February 2016

Track and Field Writers of Contents America

(Founded June 7, 1973) P. 2 President’s Message P. 4 TAFWA Winter Awards, Coogan’s NYC PRESIDENT Jack Pfeifer P. 11 TAFWA Awards Nominations Reminder 216 Ft. Washington Ave., P. 12 Dues Renewal Reminder NY, NY 10032 Office/home: 917-579- P. 13 Re-allocating Medals 5392. Email: P. 16 Symmonds’ Run Gum Files Anti-Trust Lawsuit [email protected] P. 19 Meet Two Marathon Couples VICE PRESIDENT P. 23 Remembrances on Pre’s 65th Birthday Doug Binder Email: P. 25 IAAF Loses Its Biggest Sponsor [email protected]. P. 28 Coaches Protest Reggie Lewis Track Funding Cut Phone: 503-913-4191 P. 30 University of Iowa Pays Nearly $200K to a Male TREASURER Coach over Gender Discrimination - They Wanted A Woman Tom Casacky P.O. Box 4288 P. 31 Dopers Banned from Holding Scottish Records Napa, CA 94558 P. 33 Meet Brianne Theisen-Eaton Phone: 818-321-3234 Email: [email protected] P. 34 Feel the Bern - Bernie Sanders as High School Track Star P. 39 Oregonian Editorial Board In Favor of Raising the State SECRETARY Jon Hendershott Lodging Tax to Help The 2021 World Track Championships Email: P. 41 Ryan Hall [email protected] Phone: 669-231-4177 P. 44 Cyrus Hostetler Blogs about San Diego’s Javelin Mecca P. 46 Former TAFWA President Kerry Eggers: Looking Back on NEWSLETTER EDITOR Kim Spir Indoor Track in Portland University of Portland, P. 48 Mary and Zola Together Again 5000 N. Willamette Blvd., Portland, OR 97203 P. 49 New Athletics Book Work: 503-943-7314 P. 50 China’s State-Sponsored Doping Regime Email: kim.spir@gmail. com P. 52 Coach Brad Hudson P. 55 The Idiocy of Eliminating a Photo Staff FAST Dave Johnson P. 58 Opposition to a New Lodging Tax in Oregon to Help the 2021 Email: World Track and Field Championships [email protected] Phone: 215-898-6145 P. 60 LA’s Olympic Piggyback Yard Plan P. 65 Partial Fixtures List WEBMASTER Michael McLaughlin Email: [email protected]. Phone: 815-529-8454 Drew Hunter’s First High School Mile Record at the Armory. Photo Steve Sutton President’s Message

Awards, and a Boisterous Crowd, at NYC Get-Together After complaints that too many of our events took place in just one city – Eugene, Ore. – TAFWA spread its wings a year ago and tried a new event, a Winter Awards Banquet, and tied it to the annual Millrose Games, always attended by a lot of press and other TF glitterati anyway. We also had the perfect location – the back room of Coogan’s Restaurant, one block from the Armory, the new home of Millrose. The room oozes track his- tory. On the back wall are the framed covers of every Sports Illustrated cover devoted to the subject, thanks to Coogan’s owner, Peter Walsh.

For Year No. 2, held on Thursday evening, Feb. 18, two nights before Millrose, there was an added attraction. Longtime TAFWA member Marc Bloom wanted to have a 50th reunion of the legendary two-mile-relay race held in June 1966 between Andrew Jackson High School, of Queens, N.Y., and Boys High, of Brooklyn. The reunion turned out to be almost as good as the race.

The awards – four, based on geography -- were presented to an SRO crowd of about 100 people – in a room whose “capacity” is 72 – many of whom were there for the rowdy reunion and had never heard of TAFWA. No matter.

If you don’t believe me, for another first, it was also videotaped, thanks to the Armory’s film crew. It will be available on armorytrack.com next week. We will post the link to the video in the March newsletter.

The awards were given out for broadcasting and film as well as our two book awards. In each instance, someone was on hand to accept in person, even though the winners were as far-flung as Germany, Los Angeles, Michigan and New Jersey. It is part of our effort now to have our awards have more resonance, more impact. We have broadened our mission to include more kinds of media, and we are international now as well.

Bud Greenspan Memorial Award for film and video Presented by Nancy Beffa to “Doping – Top Secret: The Shadowy World of Athletics,” produced and directed by Hajo Seppelt for the German television network ARD. Markus Schmidt of ARD in New York accepted for Sep- pelt, who was on assignment in Australia.

H. D. Thoreau Broadcasting Award Presented to Dwight Stones, the highjumper and broadcaster from Los Angeles. Stones was already headed to New York to see Millrose, though he barely made it to the event on time when his flight was delayed. (He did not know in advance that he was being honored.) The “setup” of the award was a 2-minute clip from the 1984 Games in LA, showing Joni Huntley’s high jump final. Huntley also happened to be present, having flown in that morn- ing from Portland, Ore. The expert commentator, off-screen for the 1984 telecast, was Stones, who had com- peted in the men’s qualifying round earlier that day.

Armory Book Award Presented by Peter Walsh to Jeff Hollobaugh, of Dexter, Mich., for his 2015 book “How to Race the Mile: Learn- ing Effective Tactics from Great Runners and Races.” Hollobaugh flew in that morning from Detroit to receive the award in person.

Cordner Nelson Writing Award Presented by Walsh to Chris Lear, primarily for his book about the 1998 Colorado men’s cross country team, “Running with the Buffaloes.” Lear was also present, along with several of his college buddies, including Robert Johnson, of Letsrun.com, and Scott Anderson.

