for you. If you don’t, skip to (Founded June 7, 1973) Item #2. PRESIDENT Jack Pfeifer, 6129 N. Lovely St., Portland, OR 97203. Office/home: 917- Contents 579-5392. Email: [email protected] P. 1 President’s Message P. 4 Flotrack Throwdown, Duniway Park, Portland, Oregon VICE PRESIDENT Doug Binder. Email: P. 6 Frank Haviland, 80, Still a Stud [email protected]. P. 8 Unnaturally High Testosterone Levels in Women Begs the Phone: 503-913-4191. Question: Who Is, and Who is Not? TREASURER P. 11 Drugs in Kenyan Athletics Tom Casacky, P.O. Box 4288, Napa, CA 94558. P. 11 NCAA Home Track Advantage for the Ducks in Eugene? Phone: 818-321-3234. Email: [email protected] Point/Counter-Point with Pat Henry and Robert Johnson P. 15 Aisha Praught Runs the Steeple for Jamaica - Finds Birth Father SECRETARY/ AWARDS CHAIR P. 17 Dauphin Street Pole Vault Don Kopriva, 5327 New- P. 18 SN Reviews the Sir Walter Miler and the Flotrack Throwdown port Drive, Lisle IL 60532. Home: 630-960-3049. P. 20 Nike Undermines U.S. Track and Field??? Cell: 630-712-2710. P. 24 USTFCCA Announces 2015 Class of the Coaches Hall of Fame Email: donkopriva777@ aol.com P. 30 Chancellor of the University of North Carolina @ Wilmington Saves

NEWSLETTER EDITOR the Track & Field Program Kim Spir, University of P. 32 Nick Symmonds vs. USATF as told by the NY Times Portland, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd., P. 34 Capriotti Accused of Threatening Brooks Beast Coach Danny Mackey Portland, OR 97203. P. 39 Member Steve Ritchie from Salem, OR: Nick Symmonds Work: 503-943-7314. Email: kim.spir@gmail. Banned From Worlds com P. 41 Coach Pat Henry Sends a Follow-Up Message FAST re: the NCAAs in Eugene Dave Johnson. Email: P. 44 Klishina Can Cook in More Ways Than One According to the IAAF [email protected] Phone: 215-898-6145. P. 46 The Track & Field Athletics Association Crunches the Numbers

WEBMASTER P. 48 Ewan MacKenna Michael McLaughlin. P. 50 Jere’ Longman’s Update on the Symmonds Situation in the NY Times Email: supamac@comcast. net. Phone: 815-529- P. 56 Peter Gambaccini Reports on the Symmonds Situation 8454. P. 58 Partial Fixtures List For those of us who still consider ourselves part of the working press and who do NOT work in television, the parking situation in Eugene has gone from bad to worse. Here at TAFWA Headquarters, we have decided not to ask – politely or resolutely – anymore. The time has come to try to solve this on our own, because neither the University of Oregon nor the NCAA is going to do anything.

Much of the street parking in the vicinity of Hayward Field has gone over to 2-hour limits. Some long-term parking meters remain, but when school is in session, they are used up quickly, and many of those require a bagful of quarters.

What about fans? The university’s football stadium and baseball field have huge adjacent parking lots. Hayward Field? Nada.

There was a long tradition that the working press had some privileges in this area. If you had a press pass, you were entitled to park nearby. That is gone, at least for the NCAA Championships, which are held while school is in session.

A limited number of press parking passes are given to the Eugene Register-Guard and The Oregonian, and perhaps to one or two other individuals. The criteria for these decisions are not released, and the name of the person making these decisions has never been divulged. Other press are allowed to park in Lot #4 -- a long walk across Franklin Boulevard -- or at Autzen Stadium, which is served by an oc- casional shuttle van. The remainder of the parking spaces at the premier lot across Agate – next to the fire station – go to VIPs, some officials, and to as many members of the TV crew as possible. If you are willing to pay to park, TAFWA offers the following possible solutions, beginning with the 2016 NCAA meet:

1. University Lots #34 and 35, just down 17th Street from Hayward Field. We may be able to secure parking spaces in these lots for $30-35 a day. Would you pay this? If not, how much would you pay? 2. Central Lutheran Church, up 18th Street, across from the cemetery. This is a longer walk. Would you pay $15 a day to park at this location if we can get spots in their parking lot?

For the 2016 Olympic Trials, we have been assured that press parking will not be a problem, because the meet will be held in July, after school is closed. If that changes, we’ll let you know and look for solutions for that event as well.

2016 Awards Banquets TAFWA expects to host four get-togethers in 2016, two during the indoor season, two outdoors. We plan to repeat our successful NYC Winter Awards Dinner in ’16, at Coogan’s Restaurant, 168th and Broadway, on Thursday night, Feb. 18, two days prior to the Millrose Games. Millrose will be held around the corner at the Armory.

In March we are planning a social get-together in Portland, Ore., during the World Indoor Champion- ships. This will be for members of FAST, TAFWA and ATFS and will likely be held on Sunday morning, March 20, the final day of the meet. Details TBA.

Our annual Awards Breakfast will be on Friday morning, June 10, Day 3 of the NCAA Championships in Eugene. We expect to use Gerlinger Hall on-campus again. That seemed to work well this year. We have no interest in returning to the Hilton.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 2 - August 2015 Finally, during the Olympic Trials July 1-10, we will have a social event but do not have details yet. One thing we will probably NOT do is schedule something on one of the two mid-week off days, because many people leave town then. We are open to suggestions.

FAST Annual The 2015 annuals have been mailed out. If you did not receive yours, notify Dave Johnson right away. Annuals go to all paid-up members.

If you are interested in being an event compiler for 2016, please notify the book’s editor, Tom Casacky, A S A P.

We are in discussion to have the 2016 edition completed in time for next year’s U.S. and World indoor championships, both of which will be held in March in Portland. This will mean earlier deadlines but also a much more useful book. In recent years, the Annual has not been ready until June, because of long delays in getting it printed and distributed. We continue to try to improve this situation.

Nike Just when you thought the only thing that mattered in Track & Field any longer was drug suspen- sions, Nick Symmonds came along. We have tried to pass along some of the reporting in this issue on Symmonds’s battle with the USATF over apparel, logos and shoe-company sponsorships, though it has been a fast-moving target.

Nike, of course, was also at the center of the recent dispute involving allegations against Coach Alberto Salazar, and more recently with a police incident involving one of its executives, John Capriotti, at Hayward Field. Letsrun’s account of that is in this issue.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 3 - August 2015 http://www.flotrack.org/coverage/252141-FloTrack-Throwdown-2015/article/32479-The-FloTrack- Throwdown-The-Peoples-Meet#.VcWHgPlVikq The FloTrack Throwdown: The People’s Meet Meg Bellino on Jul 16, 2015

Have you ever invited your friends to one of your track races?

No. Why? Because it’s boring.

Rogue Ales and Spirits, founded by a trio of former Nike executives, has partnered with FloTrack to change all of that with the inaugural FloTrack Throwdown. And tickets are on sale now.

The first-ever #FloThrowdown will be a one-of-a-kind track and field experience in Portland, Oregon featuring Olympi- ans, world record-holders, and a festival atmosphere.

Hardcore track fans will be drawn by star names such as Ash- ton Eaton, Trey Hardee, and Nick Symmonds, but FloTrack is on a mission to expand the interest in the sport to the newest of track spectators.

Inspiration began after hosting the inaugural FloTrack Beer Mile World Championships last December — people had fun. Spectators and athletes hung around the Circuit of the Americas, wanting another similar style sporting event. The FloTrack Throwdown is a re-creation of just that - a track meet featuring world-class talent with a focus on fun for all who attend.

“Maybe at some meets, if you have a really-expensive VIP ticket – I wouldn’t know – you could enjoy a beer, but at the FloTrack Throwdown we want this to be the people’s meet,” FloSports co-founder and COO Mark Floreani said. “Track fans should be able to bring their friends to a meet and be confident they’ll have a good time.”

The #FloThrowdown, to be held in Portland’s Duniway Park, will feature a beer garden open to the public, with $1 from every beer sale going to the athletes’ purse. This is a new revenue-sharing model that is already garner- ing notice.

Can you recall the last world-class track meet in the United States that you were able to enjoy a beer at? Didn’t think so.

The FloTrack Throwdown has partnered with Rogue Ales and Spirits as the official beer sponsor for the event. The Oregon-based brewery, founded by former Nike executives Jack Joyce, Bob Woodell and Rob Strasser in 1988, prides itself on doing things differently, breaking the mold, and leading their industry by example.

“A revolutionary track meet is the perfect integration of sport, fun and community, and a great fit for Rogue,” Brett Joyce, Rogue President, said. “Athletes are Rogues too.”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 4 - August 2015 Be sure to check back for more athlete announcements, cool ven- dors and other details around the fan experience. ---

Only those age 21+ will be allowed in the fenced-in beer garden area and you must have an admission ticket to the event. $1 of each food and drink sale will go toward an additional prize purse for the athletes. Tickets for the FloTrack Throwdown are $10 per person available on www.Throwdown.FloTrack.com and $15 per person the week of the event.

For more information on the FloTrack Throwdown, visit: http:// throwdown.flotrack.com/ RESULT HIGHLIGHTS

M PV: Aston Eaton 17-8 1/2 (PR) W 110 Hurdles Kristi Castlin 12:83 W 800 Maggie Vessey 2:00.30 M 800 Duane Solomon 1:46.84 Casimir Loxsom 1:47.17 M 400 Deon Lendore 45.77 Jeremy Wariner 46.03 Nick Symmonds 48.53 W Mile Fiona Benson (CAN) 4:25.79 (WL) Gabe Grunewald 4:30.43 M Mile Peter Callahan 3:58.43

Photos: Thomas Boyd, Oregonian TAFWA Newsletter - Page 5 - August 2015 http://www.runnersworld.com/rt-web-exclusive/masters-champion-80-breaks-all-the-rules-and-still- wins

Recommended by RT WEB EXCLUSIVE Masters Champion, 80, Breaks All the Rules and Still Wins Frank Haviland, back to racing after a 13-year hiatus, follows unconventional training.

ByMarc Bloom TUESDAY, APRIL 7, 2015, 5:01 PM

Athlete: Frank Haviland Age: 80 Residence: Wall Township, NJ Career: Retired teacher, home construction Family: Married, two children, three grandchildren Affiliation: Shore Athletic Club Personal Best 800 Meters Indoors: 2001, age 65, 2:24.12 (American Record, 65-69) Outdoors: 2001, age 66, 2:24.98 (World Masters silver medal, 65-69) 2015 USATF masters indoor championships, 80-84 age group 400 meters: First place, 1:20.69 800 meters: First place, 3:18.64 Mile: First place, 7:56.01

If you’re looking for a runner who breaks all the rules and still wins big races, 80-year-old Frank Haviland of New Jersey is your man. Winner of the 400m, 800m and mile in the 80-84 age group at the recent USATF Mas- ters Indoor Track and Field Championships in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Haviland runs only twice a week and knows only one speed: fast. Years ago, Haviland started his trophy collection racing in high-cut laborer’s work shoes. He never does a warmup for competition, fearing “it will tire me out.” In his 50s and 60s, Haviland won numerous national age-group titles training less than 10 miles a week. Consider his latest lollapalooza: Prior to winning three events at nationals, Haviland came back from a 13-year sabbatical from running. He spent the time building a vacation home in the woods with his bare hands.

Hound Dog: Haviland turned 80 in January. He likes to say he was born on the same day—January 8, 1935—as Elvis Presley. But unlike Elvis, Frank has, in his own way, taken good care of himself. The wiry man is 6 feet tall and weighs 145 pounds, the same as he did in high school. And like a high school runner who sprints to exhaus- tion, after Haviland finishes a hard run, he often throws up.

Home Care: Haviland, a retired science and P.E. teacher, lives in the same Jersey Shore town in which he grew up. But he hates the ocean—he’s only dipped into the surf three times in his life. Growing up, he helped his father, a mechanic, on the job and learned construction. He would eventually build the home he and his wife, Diane, live in by himself from scratch. “I work physically every day,” he says. “I always have a wheelbarrow in my

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 6 - August 2015 hands.”

Ball Games: Haviland played baseball and basketball at Manasquan High School, where he was a classmate of the actor Jack Nicholson. In college at Murray State in Kentucky, Haviland was an star pitcher until elbow surgery put him in the outfield. After college and into his 60s, Haviland played semi-pro baseball, softball and basketball, barnstorming the country for tournaments. It took three knee operations—necessitated, he says, by jamming his legs after rebounds, sliding into bases and the like—as well as a fractured pelvis from a bicycling accident, to stop Haviland from playing ball.

Sprint Speed: Always the fastest man on his various teams, Haviland was encouraged, at 45, to run a local all- comers track meet. He showed up from a construction job in work boots with steel toes and wore them to win the masters 100-yard dash. Someone told him to try the 400. “What’s a 400?” Haviland asked. Before long, Haviland excelled in the 400m and 800m and started collecting the first of his 14 national masters age-group track championships. His titles include the 1500m, mile and 2,000m steeplechase.

Training Approach: Haviland trains twice a week, no more. One day he runs 5 miles on a dirt trail or on a nearby farmer’s land “as hard as I can until I can’t go any further.” Friends tell him to pace himself. “Pacing yourself and just putting in miles is worthless,” he says. On the other training day he runs a few 400m reps. He makes no schedules, does not time himself, and has no record of his training. “I’m primitive,” Haviland says, “but I like to compete.”

Work Ethic: Preparing to build his vacation home on a 40-acre tract that he owns in a rural area of Pennsylvania, Haviland stopped running in the fall of 2001 and did not resume until the spring of 2014. He did not miss running. “I’d rather work than run,” he says. Once his spread, including a three-story barn, was built, Haviland got back to running once a week to prepare for the 2014 New Jersey Senior Games. Despite his long layoff, Haviland says he felt fit from the many years of physical labor.

Senior Citizen: Thanks to his performances at last September’s New Jersey Senior Games (he won the 400m and was second in the 200m and 800m), Haviland qualified for this year’s U.S. National Senior Games, a competition for people 50 and older in 20 sports, in Minneapolis in early July. He also hopes to compete in the USATF masters outdoor track nationals, July 23-26, in Jacksonville, Florida.

Tough Travel: For Haviland, the hardest part of indoor nationals, March 20-22, was the trip. On March 19 at 2 a.m., he and Diane, a college teacher, hit the road for the 540-mile, 12-hour drive to Winston-Salem. “I always leave for long trips in the middle of the night,” Haviland says. “You beat the traffic.” Haviland went on to win the 400m on Friday, the mile on Saturday and 800m on Sunday. After receiving his 800m medal, Haviland piled back in the car for the 12-hour drive home. Was Haviland tired? “No,” he says, “but my rear end was killing me. I’m not used to sitting down.”

Triple Threat: In Winston-Salem, Haviland won the 800m (3:18.64) and mile (7:56.01) while lapping his 80- 84 opponents. But William Kaspari of the Houston Elite challenged him in the 400. Kaspari, also 80, raced to the lead and held it until Haviland outkicked him around the last turn. Haviland ran 80.69 to become the rare 80-and-up runner who can “run his age” in the 400. Haviland usually dismisses times, saying he runs only to win, but he was proud of that.

2001 Odyssey: Haviland’s best year was 2001. That winter, he set a 65-69 American indoor record in the 800m, running 2:24:12 in Boston to capture his age group at the masters indoor national meet. That summer, he trav- eled to Brisbane, Australia, for the world masters outdoor championships. The only American to make the men’s 65-69 800m final, Haviland placed second in 2:24.98 to nab the silver medal. Haviland, then 66, also placed fifth in the 1500m final in 5:15.83 and ran the 400 in 63.79 but did not make the final. A week after returning home from the grueling 24-hour trip, Haviland flew to Baton Rouge for the U.S. masters nationals. He won the 400m, 800m, 1500m and 2,000m steeplechase in his age group.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 7 - August 2015 House Calls: Haviland’s “retirement dream,” as he calls it, now stands in Westfield, a remote town in north central Pennsylvania. Haviland first had to clear the land of trees. “I’m not happy without a chainsaw in my hands,” he says. The house is a wooden structure with a metal roof. Haviland tore down nearby farmers’ barns and used the materials. The foundation is fieldstone from the ground. “I’m not a vacationer,” Haviland says. “I don’t go up there to lie around. I go up there to work.” The place has no electricity. There’s a high school track in the area— cinder, of course—in case Haviland gets a hankering to run a few sprints. And he can throw up wherever he wants.

http://www.runnersworld.com/elite-runners/runners-experts-concerned-about-ruling-on-women- with-naturally-high-testosterone

NEWSWIRE ELITE RUNNERS Runners, Experts Concerned About Ruling on Women with Naturally High Testosterone

Can sport simultaneously be fair to the majority of women and women with high testosterone levels?

ByAmby Burfoot FRIDAY, JULY 31, 2015, 9:54 AM

Caster Semenya of South Africa was temporarily barred from competing after she won the world 800-meter title in 2009. The Court of Arbitration for Sport has suspended the regulation that women athletes such as Semenya receive medical treatment to lower their naturally high levels of testosterone. PHOTO BY PHOTORUN

On Monday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) suspended the requirement that women athletes with naturally high testosterone can’t compete against other women unless they undertake medical treatment to lower their testosterone levels. Runners and medical experts contacted by Runner’s World Newswire say they’re worried and confused by the ruling.

In its finding, the CAS acknowledged that testosterone makes a difference in running performances—the aver- TAFWA Newsletter - Page 8 - August 2015 age gap in men’s and women’s running world records is 10 to 11 percent—but said the difference has not been proven large enough to warrant action. This male-female performance gap occurs because men have more and stronger muscle, bone and support structures, greater blood volume, greater blood volume, and a higher percent of red blood cells. These effects are all modulated by testosterone.

The ruling came after Indian sprinter Dutee Chand challenged the regulation, which the International Associa- tion of Athletics Federations instituted in 2011. Chand, who has hyperandrogenism, or a naturally high level of testosterone, can resume competing against other women, which she hasn’t done since last year. In the meantime, the CAS gave the IAAF two years to provide more convincing evidence for its regulation; if the IAAF doesn’t, the regulation will become permanently void.

However, most track observers are not overly concerned about Chand herself. That’s because she seems unlikely to play a major role in women’s sprints; she’s simply not that fast. Her best 200-meter time of 23.57 lags almost two seconds behind Allyson Felix’s winning 21.88 at the 2012 Olympics.

Rather, it’s Caster Semenya’s name that keeps popping up in conversations.

The CAS decision may affect the approach the IAAF and International Olympic Committee took with Semenya in 2009. That’s when the lean, muscular, deep-voiced South African won the world championships 800 in a star- tling 1:55:45, much to the dismay of several runners-up. Global track officials decided to review the situation, and appointed a n expert panel to determine what, if anything, should be done.

The panel opted for what might be called “the high testosterone rule.” That is, if a woman athlete has high testosterone and active testosterone receptors, the woman can be prohibited from competing unless and until she follows medical procedures to lower her testosterone.

This is apparently what Semenya did in order to continue racing, though the exact details are unknown due to confidentiality and medical privacy. Semenya hasn’t dipped back into the 1:55s since 2009, though she ran 1:56 to 1:58 every year between 2010 and 2013. Last year, her best was 2:02:66; this year, it stands at 2:04:19. Unlike Chand, Semenya, who hopes to race in August’s world championships in Beijing, is a known world-class runner. Not only that, but the CAS decision might mean she can stop taking medications meant to lower her testosterone. What if Semenya starts running 1:55 and dominating her competition again?

Among those concerned by the repeal of the high-testosterone benchmark are elite women athletes who fear they could lose medals and prizes to competitors with rare biologies.

“I was surprised by the verdict, given the high-profile Semenya case a few years ago,” U.S. 5,000-meter record holder Molly Huddle toldNewswire. “I think there should be a place in sports for everyone, but high testosterone is a sensitive topic. There’s so much at stake at the international level of competition that fairness and a level playing field have to be preserved.

“Gender may be fluid in many areas of life, but in sports the more functional testosterone you have, the closer you can come to men’s performances. It’s going to be tough to be fair to the majority of women and the high-T women at the same time.”

According to testimony given to CAS, about 1 in 20,000 women in the general population have the kind of high testosterone seen in Chand and Semenya. Among elite female athletes, the rate is 140 times greater.

The United States and parts of the world have made progress in their understanding of gender identity and civil rights, but perhaps less in understanding the vast ranges of sexual variation. If some women are to be kicked out of sports, what will be the basis for such action? Some would like to see a strict biological test. Others believe that such tests are inevitably flawed, and that the best way forward is to accept all who self-define as women. Deena Kastor, American record holder in the half marathon and marathon and bronze medalist in the

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 9 - August 2015 2004 Olympic Marathon, told Newswire that she was reluctant to comment on divisive issues like this one. Still, she added that the “Chand case is intriguing,” and concluded, “It’s unfortunate if an athlete has naturally high testosterone numbers, but there need to be limits in our sport to fight the culture of cheating.”

Others, mainly doctors and scientists, appear more concerned about logic, consistency, and culture when it comes to determining female eligibility. Medical historian Alice Dreger, Ph.D., told Newswire that she and journalist David Epstein are among the few who have read all 161 pages of the CAS decision. “It’s a very strange document,” observes Dreger, known for her support of many LGBT issues. “As I read through it, I found myself agreeing with many things. But then at the end, I thought the logic got all twisted around.”

In a Los Angeles Times opinion piece published Thursday, Dreger argued that the various sports bodies don’t appear to know what they want. At times, they support a biological test for women; at other times, they say they don’t want to be in the gender verification business. It certainly hasn’t worked in the past, as the IAAF and IOC have had to drop tests such as a visual inspection of genitalia and a DNA cheek swab.

Three years ago, just before the London Olympics, Dreger wrote about “The Olympic Struggle Over Sex” for The Atlantic. On that occasion, she admitted to having a personal opinion, favoring the “anatomists” and their biological-physiological approach over the “identifiers.” Why? Because “we’re not actually talking about law and justice,” Dreger wrote. “We’re talking about games.”

And in games, unlike in the quest for civil liberties, body differences are important. Some of the rarest, hardest- to-define gender complexities are now termed disorders of sex development, or intersex. On average, most men have more testosterone than most women, but the ranges overlap, and some women have very high levels of testosterone due to unusual medical conditions. These conditions don’t make them non-female; they simply make them rare females. Some women’s rights advocates are unhappy about the way sports groups have created two classes of women—eligible and not-eligible. There is only one class of men, as all are eligible. This includes men with the same condition, hyperandrogenism, as Chand and Semenya.

Epstein, author of The Sports Gene, says he’s not sure what should be done to regulate women’s participation. “Given that sports bodies are trying to impose a binary result on non-binary human biology, they’re going to end up drawing an arbitrary line somewhere, and that’s okay with me,” says Epstein. “I’d just like to see them be open and honest about this. They should admit that they can’t be fair to everyone, because an arbitrary line is just that—arbitrary.

“I don’t like the logic of the CAS decision, and I can’t think of another single parameter that could replace testosterone for determining a woman’s eligibility, so maybe we’re just headed towards self-identification. Then we’d continue to see over-representation of women with certain conditions, just as we do now. This hasn’t brought sports crumbling to the ground, and I don’t think it would going forward.”

Mayo Clinic endurance-sports expert Michael Joyner, M.D., toldNewswire that there’s no easy answer. “Sports have tried repeatedly to sort out gender identity issues, and there are just too many limitations,” he says. “It’s a categorical error to say anyone can deal with these issues scientifically or ‘objectively.’ Science and medicine can explain what’s going on biologically, but can’t remove the need for judgment calls as to who is eligible and who is not.”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 10 - August 2015 http://www.dw.com/en/documentary-film-levels-doping- charges-against-iaaf-kenyan- athletics/a-18622137

DOPING Documentary film levels doping charges against IAAF, Kenyan athletics

In a report on German TV, journalist Hajo Seppelt makes a case that doping is rampant among track-and-field’s endurance disciplines. He also suggests that the sport’s governing body is doing little to combat the problem.

Last winter, Seppelt caused a stir with a documentary presenting indications of systematic doping within the Rus- sian Athletics Federation. On Saturday, August 1, he was back at it with a nearly hourlong report that asked serious question of athletics in general and Kenya’s long-distance runners in particular.

“The Doping Secret: The Dark Side of Athletics” suggests that many marathon runners and other track-and-field athletes from the African nation engage in blood doping with substances such as EPO. Kenyans have dominated long-distance running events for years, and large numbers of people in the country see athletics as their only way to escape poverty.

The documentary shows that it is relatively easy to obtain banned performance-enhancing drugs in Kenya and traces the story of an impoverished young runner who seems to have died from the side effects of taking EPO. Kenyan athletics authorities refused to speak with Seppelt about the issue, and his film presents circumstantial evidence of corruption among Kenyan sports functionaries. Former Boston marathon winner Rito Jeptoo as- serts that Kenyan athletes are not subjected to blood tests while training. Another Kenyan runner claims that the national federation suppresses positive doping results in return for bribes.

Seppelt also suggests the International Association of Athletics Federations isn’t doing enough to address the problem of doping in endurance disciplines. After evaluating data on athletes’ blood collected at major athletics competitions over a number of years, two Australian scientists conclude that doping is the only plausible expla- nation for some of the measurements. The IAAF also refused to speak with Seppelt about his suspicions. In reaction to the documentary, Germany’s National Anti-Doping Agency called for a prompt and comprehen- sive investigation to ensure “international fairness of competition and clean sports for all athletes.” http://trackandfieldnews.com/index. php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2523 Oregon’s Homefield Advantage At The NCAA Championships

In the August edition of Track & Field News, cover- ing this year’s NCAA Championships, our “Last Lap” section had a small item relating to comments made by Texas A&M head Pat Henry regards a homefield advantage. Here’s what we wrote: TAFWA Newsletter - Page 11 - August 2015 Formerly on record in favor of the NCAA Championships’ extended run in Eugene, Texas A&M coach Pat Henry is now having second thoughts about the arrangement that will keep the meet at Hayward Field for 6 more years.

“This is just not a fair environment,” Henry told the Portland Oregonian after his men’s and women’s teams placed 3rd and 6th this year.

“You don’t have the basketball championships in Rupp Arena with Kentucky in the mix because it’s just an unfair advantage.”

Aggie teams have won or tied for 8 titles (4 men’s, 4 women’s) in the past 6 years, including a tie for the men’s win in ’13 and last year’s women’s victory at Hayward Field.

The big unanswerable question, of course, is whether the mon- ster support that capacity Hayward Field crowds give to all athletes—albeit with a Duck bias—is worse than performing in front of empty stands elsewhere. That article prompted Coach Henry to send us this reasoned response, for publication:

Anybody who attended the meet understands the environment favors the Ducks—no question about it, to deny it means you are a true Ducks fan.

It is Texas A&M’s—and many other institutions—fault that the meet is in Eugene for as many years as it is projected. A&M does not have a facility that we could host this meet, BUT if we did we would fill the facility. Reminder, we did at LSU.

The issue is until someone can say, “We can fill the facility and accommodate the media,” it should stay in Eugene; it’s best for the sport. It’s not good for the team competition as I have so stated.

Apparently the City of Eugene or SOMEONE stepped up and provided funding for the meet that was too much for the NCAA to reject. If that is true then we have an even greater issue.

Does the NCAA even care about our sport or is money the big issue? If money is an issue then we the coaches, and without question the administrations at ALL our institutions, need to be informed of that fact and then be given the opportunity to try to win a bid for the meet.

It’s the American way—if someone says we will give you $500,000 dollars for the meet, let others know so that someone might be able to come up with $501,000 dollars and win a bid. It’s fair—so far it has not been fair. This is what I have said many times and will continue to say. Be fair – let’s get it all on the table so others know what is going on – it’s not just a track meet.

Coach Pat Henry July 20, 2015

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 12 - August 2015 http://trackandfieldnews.com/index. php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2529 Oregon Coach Robert Johnson Responds To NCAA Champs Homefield Advantage Claims

Earlier this week, the The Day’s Best Reading section of our website carried an article in which Texas A&M Pat Henry raised concerns that Oregon might have an unfair advantage with its long sequence of NCAA hostings. Click here to read that piece. Coach Henry’s writing moved Oregon head Robert Johnson to respond. Here’s what he has to say on the subject:

I am writing to offer my disappointment over the verbal banter that began shortly after the NCAA Champion- ships in the Oregonian and has continued into the summer regarding a perceived unfair competitive advantage at Hayward Field. I have heard many complimentary words about the quality of our dedicated officials, the friendliness of the hundreds of volunteers, our track knowledgeable fans and our world-class facility from coaches and student-athletes alike as they competed on a grand stage in front of a full stadium and a worldwide television audience. Those fans… the 42,000 people over four days, who took vaca- tions, purchased plane tickets and booked hotel rooms to cheer on every athlete at Hayward Field. No other sports venue in the world welcomes more knowledgeable fans that root for great performances, regardless of team affiliation, than Hay- ward Field. That is a fact that the athletes say themselves.

The crowd was clapping for Marquis Dendy’s outstanding sweep of the horizontal jumps. They understood the signifi- cance behind the record-breaking women’s pole vault. They roared for Andre De Grasse’s upset victories in the 100 and 200. They came from 48 states and around the world to cheer on the athletes. All of the athletes.

In fact, over 40% of all tickets sold to the public were purchased from individuals living outside the state of Oregon. Hayward Field is a special place for all track and field athletes, from age-group runners to Olympians, and the Ducks couldn’t be prouder to call it home.

Does hosting the NCAA Outdoor Championship really give a team that home field advantage? Well, since 1982 when the men’s and women’s national championships began to be hosted at the same site, the home team has won a total of five times out of 66 opportunities: our three Oregon teams in 2014 and 2015 along with LSU’s 1987 women’s team and LSU’s 2002 men’s team, ironically coached by Pat Henry. Those are five special teams that simply scored more points than their competitors.

In my career over ten years as an assistant and now head coach at Oregon, we have found success at NCAA Championships away from home as well. Our eight NCAA Indoor titles have come at Arkansas, Boise State and even Texas A&M. Those victories have been followed by heartbreaking runner-up and trophy finishes at Hay- TAFWA Newsletter - Page 13 - August 2015 ward Field. Maybe there is something to be said about the normalcy of competing with your team on the road. Let’s consider our student athletes ability to balance a rigorous competition schedule with final exams that cannot be rescheduled as well as the extra media attention of being at home.

The University of Oregon spends considerable resources – both financially and in the time of our staff – to host the NCAA Championships. To make accusations of impropriety is irresponsible. No other university in the country would put as much effort into hosting these championships as the University of Oregon does. The positive experiences of the student-athletes and coaches along with the considerable fan turnout are the results of that effort.

The three announcers who worked the NCAA Championships are the best in the country and have years of experience announcing all over the world. The presumed bias that my colleague alluded to can be attributed to the simple fact that Oregon has qualified more individuals to the NCAA meet over the last two years than any other program... there were simply more Ducks to announce than any other teams.

I fear that the antics of some disgruntled coaches is a ploy to urge their administrators to match Hayward Field’s world-class training and competition facility. However devious, I applaud any plans that are aimed towards advancing our sport and enhancing our student-athletes’ and fans’ experience. I think these individuals should be cautious, however, not to hurl insults at our hard-working volunteers, supportive administrators and outstanding student-athletes who all contributed to the huge success of the 2015 NCAA Championships. To say that the success of our student-athletes at the 2014 and 2015 Championships was a result of a home field advantage rather than countless hours of hard work, dedication and sacrifice diminishes the efforts and accomplishment of the Oregon team and is a slap in the face to the other participants who competed just as hard.

Sincerely, Robert Johnson Head Coach, University of Oregon July 24, 2015

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 14 - August 2015 http://qctimes.com/sports/ running/ex-moliner-praught- runs-for-jamaica-now/arti- cle_bc82c4c7-b8e5-5629-9a84- 3414f6e25633.html Ex-Moliner Aisha Praught runs for Jamaica now

July 31, 2015 6:56 pm • By Don Doxsie

Former Moline High School athlete Aisha Praught has honed her skills in the steeplechase as a member of the Oregon Track Club. | Oregon Track Club

The trek to the decision was probably as arduous as any race Aisha Praught has ever run. She agonized for years over how it would impact her family, how it would impact her lifestyle, how it would impact her future. She finally decided to do it.

As a result, the former Moline High School track and field standout will be competing in the World Champion- ships in Beijing, China, three weeks from now. And unless something unforeseen comes about, she could very well be taking part in the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, next year.

But she won’t be wearing the red, white and blue garb of the United States.

She’ll be running for Jamaica. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 15 - August 2015 Praught, whose biological father was from Jamaica, officially became a citizen of the small island country earlier this summer.

“I toiled over the decision to run for Jamaica,’’ she admitted as she went through workouts in England last week. “It took two years of intense introspection and probing conversation with my inner circle of family, friends and advisors.

“This is a decision that affects my life, my career and my future so it was not made lightly. I’m sure, at times, it was exhausting for my team to be my sounding board, but in the end we made a decision everyone feels good about.’’

Praught was born in Wisconsin and raised in Moline by Jerome and Molly Praught.