There was also an eloquent remembrance of that 1966 two-mile relay given to the assembled by Marc Bloom,

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 2 - February 2016 the conclusion of which was contending chants by alumni of the two great New York City schools. (Both schools have since changed their names. Jackson is now Campus Magnet, while Boys has, logically, become Boys & Girls.) TAFWA doesn’t deserve “credit” for the evening’s enthusiasm and spirit, but we were the benefactors. If we keep having evenings as good as this one, we can start selling tickets.

TAFWA.org TAFWA’s webmaster, Michael McLaughlin – an Aussie transplant who lives in the Chicago area – has been work- ing hard this winter to upgrade our website. He passes on the following comments:

1. All paid-up TAFWA members should have received an email by now confirming their logon ID but with a new password that can be changed when you first log on. A number of members have taken this step.

2. All members’ IDs are now part of a ‘social sharing’ option, which only logged-in members can see (invisible to the general public) and where they can update their profile, upload an image of themselves and insert their so- cial media links (website, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) as well as having a background image to themselves. Members can check out my profile as an example. The latest Member contact details have been added.

3. The members-only content now has a two-authentication process, meaning that the members-only menu items are hidden from the public and only viewable when a member logs into the website and, secondly, if a member shares a URL to a non-member or non-logged-in member then that link is not accessible and redirects back to the login screen.

4. All 2016 and 2015 Newsletters have been uploaded and are available for viewing and downloading by mem- bers. We may include earlier Newsletters in the future. What other content do you want added to the website?

A website is only as relevant as its content. Options include: a. Links to members’ own websites, blogs, etc. b. An image gallery of recent events, meets, etc. Members need to provide such content. c. If you want to send me a news item, I can include it on the site, either for the general public or members only.

Reminders With four of our 2016 awards now in the books, the deadline is May 1 to make nominations for the remaining half dozen awards. They are listed elsewhere in the Newsletter. Those will be presented during the NCAA out- door championships on Friday morning, June 10, at Gerlinger Hall on the Oregon campus.

Remember that no formal TAFWA get-together is planned during the World Indoor next month in Portland.

It is time to pay your Dues for 2016. They remain $30. Our treasurer, Tom Casacky, has a reminder in the cur- rent Newsletter with details on how to pay.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 3 - February 2016 TAFWA Awards Dinner, Coogan’s NYC

Clockwise top left: Coogan’s Track Wall. Peter Walsh. Dwight Stones. Special guests of Andrew Jackson and Boys High. Nancy Beffa, Frank Litsky, Sonja Robinson - Mikey Brannigan’s coach. Special guests of Andrew Jack- son and Boys High. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 4 - February 2016 Clockwise top left: Kevin Saylors and Tim Hutchings. Jeff Hollobaugh, Bill Morris, Errol Anderson. Special guests of Andrew Jackson and Boys High, including Vince Matthews. Tim Hutchings, Joni Huntley, Bob Hersh. Joni Huntley and Chase Sut- ton. Paul Schwartz, TAFWA President Jack Pfeifer, Dave Johnson.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 5 - February 2016 Clockwise top left: Dwight Stones and Joni Huntley. Chris Lear. Nancy Beffa. A scene from the winning documentary Dop- ing – Top Secret: The Shadowy World of Athletics. Julio Meade’s family. Jeff Hollobaugh and his award. Chris Lear and Robert Johnson. Elliott Denman and Chris Lear. Center: Markus Schmidt of ARD in New York who accepted the award of best documentary on behalf of pro- ducer Hajo Seppelt.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 6 - February 2016 Clockwise from top left: Special guest of Andrew Jackson and Boys High. George Koch- man, John and Peter Lovett, Coach Edwin Zarowin. Special guests of Andrew Jackson and Boys High. Coach Zarowin and Steve Sutton. Joni Huntley competing at the 1984 Olympic Games. Marc Bloom. Special guests of Andrew Jackson and Boys High.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 7- February 2016 Clockwise beginning top left: Coach Edwin Zarowin with Marc Bloom. Jeff Hollobaugh and Peter Walsh. Steve Williams with special guests of Andrew Jackson and Boys High. Jonathan Berenbom and David John- son. Julio Meade’s daughter and granddaughter. Joni Huntley.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 8 - February 2016 Clockwise from upper left: Frank Litsky with Julio Meade’s son. Marc Bloom and special guests of Andrew Jackson and Boys High. Dave Johnson and Dwight Stones. Dr. Norbert Sander, Armory Foundation. TAFWA vice president and Dyestat Editor Doug Binder. David Monti. Markus Schmidt of ARD in New York. Ray Brown, Armory Founda- tion.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 9- February 2016 Clockwise from upper left: Special guests of Andrew Jackson and Boys High. Vince Matthews. Larry Rawson. Anne and Mike Rauh with Dave Herscher. Marc Bloom with John Hollobaugh and special guests of Andrew Jackson and Boys High. Walt Murphy, son of Julio Meade and Marc Bloom.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 10 - February 2016 2016 TAFWA Awards

General information: These awards will be presented in June 2016 in Eugene for work in 2015 un- less otherwise noted. Self-nominations are allowed. Please include nominee’s name, address, e-mail address and phone.

James O. Dunaway Memorial Award For excellence in track and field journalism, both in print and online

Award Chair: Jack Pfeifer ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1

Sam Skinner Memorial Award For ongoing cooperation with the press

Award Chair: Don Kopriva ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1 Note: Submit name of nominee and a brief narrative

Announcing Awards For excellence in track and field announcing Scott Davis Memorial Award: presented to a current announcer Pinkie Sober Award: presented to a retired announcer or posthumously

Award Chair: Dave Johnson ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1

Rich Clarkson Photography Award For excellence in track and field/cross country/running still photography

Award Chair: Jack Pfeifer ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1 Note: Submit an electronic portfolio with a minimum of 10 photos and maximum of 20.