Many years earlier, Molly had lived in Kingston, Jamaica, and had a long-term relationship with a reggae musi- cian named Joseph “Blue’’ Grant. But she came home to the U.S. to give birth to the baby. She married Jerome a few years later and they raised a daughter who evolved into a track star. Aisha finished seventh while representing Moline in the 1,600 at the 2008 Illinois high school track meet. At Illinois State University, she finished second in the mile at the 2012 NCAA meet. Since both Jerome and Molly are Caucasion, Aisha knew at an early age that Jerome was not her birth father and she was naturally curious about her true heritage.

She had the full support of Molly and Jerome as she sought to learn more about her real dad.

“We wholeheartedly supported her decision,’’ Molly Praught said. “It has been a wonderfully complex journey.” Aisha finally located Grant, who had moved to Berlin, and arranged to meet him when she was in Europe for the summer track season in 2013.

It was an emotional experience. Praught said in a recent article in Race Results Weekly that the minute she saw Grant, she knew he was her father. She has gotten to know him and learned she has 11 half-siblings.

As she developed a relationship with Grant, she said she actually even has come to feel like a Jamaican.

When her citizenship became a reality this year, she almost instantly became the country’s top contender in both of her primary events, the 1,500-meter run and the 3,000-meter steeplechase.

While Jamaica is loaded with sprinters who dream of following in the footsteps of world record holder Usain Bolt, it had no one capable of competing at a world-class level in any distance longer than 800 meters. Now it has one.

“With my addition to the roster, we can bump that up to 1,500 meters and steeplechase, and hope others follow along,’’ Praught said.

Her personal best in the steeplechase is 9 minutes, 34.69 seconds, which is within five seconds of a time that would have qualified for the finals in the last Olympics. It’s only about seven seconds off the Jamaican national record of 9:27.21, set in 2005 by Mardrea Hyman.

At the Jamaican national championships in late June, there was not even a steeplechase competition held because Praught was the only entry. There were only four runners in the women’s 1,500, which Praught won easily, by 18 seconds. While she is qualified to run in both events at the World Championships Aug. 22-30, she plans to focus on the steeplechase there.

“My primary goal for the 2015 World Championships is to make the final,’’ Praught said. “My skill set has been honed over the last three years to be able to compete at the highest level in the steeplechase, and I want to see it through in August.’’ TAFWA Newsletter - Page 16 - August 2015 She wasn’t entirely sure she liked the steeplechase when she first began doing it at Illinois State — the event does not exist at the high school level — and she was even more unsure after taking what she has described as an “unsightly’’ spill in the NCAA meet. But she has come to love the event, which includes leaping over hurdles and small water pits, and feels she has improved immensely since college while working with the Oregon Track Club.

“I gained an unbreakable love for the sport, for competition and for bettering myself under coach Jeff Bovee at ISU,’’ she said. “I graduated with some solid tools and we have slowly built upon those each year.

“My coach (with the OTC), Mark Rowland, has transformed me into a true professional physically and mentally. It has not happened overnight. I am getting closer to my goals but, as a true athlete always feels, I still have work to do.’’

She knows whatever she does, Molly and Jerome are going to be behind her.

“They have been immensely supportive through this decision process, and are entirely thrilled for me,’’ Aisha said. And if Aisha happens to end up in Rio de Janeiro next summer, you can bet they’ll be there watching.

“Absolutely!’’ Molly said. “It would be amazing to watch our daughter realize her dream.’’ http://wkrg.com/2015/07/18/pole-vaulting- competitors-leap-over-dauphin-street/ Pole Vaulting Competitors Leap Over Dauphin Street

By Emily DeVoePublished: July 18, 2015, 2:48 pm Up- dated: July 18, 2015, 6:37 pm

A competitive sport usually limited to the track field hit the streets of downtown Mobile Saturday.

The 5th annual Dauphin Street Vault blocked off the road between Jackson and Joacham streets so hundreds of aspiring pole vaulters could take a jab at competing in the middle of the road.

The mission of the event is to promote healthy living through athletics and bring awareness to the sport of pole vaulting, or as the event’s website puts it, “celebrate the awesomeness of pole vaulting and track and field by throwing an amazing block party in its honor.”

WKRG caught up with a couple of middle-school pole-vaulters who were at the event for the first time. 8th graders Lainey Phelps and Alex Brooks both started pole-vaulting this year and said the Dauphin Street Vault is quite a rush.

“I like being in the road, and I like the music, and all the people,” Phelps said as she looked around at the crowd- ed sidewalk.

Brooks agreed,”it’s really cool having all the people here. It does add a lot of pressure on you, but it’s really cool and I like doing it in the street!”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 17 - August 2015 http://www.sportingnews.com/sport/story/2015-08-05/sir-walter-miler-raleigh-flotrack-throwdown-portland-track-field-fans

Sir Walter Miler, Flotrack Throwdown redefine fan-friendly track and field

Kevin Liao Contributor @RunLiao | August 5, 2015 8:08am EDT

Participation in high school track and field is at an all-time high, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. In 2013-14, track and field trailed just football in total number of prep athletes, total- ing 1.06 million participants for the school year.

(Getty Images)

Track’s mainstream popularity, however, has failed to keep pace. While stars like Jim Ryun and Bruce Jenner once graced the cover of Sports Illustrated and were plastered on the front of Wheaties boxes, the sport has fallen from the consciousness of most American sports fans over the years.

One common critique of track is the structure of competitions, which stress participation over fan-friendliness. Due to the sheer volume of competitors, high school and college meets can last the entirety of the day. Family members of competitors have an incentive to sit through hours of races while waiting for loved ones to compete, but it’s hard to expect even die-hard fans to go through such a grueling experience.

“Traditional track meets are also too long for the TL;DR generation,” said Pat Price, race director of Sir Walter Miler. “Unless you’re a Diamond League meet with major sponsor backing, it’s hard to entertain people for more

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 18 - August 2015 than a few hours.”

Add this to the lack of quality food, drink and music at meets, and it’s no wonder the millions of kids who run track in high school haven’t become long-term fans of the sport.

Luckily, things are starting to change.

Two competitions being held this weekend — Sir Walter Miler in Raleigh, N.C. on Friday andFlotrack Throw- down in Portland, Ore. on Saturday — are challenging conventional wisdom about track meets by valuing the fan experience just as much as the product on the track.

“People have many options for attending live events,” said Mark Floreani, COO of FloSports, the media company putting on the Flotrack Throwdown. “If they choose track, we want them walking away thinking they had a lot of fun.”

Floreani says the meet seeks to have a festival atmosphere with lawn games, food trucks and a beer garden — all to complement the competition on the track that features decathlon world record holder Ashton Eaton, Olym- pian Nick Symmonds and fashion icon Maggie Vessey .

The Throwdown will be held at Portland’s Duniway Park, strategically chosen for its location just minutes from downtown PDX and proximity to public transit.

The meet will debut a novel concept for track and field: revenue sharing of concession sales. For every sale of food, beer and merchandise, a dollar of the sale will be contributed to the event prize purse.

“We want fans involved in every aspect of the event,” Floreani said. “That means not just cheering on the athletes but having a stake in their performances.”

Staffed by a devoted group of volunteers, Sir Walter Miler has a self-proclaimed “do-it-yourself, farm-to-table” approach.

Due to their limited resources, Price and his team have proven what can be done with a shoestring budget by engaging the Raleigh community in the effort.

“Where we can’t compete in prize purse, we make up for in southern hospitality,” Price said. “We want fans and athletes to interact with no pretense.”

Rather than lodging at pricey hotels, athletes stay with host families that have an interest in running. Local restaurants sponsor food for competitors. A “run with the pros” event gives the local weekend warriors and high school runners the chance to run with the very best in the country.

Now in its second edition, Sir Walter is making upgrades. This year’s meet will feature a live web stream, professional timing system and a higher caliber field due to what Price credits as “good press and word of mouth.” Though the two competitions vary in their approaches, both seek the same goal: To grow the popularity of track and field both in their communities and in the United States.

Incorporating elements like food, music and fun from other major sports all play into the ultimate mission of creating a fan-friendly atmosphere that draws more people in the sport for the long haul. Price summed up this mindset well.

“If it’s done in every other sport,” he said, “why not track?”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 19 - August 2015 http://www.ocregister.com/ articles/nike-676683-athletes- track.html

Reid: Nike promotes - and undermines - U.S. track

Aug. 7, 2015 | Updated Aug. 8, 2015 10:26 a.m. BY SCOTT M. REID / STAFF WRITER

Former Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman, left, shares a laugh with Nike CEO Phil Knight as Knight presents him with an award in 1999 at Hay- ward Field in Eugene, Ore. FILE PHOTO: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 20 - August 2015 Bill Bowerman was on the telephone when Geoff Hollister, a former Oregon steeplechaser and longtime Nike track and field promotions man, walked into office of the legendary former Ducks coach and Nike co-founder beneath Hayward Field’s ancient, wooden East Grandstand.

“Well the son-of-a-bitch just walked in,” Bowerman told the caller on the other end of the line before hanging up, Hollister recalled in his memoir “Out of Nowhere: The Inside Story of How Nike Marketed the Culture of Running.”

It was 1979 and Bowerman was livid after being told that Hollister had invited only athletes sponsored by the shoe company to the Nike-Oregon Track Club Marathon in Eugene, annually one of the fastest races in the world.

“Then he tore into me and gave no mercy,” Hollister wrote, recalling the confrontation.

Hollister had been with the company longer than its trademark swoosh, starting before it even adopted the name Nike, hired by Phil Knight over cheeseburgers and milkshakes at a Dairy Queen near the Oregon campus, Hollister getting stuck with the check. As much as anyone, Hollister was responsible for convincing the world’s best athletes, such as Henry Rono, Steve Ovett, Sebastian Coe and Carl Lewis, to wear Nike, enabling the company to topple adidas as track’s dominant brand just as the sport turned pro in the 1980s, ending the decades- long sham of “amateurism.”

Hollister was equally comfortable traveling around Oregon selling Nikes to high school kids out of the back of his Volkswagen van or pitching the brand to world record-setting runners over beers in Oslo and Zurich. But Hollister also shared Bowerman’s evangelical zeal for promoting the sport, and like his old coach admired and supported all runners, whether their shoes had swooshes or three stripes on them. The story about Hollister freezing non-Nike runners out of the marathon wasn’t true, and after Bowerman calmed down, Hollister finally convinced him of that.

The incident immediately came to mind when I read this week of Nike and its puppet regime that runs USA Track & Field holding the World Championship spots for six-time U.S. 800-meter champion Nick Symmonds and other American athletes hostage.

Symmonds, who has an endorsement deal with Brooks, and other athletes who qualified for the U.S. team for the World Championships later this month in Beijing, recently received letters from USA Track & Field inform- ing them they were required to wear “Nike Team USA apparel” throughout the trip.

“Accordingly, please pack ONLY Team USA, Nike or non-branded apparel ...” the letter said.

In some ways the Seattle-based Symmonds appears to gotten off easy compared to women athletes such as Jenny Simpson, the 2011 World 1,500-meter champion, who runs for New Balance. Sports bras are among the Nike apparel items athletes are required to wear during the trip. Athletes must sign a document agreeing to the Nike dress code by Sunday or be left off the team.

That’s right – if you don’t promise to wear the right sports bra, you won’t be allowed to compete in the second- biggest track meet of the four-year period leading up to next summer’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Once again, USA Track & Field has found a way to upstage the sport just as it steps into the global spotlight. The latest in a recent series of USATF/Nike controversies had me wondering what Bowerman would think of the Nike/USATF contract demands. What would Hollister think?

(Bowerman died the day before Christmas in 1999. Hollister passed away in 2012 after a long battle with can- cer.)

Or what would Pre do? TAFWA Newsletter - Page 21 - August 2015 I believe Steve Prefontaine, the Oregon maverick, the record-shattering distance runner who put Nike on the map and gave the company instant global credibility, would have done what Symmonds has done: refused to sign the agreement.

“It’s important to remember who Pre was and the battles he chose to fight, and the battles he’d be fighting today if he were around,” Symmonds told Competitor magazine for a May cover story entitled “Pre Lives On: Why Steve Prefontaine Still Matters.” “I think he would continue to fight for rights of athletes, I think he would be appalled at the way the IOC treats athletes, and how the IAAF and USAF treat their athletes.”

And time and again it has been Symmonds (and former U.S. 5,000 champion Lauren Fleshman) among this current generation of American athletes who have fought Pre’s battles, and have been on the front lines of the fight for athletes rights. Just as Prefontaine raged against the AAU’s suppressive system, a fight that led to the passage of the Amateur Athletic Act of 1978 three years after his death, Symmonds and Fleshman have been at the forefront of the battle for track athletes to market themselves in the same manner NASCAR drivers, beach volleyball players or members of the PGA Tour have. And each step of the way they have met resistance from the IOC, the IAAF (track’s global governing body), USATF and Nike.

Nike has a complicated relationship with American track and field. The company is the best thing to happen to the U.S. sport in the last 40 years, and too often also the worst.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Beaverton, Nike’s world headquarters, has saved what’s left of American track. The company underwrites no less than three elite distance running enclaves: the Nike Oregon Project and Bowerman TC, who share the Nike World Campus, and the Eugene-based Oregon Track Club. The Oregon Proj- ect, led by former New York and Boston marathons champion Alberto Salazar, has produced Olympic 10,000 silver medalist Galen Rupp (and 2012 Olympic 10,000 and 5,000 champion Mo Farah).

Bowerman star Evan Jager threatens in Beijing to become the first non-Kenyan born runner to win the men’s 3,000 steeplechase at a World Championships or Olympic Games since 1987. Symmonds, like Fleshman, trained under Mark Rowland for several years at OTC, finishing fifth in the 2012 Olympic 800 final and securing a World Championship silver medal a year later. Nike also funds the Prefontaine Classic, which is consistently among the best meets in the world. Nike’s checkbook and Vin Lanana’s tireless salesmanship landed the 2016 World Indoor Championships for Portland and the 2021 outdoor Worlds for Eugene.

But Nike all too often also undermines American track. The company recently signed Justin Gatlin, the 2004 Olympic 100 champion, helping make the unrepentant, twice-banned drug cheat the face of U.S. track and field. Allegations of unethical, if not illegal, doping practices within the Oregon Project have also raised questions about Nike’s role in enabling top athletes to use banned performance-enhancing methods. This week Victor Conte, the drug guru at the center of the BALCO investigation, said a U.S. Anti Doping Agency probe into the Oregon Project also needs to focus on Nike’s involvement with other athletes, including 2000 Olympic champion Maurice Greene and his coach, John Smith.

Then there’s Nike the bully. Too often, the company thinks it’s the Kremlin and the rest of the sport is Hungary or Czechoslovakia. In recent years there have been allegations of Nike and USATF officials getting Nike athletes into the Olympics Trials even though the athletes didn’t meet the qualifying standards, and allegations of Nike and USATF officials bullying meet officials into making rulings in favor of Nike athletes at the expense of athletes from other shoe companies. And of course there’s the dress code. Symmonds said he was told by USATF officials to remove the Brooks gear he was wearing while having coffee in a hotel during the 2014 World Indoor Championships in Poland.

Nike dropped Symmonds shortly after he won the silver at the 2013 Worlds. Many in the sport believe the move was the result of Symmonds arguing that U.S. athletes should be able to wear the logos of more than one sponsor on their uniforms.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 22 - August 2015 “This was my home,” Symmonds told me after winning his sixth U.S. title in June in Eugene. “I own four businesses here. I own two houses. I wanted to spend the rest of my life in Eugene. But I’m a professional athlete and I need to go where the team needs me, and Nike I guess didn’t feel like they needed me anymore.”

If Nike feels like it owns the sport it’s because, in a large sense, it does. Last year Nike and USATF signed a sponsorship deal that reportedly pays the federation $20 million annually. The deal starts in 2018 and runs through 2040. At first glance the deal looks a major coup for USATF, but several longtime USATF volunteers, most notably David Greifinger, the former counsel to the group’s board, maintain in the long run it’s a bad deal for the federation. Neither the USATF athletes advisory committee or a track athlete’s union was consulted with about the deal.

This much is clear now: USATF has not only sold out to Nike, but sold the souls of generations of American athletes as well.

That track’s governing body has sold out its athletes is nothing new. It’s what Bowerman and Hollister and Pre- fontaine and countless others fought against for decades. Nike used to be on the right side of those fights, the rebel company that shook the powers that be to their rotten core. Nike still likes to quote Bowerman and Pre- fontaine, although the quotes are more of a way to sell shoes and T-shirts than words to live by for a company that long ago lost its way. A few years ago a Nike ad campaign asked “Where is the next Pre?”

Where?

In Seattle, making a stand.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 23 - August 2015 http://www.ustfccca. org/2015/08/featured/ ustfccca-coaches- hall-of-fame-class-of- 2015-announced

USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame Class of 2015 Announced

By Kyle Terwillegar, USTFCCCA | August 10, 2015

NEW ORLEANS – The U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) announced Mon- day the six coaches who will be inducted into the USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame as the Class of 2015. Jim Bibbs, Barbara Crousen, Bob Lewis, Billy Maxwell, Don Strametz and Gary Wilson will be enshrined in the Hall of Fame for not only their incredible and historic accomplishments as track & field and cross country coaches, but also the long-lasting impact their contributions have had and will continue to have on the sport. These six will be honored at the 2015 USTFCCCA Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Tuesday, December 15, at the USTFCCCA Convention in San Antonio, Texas.

Started in 1995, the USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame exists to recognize coaches who have brought great distinction to themselves, to their institutions and to the sports of cross country & track & field. Each of the honorees exemplifies the qualities of dedication to the sport, leadership and passion for their profession that serve as an inspiration to coaches everywhere in the sport.

The full USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame and information on all of its past inductees can be found here. Biographies for each of the members of the Class of 2015 can be found below, in alphabetical order.

Jim Bibbs Michigan State After nearly a decade as an assistant at Michigan State coaching some of the finest sprinters in the world, Jim TAFWA Newsletter - Page 24 - August 2015 Bibbs was chosen to take over the men’s track & field program in 1977, becoming the first black head coach in the school’s history and one of the Big Ten’s first in any sport. Bibbs continued to helm the men’s program for the better part of the following two decades, retiring in 1995 to conclude a coaching career that spanned 36 years between the Detroit Public School system and Michigan State. His sprinters were the class of the Big Ten during his Spartan years. In total, Bibbs – a former standout sprinter in his own right – mentored his athletes to 52 conference titles, 26 All-America honors, three NCAA titles and multiple world records.

Two pupils stood tallest among his accomplished list of star sprinters: Marshall Dill and Herb Washington. Both men were Spartan teammates in the early 1970s and combined for three NCAA titles, six All-America honors and 18 Big Ten titles.

Under Bibbs’ guidance, Dill and Washington once set a pair of indoor world records at the same meet – the 1972 Michigan State Relays – and came within .1 of combining for a third. Dill broke the all-time 300-yard dash standard, while Washington took the 60-yard dash record – a record once held by Bibbs, himself. The two joined up as part of the sprint medley relay team that just missed the world record.

Prior to his coaching days, Bibbs was not only a world-class sprinter, but also a fine baseball player. The New York Yankees offered him a Class A contract upon graduation from Ecorse High School, but he instead chose to attend Eastern Michigan to earn his degree.

He joined the track team (freshman baseball was unavailable at EMU) and soon after broke the world record in the 60-yard dash at 6.1. He went on to win three consecutive Illinois Intercollegiate Athletic Conference titles at 100 and 220 yards.

Bibbs also found success at other levels of the sport. In five seasons as the head coach at his alma mater Ecorse High School, he coached the boys’ team to a fourth-place state finish in 1964, third-place in 1965, runner-up in 1966 and finally the state title in 1967.

He also founded and coached the women’s Detroit Track Club. During those same years from 1964 through 1967, he coached the club to national relay titles.

He served as the coach of the women’s track & field team at the 1967 Pan Am Games, guiding Team USA to eight wins in the 11 events.

Barbara Crousen McMurry NCAA team championships in every sport at every level of the NCAA are all special in their own way. However, very few and far between are the national titles that transcend those boundaries as milestone achievements in sport.

In 2008, McMurry’s Barbara Crousen won one of those national titles.

In a come-from-behind, 35-31, victory over Cortland State at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Crousen became the first woman in NCAA history to coach a men’s team to a national title in any sport.

Nearly a decade later, that short list of female coaches with men’s NCAA team titles still only includes her – twice, as McMurry went on to win a second national title in 2012 – and Jennifer Michel of Western State (2011 men’s NCAA DII cross country).

In winning the 2008 national crown, her Warhawks’ performance was as dramatic as it was historic. McMurry entered the meet-finale 4×400 relay with 29 points, four behind leader Cortland, which had failed to qualify a team to the final. The odds were against Crousen’s Warhawks, who had qualified to NCAAs as the 14th and final TAFWA Newsletter - Page 25 - August 2015 team and had barely made the final as the seventh-fastest of the nine advancing teams in the prelims. Anchored by Hanneus Ollison, who ultimately had a hand in 34 of McMurry’s 35 points, Crousen’s squad stepped up to the occasion and finished third in a race in which third, fourth, fifth and sixth were all separated by less than a second.

Four years later in 2012 her squad once again claimed the national title, this time in much more comfortable fashion as the Warhawks scored 66 points to topple runner-up UW-La Crosse. That team featured four national champions and 29 total All-America efforts.

With a McMurry transition starting the following year in 2013 and Crousen announcing her retirement the year after in 2014, that national title capped an era in which her men and women accumulated eight top-four national finishes and a combined 16 top-10 efforts.

Crousen took over the McMurry program in 1998 following 32 years of coaching in the Texas public school system and it only took her two seasons to shape the Warhawk women into a top-10 national program. Her women finished ninth in 2000, before going on to make the podium the next year with a fourth-place finish and take national runner-up honors in 2002.

Her men followed a similar trajectory just a few years later, starting with a 10th-place showing in 2004 before building up to fourth in 2006, the national title in 2008, a runner-up finish in 2009, a third-place trophy in 2011 and the final national crown in 2012.

During that time, her teams claimed 14 American Southwest Conference men’s titles and 10 more women’s crowns. In all, she coached her athletes to a combined 61 individual national titles, 244 All-America honors, and more than 200 individual conference titles.

She was twice named the USTFCCCA National Coach of the Year, and earned multiple national honors as a high school coach. She was inducted into the Texas Girls Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2012.

Bob Lewis Frostburg State Only five schools in NCAA Division III men’s track & field history have national team titles from both the NCAA Indoor Championships and NCAA Outdoor Championships on display in their respective trophy cases. It’s an exclusive list: UW-La Crosse, Lincoln (Pa.), North Central (Ill.) UW-Oshkosh and Frostburg State.

But only one of those schools owns the distinction of pulling off the very first indoor and outdoor team championship sweep in DIII history: Frostburg State, coached by Bob Lewis.

In 1986 – at the mid-point of his 31-year tenure leading the men’s track & field program and both genders’ cross country squads at the small Maryland university – Lewis led his men to the NCAA Division III indoor team title in the championships’ second year of existence and followed that up in the spring with the outdoor team crown. He nearly pulled off the double again the following year, finishing less than 10 points behind team champion UW-La Crosse for third indoors and winning a second consecutive national outdoor title.

To this day, only six men’s teams have ever won back-to-back NCAA Division III outdoor team titles.

His career at Frostburg State was defined by a consistent presence at the national level – his teams scored at the NCAA Outdoor championships in 23 of his 31 years – with the Bobcats’ presence made most known during the late 1970s through the early 1990s.

Including those three national titles, this era in his career saw his men finish inside the top-10 nationally nine times during the outdoor season, four times during the indoor campaign and twice in cross country. His outdoor teams were particularly successful, with a four-year run of top-five finishes beginning in 1985 with a fifth-place showing and wrapping up with a fourth-place effort in 1988 – sandwiching the two national crowns. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 26 - August 2015 In 2001 Lewis led Frostburg State to a top-10 finish in his fourth different decade, as his Bobcats finished tied for third at the NCAA Outdoor Championships with UW-Stevens Point.

Overall, 68 of his track & field athletes combined for 113 All-America honors, including 16 outdoor national event titles and five more indoor event crowns. Among those athletes he coached on his 112 varsity teams throughout his career was racewalker Carl Schueler, who won the 1978 NAIA two-mile race walk title and went on to qualify for the Olympics in four consecutive cycles from 1980 through 1992. He finished sixth in the 50km race walk in 1984.

Frostburg State’s success at the national level was built on the strength of regular-season prominence. His men’s and women’s teams won 29 conference titles in cross country, and his track & field teams added another 29 conference titles, as well as a pair of ECAC Indoor titles.

He was inducted into the Frostburg State Hall of Fame in 2010.

Billy Maxwell Nebraska, Texas, LSU, Tennessee

Wherever Billy Maxwell has coached and in whichever role he played on those coaching staffs, there’s been one constant throughout his career: winning.

Maxwell has enjoyed tremendous success throughout a career as a sprints, hurdles and jumps coach – and an exceptional recruiter – that spans back to the mid-1960s. He’s been a part of national championship-winning staffs as an assistant coach at Tennessee, won a national title as the head coach at LSU, and coached contenders at Texas and Nebraska – where he has coached for more than two decades.

In total, he’s coached 28 NCAA Champions and more than 350 All-Americans.

After jump-starting his career with a pair of state titles in four years as a high school head coach at Columbus High School in Georgia, he began a long a fruitful collegiate coaching career in 1970 as a men’s assistant under 1995 USTFCCCA Hall of Fame Stan Huntsman.

During that 12-year stint in Knoxville, he and his athletes – including Olympian Willie Gault – contributed to a pair of national titles, three more national runner-up finishes and four more third-place finishes. The men won an NCAA outdoor title in 1974.

His Volunteer sprinters, hurdlers and jumpers combined for more than 100 All-America honors, 19 national event titles and a pair of world records in the men’s 4×200 relay and men’s shuttle hurdles relay.

Following the 1982 season, Maxwell made the move to Baton Rouge to helm the men’s and women’s LSU programs. His five year tenure with the Tigers included a third-place national finish at the 1985 NCAA Indoor Championships, a runner-up outdoor finish in 1986 and culminated in 1987 with an NCAA Indoor Champion- ships crown – the program’s first-ever national title in women’s track & field and the start of an era of domi- nance for LSU.

While his stop at LSU was short it was also filled to the brim with accomplishments. Fueling the team success was an astounding 189 All-America honors earned under his leadership, including 26 NCAA champs. Maxwell’s next stop was at Texas in 1991 as an assistant for the sprints, hurdles and jumps, where he remained until 1995. During that time, he coached 14 All-Americans.

In 1996 he made the move to Nebraska, his home of the last 21 years. His tenure started out with a bang as the Cornhusker men notched a program-best runner-up finish during that 1996 season, and he’s been produc- ing many of the Big 12’s and then the Big Ten’s finest sprinters and hurdlers. During Nebraska’s time in the Big TAFWA Newsletter - Page 27 - August 2015 12 his athletes claimed 25 conference titles, and they’ve picked up where they left off in the Big Ten with eight more since 2011.

Three Cornhuskers have won national titles under his watch, most recently Miles Ukaoma in the 400-meter hurdles in 2014. Those three headline the group of 42 All-Americans Maxwell has coached.

Don Strametz Cal State Northridge

Few NCAA Division II programs in the 1980s were as successful in track & field and cross country as the Cal State Northridge squads coached by Don Strametz, who would later lead the Matadors to more success at the NCAA Division I level.

For more than three decades Strametz guided the CSUN track & field and cross country programs. After a successful run as the Locke High School coach from 1974 through 1979, he took over the CSUN cross country teams in 1979, the women’s track & field team – which had just won three consecutive AIAW national titles – in 1981 and the men’s track & field program in 1985. He remained at the helm of each until his retirement in 2011.

The first third of his career was accentuated by success at the NCAA Division II level. His women’s cross country program was particularly exceptional, having finished as the national runners-up at the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships back-to-back years in 1985 and 1986.

In 1989, Strametz and the Matadors made the most of their final year at the NCAA Division II level, as Darcy Arreola won the national individual title and CSUN took fourth-place overall. Their 1989 showing was the sixth time the CSUN women had finished top-five at the NCAA Championships.

That same year, his men finished fifth at the NCAA Cross Country Championships, making their third top-10 finish during Strametz’s tenure.

Those men’s cross country runners combined with the Matador sprinters, jumpers and throwers in the spring for a national runner-up performance at the NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field Championships. His women finished a program-best fifth overall for the second season in a row, capping a streak of six top-10 finishes. In total, he coached 10 NCAA Division II individual national champions in outdoor track & field between the men and the women.

Strametz and the Matador programs made the jump to the NCAA Division I level the following season, and it didn’t take long for him to deliver the school’s first DI national champion. Already an NCAA DII cross country champ, Arreola won the outdoor 1500 meters national title in 1991 – CSUN’s very first season in DI. His men’s program produced two different national champions in the long jump in back-to-back championships in 2007 and 2008. First, Dashalle Andrews claimed the 2007 outdoor NCAA crown, followed by Rendell Cole taking the 2008 indoor title.

Those three national champions are among the 11 outdoor DI All-Americans and five indoor DI All-Americans Strametz coached during his time at CSUN.

His teams found great success at the conference level in Division I, combining for 21 league crowns in the Big West and the Big Sky. More than 100 of his athletes earned all-Big West honors, in addition to nearly 150 All- Big Sky honorees. He was inducted into the Mt. SAC Relays Hall of Fame in 2011.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 28 - August 2015 Gary Wilson Minnesota, UW-La Crosse

For nearly four decades, Gary Wilson was a fixture on the Midwest track & field and cross country scene and a nationally successful coach at both the NCAA Division I and Division III levels, whose influence on the sport remains visible long beyond his 2013 retirement.

Four times a national champion while coaching at UW-La Crosse from 1977 through 1985, Wilson spent nearly three decades building a perennial national contending program at Minnesota until retiring in 2013. It was there he co-founded the Roy Griak Invitational, which has become one of the premier cross country invitation- als in the country at both the high school and college levels.

While at UW-La Crosse, he guided both the women’s cross country and men’s track & field programs throughout his entire tenure, in addition to taking over the women’s track & field squad in the early 80s. Once under his tutelage, the women’s track & field squad went on to win three consecutive national titles. They claimed the final AIAW Division III title, followed by a pair of NCAA Division III titles in 1983 and 1984.

His women’s cross country teams in La Crosse reached similar heights, including a stretch from 1982 through 1984 during which the Eagles were runners-up, national champions, and runners-up.

By the time his run in La Crosse came to an end in 1985, Wilson had coached the Eagles to a combined 21 Wis- consin Intercollegiate Athletics Conference titles, and would 12 years later be inducted into the school’s athletics Hall of Fame.

His tenure at Minnesota would begin that same year and last all the way through 2013. Wilson helmed the women’s cross country program for the duration of his career as a Gopher, and guided the women’s track & field program through 2006, after which he took on an assistant coaching role.

His Golden Gophers made 15 appearances at the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships as a team, highlighted by a program-best ninth-place finish in 2005. That showing kickstarted a five-year streak of top-12 national team finishes, which included three consecutive Midwest Region titles from 2007-09 and a pair of Big Ten crowns in 2007 and 2008.

The 2005-2006 academic year was a good one for Wilson and his Minnesota women. In what would turn out to be his final season as the head track & field coach, he guided the Golden Gophers to their first-ever Big Ten -Out door Championships team title and coached Heather Dorniden to the NCAA Division I Indoor 800 meters title – the first individual crown in program history. Dorniden’s title propelled Minnesota to a 12th-place national team finish for the best showing in program history.

Following that outdoor Big Ten title, his athletes scored a then school-record 14 points at the NCAA Outdoor Championships for a 19th-place finish – just one spot shy of the program bests to which Wilson guided the team in 1990 and 1991. That marked the 14th season in which Wilson’s teams scored at the NCAA Outdoor Champi- onships.

By the end of his run as the cross country coach following the 2012 season his athletes had earned nine All- America honors, won a Big Ten individual crown and finished top-five in the conference 23 times. He served as the president of the Women’s Intercollegiate Cross Country Coaches Association in 1994 and 1995, and was inducted into the Drake Relays Hall of Fame in 1997.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 29 - August 2015 http://portcitydaily. com/2015/08/10/sports- uncw-track-field-to-remain- part-of-long-term-athletic- portfolio/ New UNCW chancellor saves Track & Field program By Port City Daily sports on August 10, 2015

Five weeks into his job as the University of North Carolina at Wilmington’s new chancellor, Jose “Zito” Sartarelli has announced the beleaguered track and field program has a long-term future in the Division I school. Sartarelli, who started work at UNCW July 1, released a statement Monday afternoon that gives affected student-athletes and supporters enthusiastic news regarding the state of the program.

While the chancellor was unavailable for an immediate interview, the official statement comes on the heels of a successful $250,000 fundraising effort by a volunteer group set on preserving the university’s track and field programs after the previous interim chancellor had announced their elimination last December. Then, UNCW interim chancellor William Sederburg called the decision a “99 percent done deal.”

The announcement launched the group “Save UNCW Track,” whose members challenged the decision and ac-

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 30 - August 2015 cepted the administration’s charge to raise funds to seed facility repairs and improvement.

UNCW will continue its Track & Field program in the years to come per an announcement on Monday. Photo courtesy- UNCW sports.

“For the past several months, UNCW has engaged in extensive dialogue both internally and with the community regarding potential options for solidifying the future of track and field. In examining what a continued program might look like, the goal remained steady: to provide the best possible student-athlete experience within our current portfolio and with the resources available,” the statement reads.