Adam Jacobs Blogging Award For excellence in online personal writing on track and field, cross country or running in 2015

Award Chair: Parker Morse ([email protected]) Nomination Deadline: May 1

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 11 - February 2016 2016 TAFWA Membership Dues Due!!

In addition to the FAST Annual, currently under construction by a dedicated team of compilers, your email box will be garnished with mostly monthly issues of our TAFWA Newsletter. We’re also planning annual members-only breakfast festivities, plus a social event at the Olympic Trials.

The membership fee for 2016 remains at $30. You can send a check, payable to TAFWA, to PO Box 4288, Napa, CA 94558, or use PayPal, to the address [email protected]. Don’t miss out!

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 12 - February 2016 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/18/sports/ as-track-atones-for-doping-scandals-some-athletes- seek-more-than-an-apology.html?_r=2 SPORTS | ON TRACK AND FIELD

As Track Atones, Some Athletes Seek More Than an Apology

By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY | JAN. 17, 2016

Photo: Alysia Montano, an American 800-meter runner, after finishing fifth at the 2012 Olympics in London. Two Russians who beat her are -ac cused of cheating. CreditJosh Haner/The New York Times

There have been many doping scandals, too many, but if allegations about the demanding and extorting of bribes to cover up test results are true, track and field’s former leader Lamine Diack and his minions and rela- tions took the category to a new level of low by corrupting from the top.

It is a big, particularly rank can of worms, and the Diack damage, along with the Russian federation’s suspension from the sport, raises the question of what might be done for athletes who have missed out on their rightful rewards.

Reallocating medals has become standard practice — depressing testimony to how often that sports event you just watched turns out to be a sham.

But what about a more radical approach: paying reparations to those who were cheated?

The idea is certainly worth a long look, and there is the possibility that legal action could make it even more pressing business. Doping is fraud, and so is covering up doping when it allows for competition by athletes who

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 13 - February 2016 should have been excluded. “There’s so much stuff you can’t get back; it’s like a class-action lawsuit that we’re looking at,” said Alysia Montano, the American 800-meter runner who finished fifth at the 2012 Olympics be- hind two Russians accused of cheating and fourth at two world championships behind one of them.

The Canadian racewalker Evan Dunfee, who is particularly outspoken on doping issues, declared last week that since 2005, Russian racewalkers had effectively “stolen” $1.7 million in prize money from clean athletes with their performances in world championships and the World Walking Cup.

But prize money and sponsor bonuses are only part of the loss. Even more difficult to recover is the value of would-be endorsements, appearance fees and contracts.

“It’s just so much domino effect,” Montano said.

There is also the mental anguish of defeat, more destructive when an athlete suspects being cheated.

“I’ve seen a number of athletes who were so concerned and angry about what everybody else was doing or may have been doing that it literally ruined their careers and their lives,” said Adam Nelson, a former shot putter from the United States.

Nelson is particularly well placed to speak to this issue. He was awarded the gold medal in the shot put nearly nine years after the 2004 Olympics when retesting resulted in the Ukrainian Yuriy Bilonog’s being stripped of his gold.

“I jokingly refer to the fact that I am actually the most recent gold medalist and kind of, sort of the defending champion because I received my medal in 2013 at the food court in the Atlanta airport,” Nelson said. But the material effect of his winning in 2013 instead of 2004 is no joke.

“Losing out on the gold medal in 2004, that cost me over $2 million in future earnings,” Nelson said. Montano estimated her lost bronze medals had cost her $500,000.

“It’s going to be really interesting to see if any athletes bring any claims,” said Sean Cottrell, the founder and chief executive of the British website LawInSport.

The question is whom to target: the I.A.A.F., the Russian federation or the penalized athletes themselves. “It will be very expensive to go after the athletes, and I’m not sure how much money Russian athletes have at this stage,” Cottrell said.

Last year, the Track and Field Athletes Association, a still-fledgling group led by Nelson, called on the I.A.A.F., the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Russian federation to pay reparations to athletes“denied their rightful competition placements.”

“It would be a huge symbol, a huge gesture from the I.A.A.F. to recognize and take ownership of the fact that they really did mess up, and it’s not just the I.A.A.F.,” Nelson said.

It would indeed be a symbolic gesture, as would be a revote for the site of the 2021 world championships. The I.A.A.F. Council last year awarded the event to Eugene, Ore., without a bidding process and with Diack pushing hard behind the scenes.

Coe said the I.A.A.F. would examine the possibility of fining athletes who broke doping rules but said allocating money from those fines to the wronged could prove legally complicated. It could also prove premature: How to have confidence at this dire stage that the beneficiaries would be truly clean, either?

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 14 - February 2016 Still, Nelson believes the time has come for athletes to be rewarded financially for following the rules.

With the statute of limitations on retesting doping samples now at 10 years after the initial test, Nelson propos- es deferring compensation for athletes into a “fair play” fund, which could be bankrolled by the I.A.A.F., meet directors or sponsors.

The idea? Keep a clean record for those 10 years, and collect a bonus.

“There’s a need to actually start to align your overall values with the compensation model,” Nelson said. “That’s usually what it takes to change a culture, unfortunately.”

While the opprobrium has been rightly directed at the sport’s administrators of late, reform is not all about the now-chastened Coe. There is also the issue of what the athletes themselves should do differently.

Not dope, you might answer (or perhaps shout, at this stage).

But Nelson and others also believe it is time for athletes to play a much more proactive and collective role, polic- ing themselves and changing the culture from the ground up instead of relying on the top-down model that has failed miserably. That clearly means much more of a neighborhood-watch approach.