“Today I am pleased to announce that the track and field program will continue to be offered for the long term, beyond the already-guaranteed 2015-2016 season. By continuing to be strategic and playing on the strengths of the program, we believe the university’s existing resources will go further in supporting our student-athletes’ academic goals, athletic performance, and overall health and well-being. The need for renovation of our facilities is very real but we are confident that, alongside the community and with continued support from our private donors, current and new, we will find the funds to address that need.

“This university’s top priority will always be the education and stewardship of our students, which of course includes our student-athletes. We can’t do that alone. It is more critical than ever for the Seahawk community, locally and beyond, to step up and support our students, and we look forward to continuing to collaborate with all of you toward a successful, sustainable Athletics program at UNCW.”

In June, Save UNCW Track surpassed its $250,000 fundraising goal by more than $5,000 to continue the university’s track and field programs through the 2015-16 season.

After an all-out effort to raise $255,781, UNCW and Save UNCW Track began to tackle a February 2016 deadline to raise $1 million to secure the funds necessary for facility upgrades on campus to meet an agreement reached between the two groups this spring.

Under the original deal, Save UNCW Track had until May 31 to raise within 10 percent of $250,000, per an agreement reached with the university in February.

UNCW Interim Chancellor William Sederburg released a statement in February saying while the university still intended to cut the programs beginning with the 2015-16 season, it would allow a private effort to raise funds for the programs’ operations and upgrades to UNCW’s track and field facilities. A successful fundraising effort would ensure the programs’ continuation and, according to the agreement, not require substantial fundraising in subsequent years.

UNCW officials and Save UNCW Track reached the agreement for a chance to come up with the necessary funds to help keep the program from being eliminated after the athletics department announced in December 2014 proposed changes to its portfolio of sports offered at the Division I level.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 31 - August 2015 http://www.nytimes. com/2015/08/11/sports/ nick-symmonds-dropped- from-world-championships-team-he-says. html?_r=0

Gear Dispute Costs Nick Symmonds a Trip to Track Worlds

By JERÉ LONGMAN | AUG. 10, 2015

Nick Symmonds winning the 800 meters at the United States track and field championships in Eugene, Ore., in June. CreditDon Ryan/Associated Press

Nick Symmonds, the American national champion at 800 meters, was left off the United States team for the world track and field championships in a dispute involving athletes’ individual endorsements and requirements to wear official team gear.

Symmonds has refused to sign a document that requires American athletes to wear gear made by Nike at official team functions at the world championships, which begin Aug. 22 in Beijing. Nike is the official sponsor of U.S.A.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 32 - August 2015 Track & Field.

Symmonds, 31, who is sponsored by Brooks Running, called the document vague and overreaching. He said he was willing to wear Team USA gear during competition and official news conferences and at any awards ceremony. But he said that a request by U.S.A.T.F. to bring no gear other than Nike gear — except for shoes, sunglasses and watches — violated his contract with Brooks.

Runner Nick Symmonds Faces Ban Over Gear By JERÉ LONGMAN | AUG. 7, 2015

In an interview Monday, Symmonds said he had an appointment scheduled this week with a lawyer in Seattle to explore his legal options. “I feel I’ve been wronged here, and there have been some significant damages to my business,” Symmonds said. “I want to try to recover some of those damages.”

On the other hand, Symmonds said, he wants to work with U.S.A.T.F. so that athletes can better understand their obligations. He also said he was reluctant to be involved in litigation as he trained for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Symmonds won a silver medal in the 800 at the 2013 outdoor world track championships in Moscow. He finished fifth at the 2012 London Olympics in his career-best time of 1 minute 42.95 seconds and has won six outdoor national titles in the 800.

He has also been outspoken about what he considers to be U.S.A.T.F.’s restrictive approach to allowing athletes to display their corporate sponsorships. Symmonds said that at the 2014 world indoor championships in Po- land, he was asked by American officials to remove his Brooks gear while drinking coffee in a team hotel.

In a blog entry published Monday on The Huffington Post, Symmonds said there was a large discrepancy- be tween revenue sharing involving track and field athletes and that for professional athletes in other sports.

In track, athletes are not unionized and do not have a collective bargaining agreement. They are essentially independent contractors. Symmonds cited a study by Andrew Zimbalist, an economist at Smith College, who estimated that U.S.A.T.F. would share 8.06 percent of its expected 2015 revenue of $42.92 million with its athletes. That is compared with revenue sharing of 25 percent to 35 percent in other individual pro sports and 45 percent to 55 percent in pro team sports, the study said. Symmonds has only so long that he can run and earn a living. He must maximize his opportunities.“It’s insulting how little comes to the athletes,” Symmonds said in an interview.

Jill Geer, a spokeswoman for U.S.A. Track & Field, disputed those figures, saying that the federation would share about 50 percent of its 2015 budget of $30 million with athletes in the form of prize money; training, travel and coaching stipends; health insurance; and television production costs.

Geer said that the federation had been working with athletes for more than a year to specify their obligations and that any changes would have to be made at an annual convention in December.

Symmonds said that he hoped his stance would eventually help improve athletes’ rights and would be “a small sacrifice for the greater good.”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 33 - August 2015 http://www.letsrun.com/news/2015/08/police-report- nike-global-director-of-athletics-john-capriotti-threatened-to-kill-brooks-beasts-head-coach-and-former-nike- employee-danny-mackey-at-2015-usas/ Police Report: Nike Global Director of Athletics John Capriotti Threatened To Kill Brooks Beasts Head Coach and Former Nike Employee Danny Mackey At 2015 USAs

By Jonathan Gault | August 13, 2015 Editor’s note: This article contains strong language.

Shortly after 10:35 a.m. on Sunday, June 28, Kara Goucher walked off the Hayward Field track. She had just finished 18th out of 20 runners in the women’s 5,000-meter final at the 2015 USATF Championships, but as she entered the media tent behind Hayward’s east grandstand, a swarm of reporters quickly enveloped the 36-year- old. Sporting a pink Oiselle kit with sunglasses pushed back to the top of her head, Goucher spoke passionately to the assembled scrum, discussing her role in the drug accusations against her former coach Alberto Salazar. Five minutes and twenty seconds into her interview, a British journalist asked Goucher a question.

“Steve Magness said that Alberto has threatened him in the past. Has he or anyone else threatened you since this has all…”

“No,” Goucher replied. “But people have been threatened at this meet.”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 34 - August 2015 LetsRun.com can now confirm that Goucher was correct. Last Tuesday, LetsRun.com acquired a police report from the University of Oregon Police Department detailing an incident that took place on the first night of USAs. The report, supported by multiple eyewitnesses, explains that Nike global director of athletics John Capriotti aggressively confronted and threatened to kill Brooks Beasts head coach Danny Mackey on the night of Thursday, June 25.

What follows is an account of the night’s events according to the police report filed by Mackey. LetsRun.com spoke to Mackey and three other witnesses (we reached out to everyone named in the police report but not everyone responded), and all three supported Mackey’s version of events. Though not all witnesses could confirm the specifics of everything that was said between the two men, all agree that Capriotti initiated the confrontation and that he threatened Mackey, with one of the three specifically recalling that Capriotti threatened to kill Mackey.

Around 7 p.m. that night, shortly after Mackey’s Brooks athlete Dorian Ulrey finished his heat of the 1500 meters, Mackey escorted Ulrey to the medical tent at Hayward Field, located on the same set of turf athletic fields as the media tent in which Goucher would make her statement three days later. The two men sat down in the tent. Unbeknownst to them, a hurricane was headed their way.

Will Leer, a Nike-sponsored athlete, had just finished his heat of the 1500 as well and was walking from the media tent back toward the athlete warmup area when “Cap[riotti] blew right by me charging across the infield,” Leer said. “I’m like, ‘That was weird, you don’t usually see those guys back here.’ And in quick succession, [fellow Nike employees] Llewellyn Starks and Ben Cesar were sort of hot on his heels trying to catch him… They all had serious look on their face. Serious and sort of troubled.” “I thought it was a bit strange because you rarely see [Capriotti] in that area,” said a second witness. “I can’t remember seeing him in that area before. I could kind of tell just by body language he was kind of on a mission.”

A fourth Nike employee, Robert Lotwis, trailed behind.

As Capriotti entered the medical tent, he made a beeline for Mackey and grabbed Mackey’s right arm, almost pulling the coach out of his chair.

“We gotta talk right now,” Capriotti told Mackey, according to the police report (Editor’s note: All quotes between Mackey and Capriotti below come from the police report filed by Mackey).

Mackey was talking to Ulrey and asked Capriotti to wait a minute.

Capriotti poked Mackey in the chest, hard, with two fingers. By this point, Starks had caught up to Capriotti and was standing directly in front of Mackey, staring at him wordlessly.

Mackey said Capriotti asked him to go outside. Mackey told him to relax.

Then, according to Mackey, Capriotti took a knee, and with his nose touching Mackey’s right ear, whispered, “You know what you fuckin’ did. I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you.”

“I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you.”

Mackey got up but Starks did not budge, and the two men stood chest-to-chest.

Mackey was confused. “I don’t know what you are talking about John,” he said. “You are going to kill me? For what?”

Capriotti proceeded to berate Mackey. To this point, the two men had not raised their voice to avoid creating a stir. Angered by Capriotti’s comments, Mackey spoke to him, louder than before.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 35 - August 2015 “Outside?” Mackey said. “You are going to fight me for what? You need to relax. Leave.”

Capriotti took a step toward Mackey and poked him again, harder this time.

Mackey claims that Capriotti told him that Mackey brought up Capriotti’s name in a meeting. Mackey, again, told Capriotti that he didn’t know what he was talking about.

Capriotti then, according to the police report, “made some statements eluding (sic) to Mackey being involved in the doping scandal that was reported just before the championships began.” Mackey responded by yelling, and a crowd of over 20 people began to form around the two.

The two men shouted at each other for several minutes, as Capriotti continued to berate Mackey.

“It was just an overwhelmingly bad situation,” Leer said. “In the case of this interaction, there was someone who was definitely in the wrong and then there was someone who was being attacked.”

Eventually, Starks stepped between the two and told Capriotti, “We gotta get outta here.” The men exited the tent. Mackey has not spoken to them since.

Both Mackey and Capriotti were at the Flotrack Throwdown in Portland on August 9. Mackey said that he saw Capriotti at the meet from a distance and that Capriotti motioned for him to come over but that the two did not speak. In his role as global director of athletics, Capriotti determines where Nike’s sponsorship dollars go in the world of track and field. He has final say on Nike’s sponsorship negotiations with athlete agents, USATF and professional track meets. The VIP area over- looking the 1500-meter start at Hayward Field, where many Nike executives and their guests sit during the Olympic Trials and USATF Champion- ships, is named “Cap’s Corner” after Capriotti.

“I would say it’s safe to say John Capriotti’s the most powerful figure in the sport,” said a witness to the incident at USAs. To this day, Mackey does not understand why Capriotti confronted him. “He brought up an agent’s name when he was yelling at me,” said Mackey. “I asked that agent, ‘Did I ever bring John’s name up or Nike?’ and he said no.”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 36 - August 2015 At the time, both Nike and Brooks were recruiting the same female athlete, and several sources believe Mackey’s recruitment of the athlete was the source of Capriotti’s rage.

“I asked the athlete, who I assumed it was, and she doesn’t even know who John Capriotti is,” Mackey said. “I’m friends with Jerry Schumacher (coach of Nike’s Bowerman Track Club) and Mark Rowland (coach of Nike’s Or- egon Track Club). When I go to Beijing, I’ll be hanging out with Jerry. I actually really like Nike and have a lot of respect for them. I would never negatively recruit anyway, it’s just not my style.”

Mackey did not want to name the agent or the athlete to avoid involving them in the story and possibly drawing the wrath of Capriotti and Nike. Another possibility is that Capriotti may have been under stress following the doping allegations against Salazar and the NOP. Mackey worked in Nike’s sports research lab as a researcher from 2007 to 2010. When asked whether he came across data involving Salazar or the Nike Oregon Project, Mackey said “no comment.” The three witnesses LetsRun.com spoke to said that the episode in the medical tent was far from an ordinary occurrence. “I’ve been to a lot of meets. A lot…I probably do 15-20 jobs a year where I’m working with elite athletes in the sport and I’ve never seen anything like that,” said a witness. “To me, track and field feels like a bubble…If I reacted like that to someone I work with or a competitor, I would lose my job.”

Leer characterized the whole episode as unprofessional, particularly because of where the incident took place. Leer was upset and disappointed after failing to make the 1500 final and said there is no reason Capriotti should have confronted Mackey in the medical tent, in the presence of athletes who were either preparing for or just finishing up competition.

“If they had a grievance, I’d like to think it would be taken care of in a fashion other than good old-fashioned bully tactics and more professionally,” Leer said. “What struck me and left a sour taste in my mouth was seeing this take place in the athlete warmup area. There’s a thousand different ways in which you tell someone you don’t like what they’re doing. And this just seemed like the least professional and least productive manner of getting this done.”

Mackey did not run into Capriotti again at the championships and said that he didn’t have any difficulties for the rest of the meet, though he did fear for his safety based on Capriotti’s threats. “It was a distraction,” Mackey said. “It’s just such a negative thing out of nowhere. It didn’t affect my effective- ness coaching, but me personally, yeah, [it affected me].” *** Not all of Mackey’s athletes knew about the incident at USAs, and not wanting to turn it into a bigger distraction than it already was, Mackey waited until the championships were over to say anything to the police. On July 1, he spoke to UOPD officer John Loos and gave a brief description of events. Loos offered Mackey two options: he could file a police report to make note of the incident, or he could pursue criminal charges (which would also require filing a police report). Mackey initially declined to file any report, but after speaking to his employers at Brooks and some friends within the sport, Mackey concluded that because there had been so many witnesses and Brooks already knew about the incident, it made sense to file a police report. He stopped short of pursuing criminal charges, however, and elected to delay filing the report until July 18, the day after the Mo- naco Diamond League meet.

“Monaco is a Nike meet,” Mackey said. “I was going to be travelling by myself in Europe so I was a little bit worried about my safety.

“Once I made a decision, I was like, ‘Look I’m just gonna go for the lesser of it because I didn’t want to antago- nize — even though I have every right to do that — I didn’t want to provoke Capriotti more. Because if I file a criminal charge, I have to go to Oregon, go through the court system. I don’t have the bandwidth to really handle that and be a one-man show with my athletes [that I coach].”

This is not the first time Capriotti has threatened someone within the sport, according to our sources. Every

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 37 - August 2015 source interviewed for this story stated that they had either been threatened by Capriotti themselves or heard of others being threatened, but several of the sources chose to remain anonymous and not share specific anec- dotes out of fear of what Capriotti could do to their careers.

“I’ve heard so many accounts of athletes, agents and meet directors getting treated like absolute dogshit,” said a source who works in the running industry with elite athletes. “I kind of wish all the agents would band together and say something…but because of the stranglehold he has on people’s paychecks, people won’t talk.” “[Capriotti’s behavior at USAs] was not safe and it’s not smart,” said another source who works with athletes sponsored by shoe companies other than Nike. “He’s done this to a lot of people and everyone’s scared to say anything.”

“Someone who used to work at Nike kind of came up with the analogy that they operate like the mafia,” said a third source who has dealt with Nike in the past. “They will use any kind of pressure they can to get what they want. I’m not saying it’s anything illegal but using any kind of leverage they have.” Indeed, Nike pours more money into the sport than anyone else. In Oregon alone, Nike sponsors three high- profile teams — the Nike Oregon Project, Bowerman Track Club and the Oregon Track Club. Nike also has a sponsorship deal that pays USATF approximately $20 million per year through 2040 for the right to produce the Team USA jersey.

“I would say that whoever is in [Capriotti’s office] is a very, very powerful figure in track and field because they control so many dollars in the sport,” said Nick Symmonds, who is sponsored by Brooks (and was sponsored by Nike for eight years). “Having that kind of control is powerful. I don’t know what [Capriotti] was referring to when he makes threats. I’m not sure why he does that or what background he has to be able to do that, but Nike’s a powerful corporation. Very powerful.”

“There’s a few others that work under Cap that behave similarly and it seems like that’s the corporate mentality. I don’t know that the bullying is unique to John Capriotti.”

In April 2006, Justin Gatlin failed a doping test at the Kansas Relays, testing positive for “testosterone or its precursors.” Gatlin’s coach at the time, Trevor Graham, claimed that Gatlin had been sabotaged by masseur Chris Whetstine. Two months later, at the USATF Outdoor Championships in Indianapolis, Whetstine went to the hospital with a broken nose, a dislocated thumb, a sprained ankle and a concussion. Whetstine said that Llewellyn Starks beat him up on the night of June 22, 2006, and sued both Starks and Nike for $3.9 million for the debilitating injuries he suffered that night. The two parties settled the lawsuit in 2009. Details of the settle- ment were not disclosed.

“I respect that they want to protect their athletes but [the Capriotti-Mackey incident] didn’t seem to me to be a case of protecting their athletes, this seemed to be a case of ego-driven chauvinism and proving manliness,” said a witness. “I still can’t really understand why someone would say things like this and act that way publicly. There were hundreds of people around.

“But in the world of track and field … who’s gonna levy any sanctions or get that person in trouble? Well there isn’t anyone bigger [than Nike] and they write all the checks for USATF. They can … do whatever they want. (T) he bigger issue that I see is … they’ve gained so much power. And at some point … [there] needs to be checks and balances — something that takes that power away and makes them a little more accountable for how they operate.”

LetsRun.com put in multiple interview requests for Capriotti, Starks, Cesar and Lotwis through Nike media, who declined to make any of them available for an interview. http://www.letsrun.com/85665-2/ The Full Police Report

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 38 - August 2015 http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/sports/2015/08/09/nick-symmonds-looks-banned- worlds/31394231/ Nick Symmonds looks to be banned from Worlds Steve Ritchie Special to the Statesman Journal | 9:31 a.m. PDT August 10, 2015 | Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images

With track and field’s 2015 World Championships less than two weeks away, the U.S. team roster is set to be announced Monday. But it appears as though six-time U.S. champion in the 800 meters, Nick Symmonds, has been

dropped from the team due to a dispute with USA Track & Field (USATF), the sport’s national governing body. Symmonds, the 2013 silver medalist at the World Championships, qualified for 2015 meet in dramatic fashion at the U.S. Championships in late June. He used his patented kick to surge to victory once again, flashing his Run Gum bicep tattoos as he crossed the line.

But the former Willamette University standout has refused to sign the USATF’s required “athlete statement of conditions,” objecting to what he claims is vague language in that contract forcing athletes to wear official team apparel, which is supplied by and carries the Nike brand, not just while competing but anytime they are in public at an event like the world championships.

Symmonds was sponsored by Nike until 2014, but is now sponsored by Brooks and is part of the Brooks Beasts training group based in Seattle.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 39 - August 2015 The controversy became public late last week, and has quickly stirred up a firestorm of reaction on social media and in the track world.

Saturday night’s FloTrack Throwdown Meet, held at Duniway Park in Portland, offered Symmonds another chance to make his case for athletes’ rights. After running in the 400 meters — he finished sixth in 48.53 at a distance at which he rarely competes — Symmonds talked about his feud with USATF.

“I went on social (media) today and put it out there that I want to be on this team and I want to come to a com- promise,” Symmonds said. “I am willing to work with (USATF).

“I’m not for chaos. I understand the need to have a contract. But let’s make sure it is a good contract ... but no one is bothering to negotiate with me.”

Symmonds said in 2014 at the World Indoor Championships in Sopot, Poland, that he had been repeatedly rep- rimanded by USATF staffers for not wearing U.S. (Nike) team apparel, even while having breakfast at the hotel or going for a cup of coffee.

He has also accused the USATF of “bullying” tactics, and says there is a double standard for and unfair treatment of those athletes who are sponsored by shoe and apparel companies other than Nike.

Symmonds’ requests for clarification of what a “team function” is and renegotiating this requirement have met with stiff resistance from USATF.

“We can’t have a viable sport if our governing body is that incompetent ... let me help you. But as of now, I just keep getting emails from their lawyer saying, ‘Sign the contract as it is or you’re not going.’ That’s not helpful,” Symmonds said.

Symmonds is an exception in the world of track and field, where sponsorship is crucial for athletes, many of whom survive on a subsistence income. As a successful entrepreneur who runs several businesses with coach and business partner Sam Lapray, Symmonds believes the sport can do better.

“We have an amazing, beautiful sport with a loyal fan base,” Symmonds said. “There are just some very big over- hauls that need to happen to make this sport (better). It starts with revenue-sharing, it starts with contracts we can be proud of.”

Symmonds said he has a good relationship with USATF chief executive officer Max Siegal, and that Siegal “has been a joy to work with ... but he doesn’t have the power (to resolve this dispute).”

Symmonds believes the USATF board has the power, but is unwilling to change how athletes are treated. To those who have followed track and field over the past few decades, Symmonds’ struggles are reminiscent of Steve Prefontaine’s battles with the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), which was eventually replaced by the US- ATF.

While Symmonds has been gratified by the support he has received from fans, other athletes and even the media, he seemed resigned that his chances of staying on the U.S. team were slim.

“I’m about to go have a beer and I’m 99 percent certain that I am not going to be on the team and that pisses me off because I earned that (spot),” Symmonds said.

“We’re going to send three great athletes to Beijing in the 800, but I’m the only one who has a medal around his neck. I know how to get through (qualifying) rounds, I know how to win an international medal. So, you leave me home, I can’t do that.”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 40 - August 2015 Asked how he would feel to watch the world meet from his home, Symmonds paused to reflect on that likely scenario. “It will hurt really bad. I spent two years training for (the world championships) ... I’m fit. I’m ready to go out and win a medal,” Symmonds said. “I’m going to have to figure out what I am going to do because I am not going to sit there and watch that 800 meter final from my couch, knowing that I can go out there and win a medal, knowing that I am passing up on potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in earnings ... that stinks.

“I think something needs to change.” http://trackandfieldnews. com/index.php?option=com_ content&view=article&id=2543 The Fairness Of Eugene As NCAA Host, Part III

In the wake of this year’s NCAA Championships at Hayward Field, Coach Pat Henry of Texas A&M ex- pressed some discontent at what he says is an unfair advantage for the host Ducks. We aired his thoughts here in a piece on July 20.

Four days later we produced the reaction from Oregon head Robert Johnson here.

The following letter includes thoughts and concerns on the subject of Hayward Field as a long-term host of the NCAA Championships by Coach Pat Henry, now in his 43rd year of coaching, which includes winning 35 NCAA Division I team championships.

In continuing dialogue regarding Hayward Field as the multi-year site of the NCAA Outdoor Championships, my desire is to involve the coaching body in healthy dialogue and discussion on this issue.

First off, let me reiterate that we enjoy coming to Eugene for track & field meets. In fact, in the past, we nearly always come to Oregon’s Pepsi Team Invitational when invited. I have always felt that it was important to show support for the people and places that support our sport. There is no question that Eugene supports track and field!

This discussion (or debate) is not meant to denigrate the great job that the University of Oregon, the Oregon Track Club and the people of Eugene do in hosting the NCAA meet. They do a great job and they work hard at making it a better experience every year. We appreciate that!

The only discussion is about whether Oregon, a school that is regularly in the hunt for a national team title, should be the permanent or semi-permanent host, of the national championship competition.

It is important that people understand Coach Robert Johnson and I have had very civil conversations about the issue of home-track advantage for the Ducks. It is a debatable issue, but one that, of course, I feel is less debatable than Coach Johnson. So, because I am given this opportunity to express my opinion, I will try to express the thoughts of many coaches. I want to start by saying we have coaches of institutions that coachteams that are trying to win or, in some cases, be in the top 10 or 15 team scores.

They also have athletic directors that care if they win or are in the top 10 to 15 schools. Many of these coaches will talk privately or in the warmup areas about the unfair advantage the Ducks presently have. But, they will not add to this conversation or bring it up publicly. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 41 - August 2015 We are in this situation, in my opinion, because our sport does not have a strong voice at the NCAA and does not see or hear an organized voice coming from our coaches on this, or any, issue. We, as coaches, agree on nothing except when the issue hits us in the face. The site of our championships is one of those issues.

We also have many coaches who don’t bring teams to the national championships that understand the situation. But, since it doesn’t impact them, why say anything? Eugene is a nice town, they put on a great meet, with very nice officials and they have a great crowd. So, it is a fun place for their athlete or athletes to compete.

Coach Johnson talks about many things, even 1987, when he was only 13 years old, that I can agree with. But to say the crowd is not biased, that is not debatable. They should be biased! If 60% of the crowd is from Oregon than we should fully expect them to support and cheer for the Ducks. If 60% is cheering for Oregon then that totally overwhelms the remaining 40% who are all cheering for their team or individual.

During the John McDonnell era at Arkansas, when there were no other facilities ,the sold-out crowds at the Tyson Center were biased. They cheered hard for their Hogs. This is sports… that is to be expected.

If you speak with anybody in any sport they all will tell you being at home is a huge advantage. In basketball, for example, some could argue that the fans in Kentucky are the most knowledgeable and passionate in the country. Does that justify having the final four in Rupp Arena every year?

One could argue that the SEC has the most passionate fans in college football. With the new format for determining the national champion is football would it be fair to host the playoffs or title game every year in Tusca- loosa. How would you expect Mark Helfrich or other football powers to respond?

If you attended the NCAA Championships, the World Junior Championships and or the USA Championships did you notice the overall enthusiasm of the crowd? It was much different at the NCAA Championships because the Ducks were in the hunt for team championships and the Oregon Duck fans were there to support their team.

Coach Johnson also points out that the crowd cheered for Marquis Dendy of Florida, USC’s Andre De Grasse or Texas A&M’s Shamier Little when they won. Indeed, the crowd and the announcers showed tremendous support and appreciation for those athletes and their performances.

However, in all of those situations there was not a Duck in contention in those events. The announcers cannot create unfair competitive advantage for any athleteat the NCAA Championships meet that cannot happen. Oregon says they have quality dedicated officials. I agree. They have great officials! Not much different than any other national championships site. In fact, many of these officials are the same regardless of the venue. The officials at all sites are people who care for our youth and are good no matter where we go to host our championships. Oregon has great, friendly and helpful volunteers. None of these facts are debatable. And, again, this is not an anti-Oregon discussion.

At Texas A&M we have won 8 NCAA national championships and had three runner-up finishes outdoors since 2009. I have put on National Championships on my home track, both at LSU outdoors and at Texas A&M indoors. In fact, Oregon won national titles indoors at A&M. Why? They were the much better team. You still have to have a great team to win. There is no debate that Oregon has a great track team!

But, I can tell you being at home with my team is better than being anywhere else. The press is a positive for the team and the individual athlete of the home team. Athletes respond to an environment that cares.

Coach Johnson says no other university would invest in the championships like Oregon. That may, or may not, be factual but, more importantly, in the foreseeable future, we will neverknow because the motivation of an institution to host the championships has been, to this point, eliminated.

We, Texas A&M, just spent $30 million-plus on an indoor facility and have had our plans for a new outdoor TAFWA Newsletter - Page 42 - August 2015 facility before Oregon was awarded the NCAA Championships for next 100 years. We as a sport need to applaud those institutions, and there are many, who are spending millions on our sport. I would venture to say, we have spent more money on our sport in the last 10 years than Oregon and there are many other schools doing the same.

How about the recruiting advantage Oregon has as a result of these championships? Rightly so, the TV announcers talk about the great environment for the sport in Eugene and the University of Oregon. That sends a huge message to all young athletes, one that other institutions are not afforded, and that will happen for Oregon program each and every year.

The in-class and final exams statement made in reference to issues the Oregon athletes have could be viewed by some as a disadvantage but then let’s talk about all disadvantages . How about summer school for all other athletes, pollen counts, weather, cost for other institutions fans and even parents to attend? If the discussion turns to these issues we have lost our debating issue.

So let me say, once again, Oregon is a great place for our championships; I supported the move to put the meet in Eugene. I don’t support doing it for 8 years or maybe more. We enjoy coming to Eugene! But when the Ducks have a great team, and I would say that will happen for years to come, it’s a tough environment for visiting teams.

It’s not the announcers, it’s not the supportive fans of the Ducks, it’s not that they get to stay at home and not travel… it’s a combination of all these issues that make it an advantage.

Once again, I have started this discussion with hopes that other coaches with their opinions will step up and talk about this issue. I know that because I have said these things I may be seen as a sour grapes guy, a sore loser, a complainer or maybe an excuse maker by individuals and even the press. But those who would think that way probably don’t coach a team that is trying to win a championship.

There are those, and I am one, who are purists of the sport. We also look at the sport as an individual event and not a team competition. Track & field is of course an individual sport, but the NCAA Championships is about a team. You have all year, every meet to be an individual but this meet is about a championship team.

Sincerely. Pat Henry Head Coach, Texas A&M University August 7, 2015

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 43 - August 2015 http://www.iaaf.org/news/feature/darya-klishina-long- jump-russia 13 MAY 2013 FEATURE MOSCOW, RUSSIA DARYA KLISHINA COMBINES BEAUTY AND POWER

Supported by the IAAF and Russian athletics federation, SPIKES has a Russian edition this year, with three issues coming out ahead of the IAAF World Championships in Moscow this August. However, several of their great articles on Russia’s top athletes have been translated into English and will be reproduced on www.iaaf.org The first is a feature on the Moscow-based Long Jump star Darya Klishina.

Natalia Maryanchik for SPIKES magazine

With her good looks, long legs and considerable talent, long jumper Darya Klishina is the blonde-haired future of Russian track and field. At the IAAF World Championships in Moscow this summer, Klishina will try to show that beauty is indeed powerful.

“Go away! Now!” someone screams from the bowels of the CSKA track and field complex in Moscow. A grey cat streaks past and down the stairs. Darya Klishina looks rather stern: you can’t blame her. The cats living in the base- ment go out on to her home track at night, and use the jumping pit as a toilet. It is no surprise that she doesn’t enjoy her early morning landings! The ‘number one beauty of Russian sport’ (an unofficial title bestowed by a 2010 internet poll) is used to things going against her.

In 2011, Klishina injured her foot while stretching just before the World Championships final, and was forced to jump through the pain before surgery and a lengthy period of rehabilitation. The following summer, she was back in shape for the Russian Championship but failed to qualify for the London Olympics. She repeatedly insisted in interviews that her spirits remained high, and that there would be more than one Olympic Games ahead of her. Now, six months on, as we are sitting down for a chat on the now cat-free staircase, Klishina ad- mits: “Yes, I was feeling really bitter.”

“The worst thing was that I was actually in perfect shape,” says Klishina. “My coach [Olga Shemigon] and I had worked really hard: and it was all for nothing in the end. The Russian Championship was my first competition of the summer.

“I didn’t have the chance to get into the rhythm of the competition, of the jumps... I’ve learnt my lesson. This winter I’ve jumped in competitions twice as much as usual. It’s been my own decision.”

Klishina, 22, still qualifies to take part at under-23 championships but being such a star, she’s under a lot more pressure than her competitors. The history of Russian sport already counts a number of beautiful blondes who failed to secure any major wins, like tennis player Anna Kournikova. Staying with the tennis analogy, could Klishina be the next Maria Sharapova – known not only for her looks, but for her achievements as well?

“Maria and I met at Wimbledon a year ago,” says Klishina. The first thing I said was: “Wow, I didn’t expect you to be so tall! I don’t think I am short but it turned out that she is much taller than I am.” At 1.88m, four-time Grand Slam champion Sharapova is eight centimetres taller than Klishina.

Teenage freedom TAFWA Newsletter - Page 44 - August 2015 A World youth champion back in 2007, Klishina dreams of winning her first senior World Championships title in Moscow but is yet to compete at the Luzhniki stadium. Having the World Championships on home soil is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“When I heard that the World Championships were to be held in Moscow, my first thought was: ‘Oh great, I don’t need to travel anywhere to get acclimatised!’ And I was happy because finally all my friends and family will be able to come and support me.”

Klishina’s parents always look forward to welcoming her back to Tver, a small city 165km north-west of Mos- cow. Her father was once a high jumper with a PB of 2.15m, and her mother works in a local research and development centre. In the early years, they weren’t afraid to let their 13-year-old daughter go off to the capital alone to chase her sporting dreams.

“My parents gave me a lot of freedom,” says Klishina. “Even when I lived in Tver, we rarely saw each other. I would leave for school at 8.15am, come back home, eat and do my homework; then take a bus across town alone, with a change on the way, to train at volleyball.

“I would come home around 9pm, have a quick supper and go straight to bed. My parents always understood and approved of my choice to go into sports. But it must have been very hard for them to let me leave.”

Fast and sharp, Klishina had every chance of succeeding as a volleyball player had she not been spotted, aged 12, by the young coach Olga Shemigon at a regional track and field championship. From then on Shemigon, who had never coached a world-class star before, and Klishina, a small girl alone in a big and strange city, worked the ‘mine field’ together.

“At first, my parents called me several times a day to make sure I was okay. They wanted to know whether I’d eaten and got safely to my dorm, whether anyone was upsetting me. I was lucky Tver was not too far away, and I could go home at weekends. But I quickly made friends in Moscow, and when I finished school, I started renting a flat. Today, I can’t even imagine my life any different.”

Klishina confidently calls Moscow her home, and provincial Tver feels suffocating. “I love visiting my parents, for me it’s a time to relax but I soon start missing the rhythm of the city.”