The I.A.A.F. already has an athletes’ commission, whose members — a mix of former and current athletes — include the American decathlete Ashton Eaton, one of the sport’s biggest stars. But Nelson and Dunfee, the racewalker, believe the commission is too much under the I.A.A.F. umbrella and too constrained.

The Track and Field Athletes Association or another organization like it could be the equivalent of an indepen- dent players’ union.

“You can’t change a culture just by making new policies,” Nelson said. “We athletes need to start talking much more openly.

“Depending on what estimates you use, 75 to 85 percent of all athletes are doing the sport the right way. And it’s incumbent upon that significant majority doing it the right way to start taking ownership of this and say, ‘We’re not going to tolerate the 15 to 25 percent of you who are not doing it the right way, and furthermore, we are not going to allow the coaches who perpetuate the myth that there is only way to win to come into our culture and mislead another group of athletes.’ That can’t happen just from the top down.”

Coe now insists that he wants “more whistle-blowers.” Nelson resists the use of that term, but this is seman- tics. He knows that the flow of information behind the scenes — fueled by well-grounded suspicions — has to increase soon and significantly.

“It looks poor if we cast doubt on someone’s results,” he said. “But we know the difference between poor sports- manship and jealousy and when something just doesn’t smell right. Athletes know that better than you do. We truly do, so now we have to find a way to address that.”

A version of this article appears in print on January 18, 2016, on page D5 of the New York edition with the headline: Sport Atones, but Some Athletes Seek More Than an Apology.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 15 - February 2016 http://www.flotrack.org/article/39115-nick-symmonds-run-gum-files-law- suit-against-usoc-and-usatf#.VqADN8sJjOE.twitter

Nick Symmonds’ Run Gum Files Lawsuit Against USOC and USATF

January 20, 2016 | Taylor Dutch

Symmonds winning the 800m at the 2015 USATF Outdoor Championships with sponsors Brooks Running and Run Gum on display.

Run Gum, the company co-founded by two-time Olympic 800m runner Nick Symmonds, on Wednesday filed an antitrust lawsuit in federal court against the United States Olympic Committee and USA Track & Field, alleging that rules forbidding athletes to showcase their sponsors during the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials limits free com- petition in the marketplace. Run Gum will be unable to advertize on athletes’ apparel at the Trials due to USOC and USATF regulations.

“Run Gum is filing an antitrust lawsuit against both USATF and USOC, specifically for not allowing us to ad- vertise on athletes’ attire during the 2016 Olympic Trials,” Symmonds told FloTrack in an in-person interview during his training stint in Phoenix, Ariz. “All Run Gum is asking is to be allowed to compete with the Nike and Brooks and Reebok and all the other shoe companies and allow us to bid on that advertising space.”

According to the suit filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene, Ore., Run Gum alleges that the USOC and USATF have engaged in “anticompetitive and unlawful conduct” by “jointly agreeing and conspiring to prevent certain businesses—while permitting others—from sponsoring individual athletes,” at the Olympic Trials “in exchange for sponsor identification on the athletes’ competition apparel.” The complaint continues to read: “This complete foreclosure of a valuable commercial opportunity, which is vigorously enforced, is a classic group boycott that injures would-be sponsors (and athletes), lacks any legitimate business justification or pro-competitive effects, and is illegal per se. USATF, the USOC, and their co-conspirators cannot curtail competition by picking and choosing eligible market participants and excluding the rest.”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 16- February 2016 Run Gum is seeking an injunction that would “preliminarily and permanently” prevent the USOC and USATF from enforcing these regulations with the hope of “leveling the playing field among sponsors of track & field athletes at the Olympic Trials.”

USATF Chief Public Affairs Officer Jill Geer told FloTrack, “We are unaware of the lawsuit and have not been served. In any circumstance, we do not comment on pending litigation.”

A message for USOC spokesman Patrick Sandusky was not returned at the time of publishing.

Watch FloTrack’s exclusive interview with Nick Symmonds from January 8:

Symmonds founded Run Gum with his Willamette University coach Sam Lapray in October 2014 and have since focused their marketing efforts in the elite track and field community.

Last year Run Gum sponsored 20 non-apparel sponsored athletes at the USATF Outdoor Championships, which provided them short-term contracts for the championships that included branded uniforms and travel funds to compete on the national stage. Symmonds himself wore Run Gum tattoos on his biceps while winning his sixth 800m national title. Rum Gum and any other approved sponsor is allowed to exercise this type of advertise- ment at the USATF Championships, but the Olympic Trials are under different restrictions specific to IOC and USOC regulations. Unlike the USATF Championships, a non-apparel company is not allowed to advertise on an athlete’s clothing at the Trials.

“We knew that we needed to start somewhere and the community that we know best is the running communi- ty….specifically by utilizing the sponsorship of elite athletes to market to those runners,” Symmonds said. “You got to see just how incredibly effective using athletes as endorsements, as endorsers can be.”

USATF offers an explanation of the uniform advertising and logo regulations pertaining to the 2016 Olympic Trials on their website. As a United States Olympic Committee event, the U.S. Olympic Team Trials, for mara- thon, race walk and track and field, are all subject to the International Olympic Committee and United States Olympic Committee advertising regulations. The specific athlete apparel and uniform requirements for the Tri- als are as follows:

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 17 -February 2016 With the exception of standard manufacturers’ equipment identification permitted by Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter (or the manufacturers’ equipment identification permitted by the NGB’s International Federation’s rules, if applicable), the equipment, uniforms and the bibs/numbers of the competitors and officials at the Trials may not bear any commer- cial identification or promotional material of any kind (whether commercial or noncommercial). Competitor uniforms may bear the name of his or her track club, provided the club is a registered member and in good standing with USA Track & Field (as of November 1, 2015) and has been approved by the USOC. Any violation of the rules may result in disqualification.

As the apparel regulations stand, USATF extends the IOC guidelines, which are in place for the Olympic Games, and to the U.S. Olympic Team Trials as well. Those guidelines employ Rule 50, which is outlined in the IOC’s Guidelines Regarding Authorised Identifications. The guidelines read as follows:

No form of publicity or propaganda, commercial or otherwise, may appear on persons, on sportswear, accessories or, more generally, on any article of clothing or equipment whatsoever worn or used by the athletes or other participants in the Olympic Games, except the identification […] of the manufacturer of the article or equipment concerned, provided that such identification shall not be marked conspicuously for advertising purposes.

One of the key General Principles to Rule 50 that Run Gum is challenging is:

4. Where the Identification of the Manufacturer is not a Sports Brand (principally used in the business of manufactur- ing, providing, distributing and selling sports goods, not principally used for non-sports goods), such identification shall not be permitted, except for Clothing, for which the Identification of the Manufacturer may be that of a Clothing Brand.

In 1978, the Federal Amateur Sports Act granted the USOC complete control over the administration of Olym- pic sports and its intellectual property. Symmonds and his attorney Sathya Gosselin from Hausfield LLP chal- lenge whether these regulations, which restrict athlete apparel advertising to strictly “clothing brand” and thus leaving a non-apparel company such as Run Gum out of contention for athlete apparel sponsorship space at the Trials, fall within the laws purview. “I imagine it’s to protect their [USOC and USATF] sponsors and I imagine there is some collusion among certain apparel manufacturers that encouraged them to keep it this way,” Sym- monds told FloTrack. “Whatever’s going on behind the scenes, I’m not concerned with. What I am concerned with is there’s being an injustice done right now, there is a trust granted to the apparel manufacturers and it needs to stop today and that’s why we’re filing this complaint.”

According to the Federal Trade Commission, U.S antitrust law is aimed to “protect the process of competition for the benefit of consumers, making sure there are strong incentives for businesses to operate efficiently, keep prices down, and keep quality up.”

In Run Gum’s case, the company and its founders allege that USOC and USATF are creating restrictions on trade and a monopoly on the advertising market for the U.S. Olympic Team Trials. “If McDonalds came in tomorrow or Starbucks came in tomorrow, any company, came in and said, we want to invest $500 million in the sport of track and field, specifically to athletes….let’s think of someone without a contract, if they said hey I want to give you $1 million to wear a jersey with my logo on it at the 2016 Olympic Trials. That athlete is out of luck,” Sym- monds said.

“They can’t take that money. There is no way for any company, any non-apparel manufacturer to advertise on an athlete during the Olympic Trials and that’s wrong. You can’t give a small sector of the market like the apparel manufacturers absolute control over that space. It restricts trade, it drives down the cost that companies have to pay for that space,” he added.

Hausfeld LLP is the same legal team that in 2014 successfully challenged the NCAA on antitrust grounds on behalf of former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon, who questioned whether the NCAA could legally prevent athletes from earning money on their names, likenesses, and identities.

More updates to follow.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 18 - February 2016 ------Forwarded message ------From: Race Results Weekly Date: Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 4:05 PM Subject: RRW: Two Couples, Married To The Trials

TWO COUPLES, MARRIED TO THE TRIALS

By David Monti, @d9monti | (c) 2016 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved

(27-Jan) -- The exclusive group of 211 men and 246 women who have qualified for next month’s USA Olympic Marathon Trials is actually comprised of smaller, even more exclusive cliques, like “A” qualifiers (27 men and 42 women), sub-2:12 men (9), sub-2:30 women (10), and Olympians (7 men and 16 women).

But perhaps the most exclusive group are married couples. There are only four: Esther and Cole Atkins, Sara and Ryan Hall, Emma and Drew Polley, and Lindsay and Tim Tollefson. However, since Cole Atkins scratched with a foot injury and Ryan Hall retired from elite competition earlier this month, only the Polleys and the Tollefsons both plan to be on them starting line in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 13.

Recently, in a series of telephone interviews, both couples shared their paths to the Trials and hopes for race day with Race Results Weekly.

THE TOLLEFSONS Californians Lindsay and Tim Tollefson, both 30, ran together at Chico State, graduating in 2008. They currently live in the thin air of Mammoth Lakes, Calif., the same high-altitude ski town which has long been home to Olympic Marathon bronze medalist Deena Kastor. Lindsay works as a property manager while Tim is a physical therapist; both have flexible schedules which allow enough time for training.

PHOTO: Tim and Lindsay Tollefson after the 2015 Sonoma 50 Mile where Lindsay was the sixth woman in 8:06:55 (photo courtesy of Tim and Lindsay Tollefson)

Before they were married in May, 2012 (Lindsay’s maid- en name was Nelson), they both competed in the 2012 USA Olympic Marathon Trials in Houston where Lindsay finished 130th in 2:52:55, and Tim was 79th

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 19 - February 2016 in 2:27:00. Tim readily admitted that he had less than a stellar day. The race was this third marathon in three months, both shoes came untied, and he really felt like dropping out. He also had a messy infection in his foot the month before the race which seriously hampered his training.

“Although my official time in Houston was a far cry from what I am capable of accomplishing, I am 100% proud of it,” Tim wrote on his blog at the time. He continued: “I had a staph infection in my foot, which forced me to take off significant time from training. My focus changed from the Trials to keeping my foot (healthy) as it bal- looned to nearly twice its size in 24 hours.”