Model behaviour

Her status as a national beauty puts a lot of pressure on her and, even to training, Klishina is sporting cute plaits. In the social media world, every photograph gathers thousands of ‘likes’ and excited comments.

“I’m approached by all kinds of people, not just by men,” says Klishina. “Kids, girls, and even old grandmas on the street ask for autographs. Unless people are pushy, I don’t mind. On the contrary, I am pleased to have their support.”

These days, Klishina is represented by IMG, an international marketing agency. Her main aim is not to get distracted by sponsorship deals but to keep training and competing. She knows that without her long jumps, Klishina risks becoming just another pretty model.

“All major photo shoots are scheduled in advance, two weeks minimum. My coach always has the last word. If you had wanted to shoot me a couple of hours earlier, I would have said ‘no’. I had important technical training. I can’t reschedule the training because of a photo shoot or an interview.”

Chasing Chistyakova

Does she feel like a star? Klishina shakes her head. At a recent master class, Klishina was the one queuing for the autograph of her role model, Galina Chistyakova. The 1989 World indoor Long Jump champion set the current TAFWA Newsletter - Page 45 - August 2015 World record of 7.52m when she was 25. Klishina, like Chistyakova, has tasted success with a European indoor gold medal. In fact, Klishina first did so in Paris in 2011, and regained her title in Gothenburg in March this year. Chistyakova believes that Darya Klishina is capable of beating her record, and one day jumping further than 7.52m.

“Darya is naturally built for long jumping: she is tall, slim, long legged,” says Chistyakova. “Physically she is very gifted, and capable of beating my World record. I haven’t studied Dasha’s jumping technique in detail but I think she can add to her length.

“It’s very important for Darya to be able to cope with all the attention surrounding her. I know how difficult it is to compete with the media chasing you. It’s important for her to aim high. People get excited that, at 22, Klishi- na achieved a personal record of 7.05m but at that age, I’d jumped 7.29m and that was after having my daughter Irina aged 20.”

Cooking with Darya

At 1.80m tall, Klishina weighs only 57kg. And it’s not just her genes. Klishina’s slim build is due to her passion for cooking. “I like grocery shopping, coming home and inventing new dishes,” says Klishina. “When my friends visit me, I cook either meat or fish in the oven, and my favourite side is vegetables, stir-fried or baked. I’ve just bought a convection oven.

“As for puddings, I don’t care much for sponge cakes but I do love sweets and cheesecakes. I don’t follow a strict diet but I try to eat healthily. A packet of crisps for lunch isn’t for me, and I always try to buy a kilo of tangerines instead of sweets for at home.”

http://trackandfieldathletesassociation.org/site/marketing-sports-and-negotiations/

Marketing, Sports, and Negotiations. AUGUST 14, 2015 BY TRACK AND FIELD ATHLETES ASSOCIATION

It’s hard to believe it was eight years ago when Nike’s John “Cap” Capriotti delivered one of the most informa-

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 46 - August 2015 tive presentations I’ve ever heard at any Annual Meeting. Cap speculated that the total platform – referring to the total marketing dollars spent on track and field on athletes, meets, and other events – might be valued at $160 million split between athletes, events, and federations (please remember this number is dated and may not be accurate now). According to Cap, it wasn’t really important how you allocated those dollars amongst the athletes, events, and federations as it was zero sum game – a loss in one category would be offset by gain in another. The platform was only worth $160 million. Changes to the size of the platform could only occur in situations of real growth.

* Not the actual amounts. This is a representation only.

Sports apparel companies are the primary sponsor for track and field athletes in the United States. Assuming we are in a zero sum game as Cap referenced in his presentation, that means an increase in support to the federation must have a corresponding decrease from either events or athletes or the sport just grew substantially in the US. That’s why I find it both exciting and disturbing when USATF signs a significant deal with the primary sponsor of over 50% of the athletes. In the best case scenario the value of track and field in the United States just doubled. In the worst case scenario for athletes USATF successfully positioned themselves as a more attractive, more investable asset than any individual athlete. In a zero sum game that means you’ll see significant reductions in the average contract value and gross number of sponsorships for athletes or a drop in the investment in meets. If that does happen, that’s a real paradigm shift in the sponsorship model that reflects the ambitions of the federation. It will have a direct impact on the profession of track and field from the athletes to the agents and to the independent meets outside nationals, olympic trials, other national team events.

Zero Sum Game – Pie stays the same size, but one group gets a larger slice while another gets a smaller slice. It’s too early to tell if it will be a net positive or negative.

Right now, we don’t know what the long term strategic vision is for US- ATF. While we are not the NFL, NHL, NBA or MLB, those leagues do believe in sharing the long-term growth plans even when that information is used against them during collective bargaining. The respective stakeholders of those leagues may fight for bigger pieces of the pie from time to time, but they appear more concerned with growing the size of the pie. That’s why billionaire owners will eventually concede to reasonable requests from players even if they kick and scream along the way. But, we aren’t the NFL, NHL, NBA or MLB. And we certainly don’t have all the information to make an informed decision. We are different. We are more akin to golf and tennis and their models should offer us significant guidance going forward. Those models showed how when athletes decide to work together, they can build a united profession out of a bunch of independent contractors. Their respective tours were created when athletes agreed to a code of conduct and qualifications program that allowed the marketing side to license a professional tour of events. These are TAFWA Newsletter - Page 47 - August 2015 separate entities from their respective federations, because what’s best for the federation is not always best for the athletes and the tour. There are too many conflicts of interest to combine the profession with the amateur. Those conflicts already exist today, hence why USATF offers athletes a commercial contract to sign prior to- ac ceptance to any team. Those contracts are presented in a “take it or leave it basis” without any one or collective of athletes being allowed to negotiate any terms on that contract. So, of course, that contract will reflect the best possible terms for USATF to advance its own mission at all costs. That’s not capitalism. That’s imperialism. And the problem with imperialistic regimes is they tend to favor expansionism and exploitation. The federation knows that most of the time the athlete has to compete in the major championship in order to maximize earnings (or for to make any money at all). Kind of reads like a quote from “The Art of War.” Mr Mike says: August 14, 2015 at 11:34 am

The flaw is this analysis is the USATF cover 5 sports in 3 age categories. This article focus on perhaps the smallest sliver – elite, track and field open athletes. Now I know the are “responsible” for much on the income, you cant just ignore others.

If the USATF funding is a zero sum game, Elite athletes seem to have no problem suggesting changes that only benefit that sliver. That will hurt youth, masters as well as nontrack sports. Ultimately, that hurts the sport overall.

https://ewanmackenna.wordpress.com/2015/06/29/a-tick-in-all-the-wrong-boxes/

A TICK IN ALL THE WRONG BOXES June 29, 2015 · by ewanmackenna

Nike once had the wellbeing of athletics at its very core, but in the name of profits they now not only look past cheating, but some suggest they are a big part of it, writes Ewan MacKenna.

Meander through the Nike website and you’ll land on their mission statement. “Bring inspiration and innova- tion to every athlete in the world,” it reads. But it’s a sentiment that could be viewed rather differently than intended when you delve into a company that has long seen profits replace passion, leaving questionable processes and odious personnel to move it to the very forefront of anti-sporting ideals. That’s quite an about-turn given origins where the athlete wasn’t just behind their core value but essentially was that value.

A brief history lesson: in the 1950s, Oregon coach Bill Bowerman was on a quest to create more durable and lighter running shoes, a motive that saw him provide future Olympic champion Otis Davis with what were described as a pair that were too tight, offered no support and were taken straight from a waffle iron. Undeterred, by the ’60s Bowerman was over Phil Knight who was looking for a way to make a living without quitting his passion. It was a relationship that saw the two become distributors for Asics out of the back of a car before the growth of what we now know as Nike.

On the surface, it’s the wholesome rags-to-riches rise both blue- and white-collar Americans revel in. Tug at a lace or two though and the dream quickly unravels.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 48 - August 2015 Given the secrecy of a company whose headquarters are sometimes referred to as Fort Knox West, it’s hard to judge when it started to go morally wrong as Nike didn’t just forget about the honest athlete but have been making their lives harder (even if some don’t know it and more like Paula Radcliffe and Mo Farah won’t admit it). However, by the time a 24-year-old runner Jeff Drenth dropped dead in the offices of Athletics West in 1986 after a workout, rot had set in.

Bowerman had been behind the popularisation of jogging in the 1970s but while it grew as a pastime, he and Knight saw a lack of structure for professional athletes and pushed Nike profits into the Athletics West project. Essentially an all-star club that could double as a marketing tool, there have always been whispers of drug abuse that were particularly audible in the book ‘Swoosh – The Story of Nike and the Men Who Played There’. Co-written by Julie Strasser, Nike’s first advertising director and wife to Robert, the marketing genius behind the company’s rise, she quotes insurance records detailing testosterone and liver function tests undertaken by its athletes to study the physiological effects of steroids. Questions remain over the cause of Drenth’s death but shortly after came a rapid dismantling of Athletics West who along with Nike have always denied all of the above.

Yet some who’ve worked within the company have pointed to that being a crossroads moment. And, according to sources, Nike made a clear call on direction that leads us to a present where the keystone in all of this is John Capriotti, Global Director of Athletics Sports Marketing. He’s a man who directly and indirectly has links to almost every major doping scandal of recent years. Not only this, but those connections aren’t exactly blurred or barbed.

Capriotti had been a coach at Kansas State under Steve Miller but the latter left to take up the position of Direc- tor of Athletics at Nike in June 1991. Capriotti’s exit from the university was less graceful as he broke NCAA rules when paying a minimum of 12 athletes a combined total of at least $10,000. He claimed the money was to help students in need but others suggest the money was from his former K-State colleague and used to gain marketing favour. After an embarrassing end which saw Capriotti resign on 1 November, 1992, he quickly became a promotional rep at Nike. Ever since, he’s climbed the power ladder and at the top, the company he keeps hurts track and field far more than it could ever hurt Nike.

A couple of weeks back, Panorama ran a damning investigation into the Nike Oregon Project. Run by coach John Salazar (who was a star at Athletics West) and financed by Nike, investigative journalist Mark Daly provided enough evidence about the modern-day version of the all-star club to greatly disturb the World Anti-Doping Agency. Amongst the information were records that Galen Rupp – the golden child that Salazar coached from high school to an unprecedented silver medal in the 10,000m in London in 2012 – had been on testosterone at 16. It also became clear Nike had this information as files delivered to Salazar by the company itself were leaked, showing a spike in Rupp’s levels at the time.

There was so much more regarding the practices of Salazar, the project and Nike. Teammates of Rupp confirmed they’d heard and seen usage. John Stiner, once a massage therapist with Nike Oregon, recalled being asked to bring back a tube of AndroGel (testosterone) from an altitude training camp in 2008, adding that he was told by Salazar not to get the wrong idea and was later informed it was for Salazar’s heart condition when medics say it would never be prescribed for that; stories were unearthed of how Salazar asked his own son to go for tests trying to figure out how much testosterone would trigger a positive; athletes spoke of how he promised to keep them in “the normal range” in what amounted to micro-doping or clever cheating; US Olympian Kara Gouchter even produced a bottle of a thyroid drug with Salazar’s hand-writing that she said wasn’t prescribed.

Of course Nike and Salazar have denied all of it, but this is a coach that denied any wrongdoing when with Mary Decker as she tested positive for testosterone too, a month after he noted she was better poised than ever to win an Olympic medal in 1996. His and Nike’s latest response was again box-tickingly bland, but another quote from Salazar is worth keeping in mind. In 1999 he said at a conference: “It is difficult to be in top five in the world in any of the distance events without using EPO or human growth hormone… I can definitely understand how a good moral person might be compelled to do so [cheat].” After all that, Nike continue to offer their full support to both man and project. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 49 - August 2015 That might seem surprising to those on the outside, even for a company that didn’t sever relations with Lance Armstrong until six days after a 1,000-page dossier emerged proving his cheating, even for a company that is known to be the international sportswear giant implicated in the Fifa scandal, and even for a company that gave quarterback Michael Vick a four-year sponsorship deal after he was released from prison for hanging, drown- ing and electrocuting canines used in his dog-fighting ring. But for those in track and field, the familiar can’t surprise and there have been tales of Nike’s lack of morals for some time now.

Under Capriotti’s watch, he described Trevor Graham as earning the respect of Nike when presenting him with coach of the year, months before a life-ban for drugging athletes. Almost all the competitors involved in the Balco scandal were under Nike sponsorship. Coaches in America close to Nike over recent years include Salazar, doper Dennis Mitchell and controversial (at best) sprint guru John Smith. And it goes far beyond the States.

Bahrain’s Rashid Ramzi who was stripped of his 2008 Olympic 1,500m gold was on their books. The recent east African doping scandals have strong links too, led by marathon star and EPO cheat Rita Jeptoo who had a huge sponsorship deal while Mathew Kisorio and Jemima Sumgong were also contracted. Indeed many of the Afri- cans caught out are managed by Dutchman Jos Hermens who is a former Nike employee and maintains close links with the sportswear giant.

What’s almost as disturbing though is that Nike don’t even make much of an effort to hide any of this. In 2011, convicted drug trafficker and disgraced coach and agent Mark Block was given a 10-year ban from the sport yet a year later he turned up at the US Olympic trials in Nike’s SkyBox as what a source has said was a guest of Capriotti. Nike say this is untrue and that gaining entry is an informal process. In other words he just wandered in the VIP suite of one of the most security-conscious companies on earth on one of their biggest days.

Yet Nike have still had opportunities to show themselves in a different light, only that didn’t pay. Earlier this year, 41-year-old mother-of-two and European 10,000-metre champion Jo Pavey was Nike contracted but despite her success and strong voice in pushing for clean athletics, she was dropped by the label. Shortly after, Nike threw their cash behind Justin Gatlin, a sprinter twice banned for doping and who has never shown remorse.

It was a series of moves that perfectly illustrated what the company represents as those in the know say there’s no smoke without fire. But fumes from Nike are so thick that most in track and field are suffocating, long before they can get anywhere near the flames that are burning the sport alive.

Sunday Business Post 28 June, 2015

http://www.nytimes. com/2015/08/15/ sports/olympics/nick- symmonds-a-sidelined- track-star-continues-to- Nick Symmonds, a Sidelined Track Star, break-from-the-pack. html?_r=1 Continues to Break From the Pack

By JERÉ LONGMAN | AUG. 14, 2015

SEATTLE — Nick Symmonds sat at a desk in his modest apartment, equipped with a laptop, a printer, a scan- ner, a cellphone and caffeine-infused gum. If he could not run at the world track and field championships, at least he could talk nonstop about why he was not running.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 50 - August 2015 Nick Symmonds’s victory at nationals in June qualified him for the 2015 world championships, which begin later this month in Beijing. But he is being left off the United States team. CreditRuth Fremson/The New York Times

“This is the battle station,” he said. “I’ve got enough gum to fuel me through any long battles into the night.” There have been plenty in recent days.

On social media and in interviews, Symmonds has unloaded on the national federation that governs his sport, accusing it of negligence and exploitation. He has fired away at commentators questioning his motives and vented about the complexities — some may say absurdities — of the matter at hand: what athletes can wear on and off the track when representing the United States at international competitions.

“They are trying to tell a 31-year-old man what he can and can’t wear 24 hours a day, what I can sleep in, what I can go to the bathroom in, what I can have my morning coffee in,” Symmonds said Tuesday. “That’s like saying, ‘You’re a child, and we’re going to dress you.’ Change my diaper while you’re at it.”

Symmonds won a silver medal in the 800 meters at the 2013 world championships. But he was left off the national team for the 2015 world championships, which begin Aug. 22 in Beijing. His exclusion came not because he was too slow, but because he refused to sign a vague federation document accompanied by a letter that seemed to require team members to wear only Nike attire, even in their free time.

While the federation said the requirement was standard, Symmonds, whose sponsor is the running-shoe company Brooks, found the policy ill defined and an example of overbearing branding control. He has engaged in an extreme form of marketing brinkmanship with U.S.A. Track & Field, the sport’s national governing body.

The dispute raises questions about how much control a federation and its chief corporate sponsor — in this case, Nike, which will spend about $20 million a year on its sponsorship through 2040 — should have over the ability of professional track athletes to earn livings and to make as much money as they can through their own endorsements.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 51 - August 2015 The conflict also illuminates the uneasy transition that track and field has made from amateur to professional status over the last three decades. Athletes are not unionized, are not governed by a collective bargaining agreement and perform as independent contractors.

In Symmonds, track and field has a handsome, charismatic provocateur who has never been reluctant to offer his thoughts — or his arms — in seeking to maximize his marketing and earning potential in a sport in which he is a two-time Olympian and a six-time American outdoor champion at 800 meters.