After those Trials, the newly-wed Tollefsons made a plan to qualify again for 2016. They targeted the 2013 California International Marathon in Sacramento with its gently downhill course and typically cool, December weather. For Lindsay, it was a great day. She finished 11th, ran a personal best 2:41:31, and easily made the then-prevailing “B” qualifying standard of 2:43:00. But Tim wasn’t so lucky. He ran 2:18:29, 29 seconds over the men’s then-prevailing “B” standard of 2:18:00.

“We went into 2013 hoping that we were both going to knock out our qualifiers that day,” Tim explained. “It turned out that I was 29 seconds slow.” He added: “I guess I was distraught. As I came down the final 100 meters and I could see the clock tick by. But, I was excited because she (Lindsay) was on pace for a personal best and a qualifier.”

With the Trials more than two years off, Tim wasn’t worried about qualifying again, and Lindsay shared that view. “It wasn’t too big of a deal, because we know there were more opportunities to hit it again,” Lindsay recalled. “We know we could try again in a coupe of months.”

But Tim never hit the 2:18:00 standard. He ran 2:19:43 at Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth in June, 2014, a race he had really dedicated himself to in his training. He was crushed.

“I spent the entire spring training for Grandma’s Marathon,” he lamented. “I ran 2:19 at Grandmas Marathon and I was really frustrated.”

Tim decided that he needed a break from marathons, and began to explore his passion for mountain and trail running. He entered the USA 50-K Trail Championships in Bend, Ore., in September, 2014. He not only won the race, bagging his first national title, but he set a course record.

“I’m going to put marathoning on the back burner,” he recalled telling himself. “It was really nice in the sense of (giving up) such structured and pace-oriented practice, and just go out and reignite the passion.”

Tollefson stuck with trail and ultra-running in 2015 (he’s sponsored by Nike in their trail running program), and the 2:18 marathon never came. He began to accept that there would be no Olympic Marathon Trials for him in 2016 and he was fine with that. Instead, he arranged to run in a 125-kilometer ultramarathon in the Canary Islands three weeks later, part of the Ultra-Trail World Tour.

“It’s a very competitive field,” Tim said of the race in Spain. “One hundred twenty-five kilometers, up and over the main island, Gran Canaria. It traverses the volcano with about 6000 feet of climbing. It’s basically the exact opposite of the LA Trials.”

But last December Tim got an unexpected gift. USA Track & Field had to soften the men’s Trials entry standard to 2:19:00 to be in compliance with the IAAF’s revised Olympic Game standards (the women’s standard was also softened to 2:45:00). Suddenly, Tollefson was a qualifier, which he called “an early Christmas present.”

“I remember Lindsay and I were running along Green Church Road in Mammoth,” Tim said. “A friend texted me ‘congrats.’ Congrats for what? I haven’t done anything.” TAFWA Newsletter - Page 20 - February 2016 But due to his lack of dedicated marathon training, and Lindsay’s battle with a mysterious nerve problem which sometimes sends pain down both of her legs, the Tollefsons have tempered their expectations for the Trials. The race has become more about the honor of taking part in the once-every-four-year ritual by which the United States selects its Olympic Marathon team. The USA remains the only country with a binding, one-day, cutthroat trial.

“At this point I’d be happy to finish without having pain,” said Lindsay. “I don’t want to be running 6:30 (per mile) pace and finish. If I’m running low-mid 6’s, that would be great. That’s sort of the reality of where I’m at, and it sucks.”

Tim adds: “It’s a very special event. We get the question a lot from people, once we explain to them that we have no shot of making the top three. Non-runners don’t understand it. For a lot of us, making the Trials is our Olympics.”

THE POLLEYS Drew, 30, and Emma, 25, live in Seattle and are still newlyweds (they were married in November, 2015). Drew works as an environmental consultant (he’s an environmental engineer), while Emma works 25 hours a week as a barista.

“I’m not very good just having running on my plate for the day,” said Emma.

PHOTO: Emma and Drew Polley on a beach in San Francisco in 2015 (photo courtesy of Drew and Emma Polley)

Drew is a seasoned marathoner, and qualified under the previous 2:18:00 standard at the same race as Lindsay Tollefson, the 2013 California International Marathon. In fact, he finished eighth in 2:17:23, three places ahead of Tim Tollefson. A year later at the same race, he ran 2:18:50, a mark which became a second qualifier after USATF loosened the standard to 2:19:00 last December. He doesn’t have a coach.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 21 - February 2016 “I’ve been self-coached for last couple of years,” said Drew. “I’ve considered getting a coach, but with my work schedule it’s hard. For the time being I’m self-coached.”

Drew, who competed for Washington State during his NCAA career, ran the 2012 Trials and had a successful day. He finished 21st in 2:14:58, still his personal best. He’s turned optimistic about next month’s Trials, but only recently.

“I’ve been pleasantly surprised in the last couple of months,” Drew said. “I’ve been able to run really high mileage; I don’t think I’m quite in the shape I was in the last Trials, but think I’m in 2:16 shape right now.” He added: “I’m really happy with where I am.”

But for Emma, the marathon is still new territory. The 2012 Mid-American Conference 5000m champion (both indoors and out) for the University of Toledo, she’s only covered the distance once, at the California Interna- tional Marathon in 2014 where she finished 22nd in 2:42:11. Call her a reluctant marathoner.

“I wasn’t really sure at that point if I wanted to run a marathon, ever,” Emma recalled before starting her first marathon build-up with Drew coaching her. “I was really intimidated by the distance at that point.” She contin- ued: “After seeing Drew get his qualifier, seeing him go through the training, I thought maybe I can do that.”

But having her husband coach her brought new strains to their relationship, something they can laugh about now.

“It was good for the most part,” said Emma, who is now coached by Mike Morgan. “We had a few disagreements just because I like to do track workouts a lot, and there isn’t a whole lot of place for track workouts in a mara- thon build-up.” She added: “There was a lot of whining on my side.”

“I can’t lie,” said Drew playfully. “It definitely put some pressure on there. That’s why I knew I had to get out of coaching (Emma). It’s hard when your fiance tells you she doesn’t want to do something.”

But under Coach Morgan, a 2:14:22 marathoner who was coached by Kevin and Keith Hanson of the Hanson Brooks Original Distance Project, Emma has embraced marathon training and is optimistic about the Trials.

“I’ve had a little more than a year under my belt and felt like I could have a little more of a bigger goal,” she said. “So, I’ve worked out 6:02 as a goal pace, about 2:38. That would be a great day for me. That would be a great progression.”

Drew may not be Emma’s coach anymore, but he’s the voice of experience. His best advice to avoid mistakes? Stick to your plan.

“The biggest one without question is getting caught up and going out too fast, due to too much adrenaline or just following the heard,” Drew intoned. “Time after time my best races came when I went out on my goal pace and finished strong in the end. You can lose a lot of time at the end. Emma is probably tired of me saying that.”

Both Drew and Emma are part of the Brooks Inspire Daily program, and will wear Brooks gear in the race.

“It’s been really great to be part of the Brooks family,” said Emma. “Being in Seattle it’s been very cool. They’re a really good brand to work with.”

ENDS

Sponsored by RUNNER’S WORLD / BURNS COMPUTER SERVICES / SALMINI FILMS

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 22 - February 2016 Some Rememberances on Pre’s 65th Birthday Why Pre Still Matters http://www.runnersworld.com/runners-stories/why-pre-still-matters

Pre’s Last Appointment https://vimeo.com/52096224

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 23 - February 2016 Steve Prefontaine Quotes http://www.flotrack.org/article/39233-top-10-steve-prefontaine-quotes

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 24 - February 2016 http://www.bbc.com/sport/athlet- ics/35385415

Adidas to end IAAF sponsorship deal early in wake of doping crisis

By Mark Daly, BBC Scotland Investigations, & Dan Roan, BBC sports editor Exclusive

Wada report: Three things learned from doping scandal

Adidas, the IAAF’s biggest sponsor, has told athletics’ world governing body it is to terminate its sponsorship deal four years early.

The sportswear giant informed the IAAF of its decision - understood to be a direct result of the doping scandal sweeping the sport - last week.

Sources say the move will cost the IAAF and its commercial partner Dentsu tens of millions of dollars in rev- enue.

It is sure to come as a major blow for embattled president Lord Coe.

Neither Adidas nor the IAAF - the International Association of Athletics Federations - confirmed the split but both issued short statements.

They both referenced the “reform process” under way as the IAAF attempts to come to terms with a number of damaging revelations.

They also said they were “in close contact” with each other, with the IAAF insisting it was in close contact with “all its sponsors and partners”.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 25 -February 2016 Adidas, which designs and manufactures sports shoes, clothing and accessories, has also expressed its displea- sure at the corruption scandal that continues to engulf Fifa. However, the German firm, which signed a £750m kit sponsorship deal with British football giants Manchester United in 2014, remains the oldest commercial partner of world football’s governing body.

How much will the IAAF lose?

The 11-year sponsorship deal with Adidas was set to run until 2019 and was reportedly worth $33m (£23m). However, sources have told the BBC the figure is much higher - as much, in terms of cash and product, as about $8m (£5.6m) per year.

This means the projected lost revenue for the IAAF and its agency Dentsuover the next four years alone will be more than $30m (£21m). In August, the IAAF said its projected revenue for 2015 was $42.8m (£30m). For 2016, it said the sum would jump to $81.9m (£57.4m) with added income from the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

“In terms of finance it is a setback, but it is not fatal. It is a hit they can take,” said BBC athletics correspondent Mike Costello. “But it is about perception. This is a hammer blow.”

Adidas is just one of the IAAF’s official partners, along with Canon, Toyota, Seiko, TDK, TBS and Mondo. According to an official press release that accompanied the deal announcement in 2008, the partnership be- tween the IAAF and Adidas incorporated “every aspect of athletics, from product creation, to grassroots devel- opment and retail distribution”.

Under the agreement, Adidas also became the official sponsor of the 2009 World Championships in Berlin. Why is Adidas bowing out?

The BBC understands Adidas informed the IAAF in November it was considering ending their relationship early after a report detailed claims of”state sponsored doping” within Russia.

The report was compiled by an independent commission set up by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada).

Earlier this month, the commission’s chairman, Dick Pound, delivered a second, damning report that said “cor- ruption was embedded” within the IAAF under former president Lamine Diack. Within days, a decision at the highest level in Adidas was taken to terminate its deal with the IAAF and Dentsu. The BBC understands termi- nation letters were sent from Adidas to the IAAF and Dentsu last week. It is understood the German multina- tional believes the doping revelations in Pound’s reports constitute a breach of its agreement with the IAAF.

Olympic gold medallist Darren Campbell said the news Adidas was ending its sponsorship deal early would have a major impact on the sport.

“It’s one thing to say we won’t be renewing our contract after 2019 but to actually terminate your contract now, seven, eight months before the start of the Olympic Games, this is huge,” said the Briton.

Sports finance expert Rob Wilson said athletics is perhaps not as important as it once was to Adidas. “As one of the largest kit suppliers in the world, sponsorship is vital to Adidas,” he told BBC Sport.

“However, it is fair to say the impact of athletics sponsorship is declining and they are moving toward football as a more important area of growth.”

What will the IAAF do?

It is not clear if the IAAF will challenge the decision in court, although lawyers at Adidas are understood to be TAFWA Newsletter - Page 26 - February 2016 preparing for such a move.