Ahead of the 2012 London Olympics, Symmonds auctioned advertising space on his left shoulder, securing a sponsorship for $11,100 from a Milwaukee design agency. At races now, he decorates his biceps with temporary tattoos bearing the logo of Run Gum, a company he helped to found last year. Once, as a publicity stunt, he went on a date with Paris Hilton.

Symmonds is hardly the first athlete to encounter a conflict between the personal endorsements that are the lifeblood of his income and the sponsorship obligations that come with participating on a United States national team.

At the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Michael Jordan, a Nike pitchman, used a flag during the Dream Team’s gold medal ceremony to cover the Reebok logo on his star-spangled tracksuit.

But track and field athletes in the United States do not have Jordan’s riches.

Income can vary greatly from year to year and event to event. Surveys by athletes’ advocates indicate that about half of the American runners, throwers and jumpers who are ranked among the top 10 nationally earn less than $15,000 annually as athletes.

Symmonds’s long career and bountiful achievements put his annual earnings into six figures. Through the years, he has used his stature and independence in a determined, and sometimes theatrical, attempt to bring more equitable and transparent allocation of money to athletes. His outspokenness has given rise to much support, some criticism and, now, a looming absence from track and field’s second most important competition. An Eagle Scout from Troop 94 in Boise, Idaho, Symmonds said: “I’m trying to leave the campsite better than I found it. Right now, it’s filthy.”

Another National Title Using his trademark kick, Symmonds won his sixth national outdoor title at 800 meters in late June in 1 minute 44.53 seconds. It was not his career best. That was 1:42.95 for a fifth-place finish at the London Olympics, a stunning race in which David Rudisha of Kenya set a world record. Symmonds’s time would have won the gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Games.

To run as fast as he did in London and not win a medal “still hurts,” he said, adding, “I’m still dealing with it.” Symmonds’s victory at the nationals in June qualified him for the world championships in Beijing and a chance to repeat as a medalist in that competition, held every two years. Almost immediately, paperwork became a roadblock for him.

U.S.A. Track & Field required athletes to sign a contract saying they would agree to wear gear made by Nike at all official team functions in Beijing. These functions include the actual competition, news conferences and awards ceremonies — terms that Symmonds said he would willingly abide by, as he had in the past. But the contract is ambiguous in places and also includes “other official team functions,” which are not described in detail. In addition, the federation sent a letter to athletes saying they would be required to wear Nike’s apparel at the team hotel and during training. The letter advised the athletes to “pack only Team U.S.A., Nike or nonbranded apparel” for Beijing, except for shoes, sunglasses and watches.

An insightful and occasionally amusing package of the sports journalism you need today, delivered to your inbox TAFWA Newsletter - Page 52 - August 2015 by New York Times reporters and editors.

The other American qualifiers signed the contract, known as a statement of conditions. Symmonds refused, saying the federation was overreaching in trying to grant such exclusivity to Nike. U.S.A. Track & Field left him off the team for the world championships.

Signing the agreement would have violated his personal contract with Brooks, Symmonds said. If he could wear and be photographed only in Nike gear at a premier competition like the world championships, he said, how could Brooks expect a return on its investment? And if it could not get a return on its investment, why would it continue to sponsor him?

Symmonds declined to discuss his yearly income in detail, saying he had nondisclosure agreements with Brooks and Soleus, a maker of sports watches. He did offer a rough estimate of his earnings by percentage: 3 percent from U.S.A. Track & Field, 10 percent from prize money, 10 percent from appearance fees and more than 75 percent from his corporate sponsors. Industry standards suggest an athlete of Symmonds’s caliber could earn $250,000 to $350,000 a year, a good living, but far below the minimum salaries in unionized leagues like the N.F.L. ($435,000) and the N.B.A. ($525,000). Without his personal sponsors, Symmonds said, he would not have been able to sustain a career as an elite national and international athlete. He is proud to represent the United States, but patriotism does not pay the bills, he said.

“Sometimes people watch the Olympics and think we’re still amateurs,” Symmonds said. “This is not a hobby. I’m the chief executive of my own company. This is my career, my job. I have to make sure I protect my contracts with my partners.”

He has accused U.S.A. Track & Field of bullying athletes into compliance. At the 2014 world indoor championships in Poland, Symmonds said, an American official even asked him to remove his Brooks gear while he drank his morning coffee at the team hotel.

Forging His Own Path Growing up in Boise in a family of doctors, Symmonds, who holds a degree in biochemistry, was taught to speak his mind, to express his concerns, he said. He tells a story of being a third grader in Catholic school and being unable to grasp the concept of the Holy Trinity. Rely on your faith, a priest told him. “That doesn’t answer my question,” Symmonds replied.

According to the story, the priest then went to his younger sister, Lauren, and told her, “You need to pray for your brother, because he’s going to hell.” Symmonds has long gone his own way. He is an avid hunter and fisher- man who has campaigned for animal rights and gun control. He has been an advocate for gay rights and, most visibly, a forceful activist for enhancing the voice and earning power of professional track and field athletes.

The very structure of Olympic-related federations like U.S.A. Track & Field ensures conflicting interests and some level of incessant dysfunction and dispute.

Unlike, say, the N.F.L., which concerns itself solely with professional football, U.S.A. Track & Field is responsible for governing the sport from the grass-roots level to the Olympic level. It relies heavily on volunteers, and the rights of professional athletes are but one aspect of a broad, often unwieldy agenda.

“You build a professional model on amateur rules, and you get a bastard sport,” said Adam Nelson, who has won Olympic gold and silver medals in the shot put. “Athletes’ voices are removed from most major decisions. Once in every generation, the right athlete comes along willing to take a stand based on principle. I commend Nick for having the courage to do this.”

A sportswriter once described Symmonds as “Team U.S.A.’s official pain in the butt.” It might be the biggest compliment he has ever received.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 53 - August 2015 “I love that,” Symmonds said, laughing. “We all knew it, but now it’s official.”

His hard-line stance toward the world championships has brought support from some high-profile American athletes. Alysia Montaño, the women’s national champion at 800 meters, posted on Twitter, “It’s clear that @ USATF is doing what’s best for @Nike and not for #TeamUSA.”

U.S.A. Track & Field has faced criticism for not clarifying the precise definition of “official team function,” which might have easily resolved the Symmonds dilemma. But the athlete contract can be reworded only at the federation’s annual convention in December, the federation said.

Shortly after Symmonds’s exclusion, an editorial posted on LetsRun.com, a leading website for track and field and distance running, said: “U.S.A.T.F. says the contract is standard and that athletes have signed for years, but their letter telling athletes not to pack any branded gear is ridiculous. Official team events need to be defined and outside of those, athletes should be able to wear whatever they want.”

Symmonds, appearing on Seattle’s NPR affiliate on Wednesday, has answered hundreds of emails and dozens of interview requests in recent days. CreditRuth Fremson/The New York Times

Yet the editorial also said Symmonds was unlikely to win a medal at the world championships and, along with some message board posts onLetsRun.com, wondered whether he would have taken such an intractable position if he were more fit this summer.

“Symmonds is making a stand, but if worlds was paramount to his athletic career right now, we think he wouldn’t have pushed this as far as he did,” the editorial said.

Told of the editorial, Symmonds bristled. “I’m the U.S. national champion,” he said. “If anyone has a chance to win a medal, it’s me.”

He has answered hundreds of emails and dozens of interview requests in recent days, sleeping only a few hours a night, rising early to speak to NPR and the BBC. He has also used Twitter to fire off a rant at U.S.A. Track & Field and to joust with Alan Abrahamson, a prominent commentator on Olympic sports, who accused Sym-

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 54 - August 2015 monds of posturing and self-promotion.

“Why didn’t you ask me for an interview?” Symmonds posted on Twitter. “Your ‘facts’ are so incorrect!”

On the other hand, Symmonds has been restrained in criticizing Nike, with which he formerly had a personal endorsement. Nike must be able to recoup its own investment, Symmonds said, an acknowledgment of the apparel company’s complicated position in track and field.

Some athletes worry that its dominant presence drives away other apparel companies. At the same time, Nike provides vital financial underpinning to a sport that struggles for mainstream visibility, apart from the Olym- pics, and has lost credibility because of wave after wave of doping scandals.

“Nike is a proud partner and sponsor of U.S.A.T.F.,” the company said in a statement about the Symmonds case. “This is a matter pertaining to the rules of the U.S.A.T.F. national team.”

A Debate Over Revenue Upon being left off the American team for the world championships, Symmonds redoubled his criticism of U.S.A. Track & Field on the issue of revenue sharing.

He cited a study, commissioned by an athletes’ advocacy group, estimating that the federation would share with athletes only 8 percent of its projected 2015 revenue, $42.92 million. In comparison, 25 to 35 percent of revenue is generally shared in individual pro sports, and 45 to 55 percent of revenue is shared in team sports. Symmonds accused the federation of “stealing millions of dollars from athletes.” The federation said it stole nothing and would actually spend roughly half of its $30 million budget in 2015 on athlete support in various forms. Symmonds fired back on Twitter, “Since when is hosting meets and broadcasting them part of athlete support?”

Jill Geer, a spokeswoman for U.S.A. Track & Field, said, “U.S.A.T.F. considers it a top priority to help athletes maximize revenue opportunities” and has been discussing ways to invest an additional $9 million in athlete support by 2020.

The inflamed rhetoric began to dissipate on Wednesday. Symmonds’s agent tried to negotiate a joint statement from Symmonds and U.S.A.T.F. indicating that both sides would work to strengthen the rights of athletes. On Thursday, the federation said it had erred in sending the letter to athletes telling them not to pack their personal gear for the world championships, adding that they could wear what they wanted in their free time. Symmonds acknowledged being told this but said he could not get written assurance from the federation. He remains off the roster for the world championships because he did not sign the contract by Monday’s deadline, saying the definition of “official team functions” remained vague.

“That’s all I want, is to make sure that changes get made,” Symmonds said.

He recently met with two lawyers in Seattle but said he preferred that legal action come only as a last resort. He did not want to deal with the stress of litigation while training for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. His skir- mish with the federation had taken an emotional and physical toll, he said. On the ride back to his apartment, Symmonds, exhausted, fell asleep.

This tumultuous track season will soon be at an end. Symmonds said he wanted to get away, to hike and fish and attend his sister’s wedding, to clear his head before turning his focus toward the Olympics. He spent the week pacing a Brooks training partner, Casimir Loxsom, who will compete in the 800 at the world championships. At least all of his own hard training will not go to waste, Symmonds said.

“That’s at least doing something, rather than sitting around crying,” he said. Asked if he planned to watch the 800-meter world championship from afar, Symmonds said he would. “I have to know what happens,” he said. “It’s a race I deserve to be in. But it’s going to be difficult.” TAFWA Newsletter - Page 55 - August 2015 http://www.runnersworld.com/world- championships/ us-athletes-can-wear- sponsors-gear-at-world- championships U.S. Athletes Can Wear Sponsors’ Gear at World Championships USATF says Symmonds case creates wrong impression about extent of Nike uniform requirements.

By Peter Gambaccini | FRIDAY, AUGUST 14, 2015, 2:27 PM

The requirement for U.S. athletes to wear Nike-branded apparel at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing is not all-encompassing, and team members with sponsors other than Nike can wear their sponsor’s gear on many occasions during the meet, USA Track & Field has told Runner’s World Newswire.

USATF Public Affairs Officer Jill Geer made those clarifications after six-time national 800-meter champion Nick Symmonds refused to sign USATF’s “Athlete Statement of Conditions” and was left off the team for Bei- jing. Symmonds, who is sponsored by Brooks, contended the statement’s requirement that team members wear Nike-branded apparel at official team functions could be interpreted to mean the entirety of an athlete’s time in Beijing.

“Of course Brooks would give me concessions in order to compete at the world championships. But it lessens the return on their investment in me. Brooks shouldn’t have to make that concession,” Symmonds toldNewswire before refusing to sign the Statement of Conditions. (The Statement of Conditions does not apply to shoes. Ath- letes sponsored by companies other than Nike can run in their shoes of choice when on a U.S. team.)

According to Symmonds, USATF has become increasingly aggressive in enforcing the apparel requirement, which has long been standard for U.S. athletes at global meets such as the Olympics and world championships. Symmonds said was chastised by American officials at the 2014 world indoor meet when he wore Brooks apparel while drinking coffee in a hotel. In presenting his case for not signing the Statement of Conditions,Symmonds displayed a letter USATF sent to prospective team members that was meant to supplement the separate State- ment of Conditions. The letter read, in part, “Please pack ONLY Team USA, Nike or non-branded apparel.” According to Geer, USATF’s senior management didn’t know about the letter until it was sent, and doesn’t plan to enforce it in Beijing.

“No one on the executive team was aware of the letter” before it went out to athletes, according to Geer, who told Newswire she was stunned when she first saw it. She would not identify its author but said it was written by a lower-level staff member.

“In practice, athletes with conflicting sponsors always pack their personal gear and wear it on personal time, and are allowed by USATF to do so,” said Geer. “When Nick [Symmonds] brought the letter to [senior management’s] attention, we clarified that fact to him. That letter as written will not be in future team kits.”

In a phone call with Newswire, Symmonds acknowledged that USATF told him they would not enforce the restrictions implied in the letter. Symmonds said, however, that the crucial issue for him remained the lack of clarity on “team function.” Symmonds told Newswire he asked USATF to change the Statement of Conditions to more clearly define that term. USATF CEO Max Siegel has said that, under USATF rules, the earliest the State- ment of Conditions can be changed is at the USATF annual meeting in December.

USATF’s definition of “team function” remains ambiguous. A USATF press release about Symmonds being left TAFWA Newsletter - Page 56 - August 2015 off the Beijing team stated that athletes have to wear Nike-branded national team attire “when they represent the United States in National Team competitions, award ceremonies, official Team press conferences, and other official Team functions tied to these National Team events.”

Geer declined to elaborate on what constitutes “other team functions.”

“Given that Nick has threatened litigation in the matter, it’s not appropriate to get into definitions of a document [the Statement of Conditions] that is being debated,” she told Newswire.

Nonetheless, Geer said, “USATF clearly does not prohibit athletes from wearing personal gear outside of official areas, in their personal time at meets. For example, athletes at every world championships and Olympic Games attend press conferences and receptions at their personal sponsors’ hospitality areas.” In other words, Brooks athletes can wear Brooks gear to Brooks events. She added that the one-page Statement of Conditions “does not restrict what athletes pack or wear on personal time away from team areas and events.”

Symmonds is weighing legal responses to being left off the world championships roster.

“I just got off the phone with [the Track & Field Athletes Association] and one of their legal counsel to discuss options. I’ll take the weekend to figure it out,” Symmonds told Newswire on Friday. He said one option would be to file a USOC Section 9 complaint form for “alleged denial of an opportunity to compete.” Symmonds said he’ll announce his plans on Monday via social media.

Jill Geer 20 hrs · Edited · Solid reporting by Peter Gambaccini . Gets all the facts right. http://www.runnersworld.com/…/us-athletes-can-wear-sponsors

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 57 - August 2015 Partial Fixtures List 2015 Aug 4-16 World Masters Championships, Lyon, France Aug 22-30 World Championships, Beijing Sept 3 Weltklasse, Zurich (Letzigrund Stadium) Sept 11 AG Insurance Memorial Van Damme, Brussels Sept 13 Fifth Avenue Mile, NYC Nov 21 NCAA Cross Country Championships I Louisville, Ky. II Joplin, Mo. III Winneconne, Wis. NAIA Charlotte, NC Dec 2-6 USATF Convention, Houston Dec 12 USATF Club Cross Country Championships, San Francisco Dec 15-18 USTFCCCA Convention, San Antonio

2016 Feb 5-6 Armory Track Invitational, NYC Feb 6-7 USATF Cross Country Championships, TBA Feb 13 Marathon Olympic Trials, Los Angeles Feb 20 Millrose Games, NYC (Armory) Feb 27 Boston Indoor Games Mar 11-12 NCAA Indoor Championships I Birmingham, Ala. II Pittsburg, Kan. III Grinnell, Iowa USATF Indoor Nationals, Portland, Ore. Mar 11-13 New Balance Indoor Nationals, NYC (Armory) Mar 17-20 World Indoor Championships, Portland, Ore. Apr 28-30 Penn Relays, Philadelphia Drake Relays, Des Moines May 26-28 NCAA Outdoor Championships II Bradenton, Fla. III Waverly, Iowa NCAA Div. I Regionals East, Jacksonville, Fla. West, Lawrence, Kan. June 8-11 NCAA Div. I Outdoor Championships, Eugene, Ore. June 10-12 New Balance Outdoor Nationals, Greensboro, N.C. July 1-10 U.S. Olympic Trials, Eugene, Ore. July 19-24 World Junior Championships, Kazan, Russia Aug. 5-21 Olympic Games, Rio de Janeiro

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 58 - August 2015