The withdrawal of Adidas will come as a major blow to the sport - and to IAAF president Coe - in a time of un-

precedented turmoil.Coe succeeded Diack in August last year and has come under pressure following the publi- cation of Pound’s second report.

Not only did it claim that corruption was “embedded” in the IAAF, it also claimed that leading figures within it must have been aware of it.

Coe, who won Olympic 1500m gold at the 1980 and 1984 Games, served as one of four IAAF vice-presidents under Diack for seven years. Despite the spotlight on Coe, Pound says he “couldn’t think of anyone better” than the Englishman, 59, to lead athletics out of its crisis.

The Wada reports on state-sponsored doping have left athletics facing an Olympic year with major reputational damage to repair.

It is also facing a French criminal investigation into corruption, which is looking into the awarding of every World Championships since 2007, including London’s successful bid to host the event in 2017. It now seems Adidas believes there is too much reputational risk to its brand to continue its association with the IAAF.

“I think this comes down to how Adidas are changing their sponsorship approach,” added Wilson.

“They are spending millions on the Manchester United deal that is stretching their budgets. To me, this seems more like a repositioning exercise.”

Editor’s note: To see the videos that accompanied this report, go to: http://www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/35385415

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 27 - February 2016 http://www.enterprisenews.com/article/20160112/sports/160119015 TRACK: Coaches protest ‘Reggie’ funding cut

The Massachusetts State Track Coaches Association is looking for answers from Beacon Hill as to why $4.1 mil- lion in funding was taken away from repairs earmarked for the Reggie Lewis Center.

By Joe Reardon For The Patriot Ledger

Posted Jan. 12, 2016 at 1:23 AM | Updated Jan 12, 2016 at 1:27 AM

The Massachusetts State Track Coaches Association is looking for answers from Beacon Hill as to why $4.1 mil- lion in funding was taken away from repairs earmarked for the Reggie Lewis Center.

Former Gov. Deval Patrick appropriated $5.7 million in March 2014 for restorations to the 20-year-old track facility. The “Reggie,” which is regarded as one of the fastest indoor tracks in the country, is used by thousands of Massachusetts high school indoor track athletes during the winter and is the home track of Roxbury Community College and Northeastern University.

A new track was installed with part of the funding, but there are still several repairs needed to the heating and plumbing systems, the grandstands and infrastructure outside the main entrance at Roxbury Crossing. The HVAC systems are currently not up to code and shut down periodically. The result is a lack of airflow for the ath- letes. The mechanical systems, too, have outlived their life cycle.

In a letter from the MSTCA drafted to Gov. Charlie Baker by association president Frank Mooney, the MSTCA expressed its “shock and dismay” that the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance pulled the funding. “This is not only very disappointing, but the decision to withdraw the funding now has a direct and adverse impact on the thousands of Massachusetts high school students-athletes that utilize the Center annu- ally,” the letter stated. “Hundreds and thousands of voting community members proudly call the Reggie Lewis Center their home and benefit from it in many ways. The Center is one of the most important assets in the State and the City of Boston.”

Mooney said the feasibility studies that were done made sure the funding the MSTCA was asking for was “in a price range that made sense.”

“Right now our organization is very disappointed that Phase Two was never started because the funds aren’t there anymore,” said Mooney. “We don’t have a heating system, we don’t have those stands fixed, we need the electrical system looked at and the plumbing system is in trouble. We need those things taken care of to guaran- tee the future. We’re looking at future generations.”

Hingham High boys coach Fred Jewett is urging his fellow coaches to help support efforts to get funding back for the needed renovations.

“The MSTCA has worked tirelessly to get the Reggie Lewis Track Center built and maintained so that our track athletes have a facility that they can be proud of,” Jewett said in an email to coaches. “This is a serious issue be- cause the Reggie Lewis Center, which is so vital to all high school and college indoor track programs, is in serious need of repair.”

Notre Dame Academy (Hingham) coach Rick Kates was most disappointed that the funds were taken away after Baker praised the facility in October at the Reggie Lewis Foundation Gala, calling the facility a “gem.” “Here we have heating and bathroom issues and stand issues that are safety factors in keeping the facility to a

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 28 - February 2016 standard that we want to protect for the future,” said Kates. “We don’t want it to be a typical state project where you hear they just let it go and it falls apart and they have to start all over again. It’s the only facility in the state that’s dedicated toward high school track and field and we waited so long to get it. We know how important it is to maintain it.”

At last weekend’s Coaches Relays, the MSTCA had petitions on hand for athletes and coaches to send to Bea- con Hill expressing the need for the repairs to the Center. The petitions were expected to be available again this upcoming weekend when the relays continue.

“We want to make this place is a safe, pleasant environment for the kids to come in and compete in,” said Mooney.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 29 - February 2016 http://globegazette.com/sports/college/university-of-iowa-settles-male-track-coach-discrimination-lawsuit/ article_ef9a739e-1101-5972-b4a8-470cc87c1cdf.html

AP University of Iowa settles male track coach discrimination lawsuit

DAVID PITT Associated Press | Jan 27, 2016

DES MOINES — The University of Iowa confirmed Wednesday it will pay nearly $200,000 to a male track coach and his attorneys to settle a gender discrimination lawsuit alleging the man was passed over for a job because administrators wanted a woman.

Mike Scott, who was a volunteer assistant in the university's track program, applied for the position of assistant track coach in 2012. He believed he was qualified to replace the departing assistant coach — a woman — since he was already working in her areas, including pole vault and vertical jumps. Scott alleges he was warned that administrators wanted a woman and that then-Director of Track and Field Larry Wieczorek even joked that a sex change might improve his prospects.

Scott was a finalist, but another male was recommended for the job and rejected by the administration. A second search failed when a preferred female candidate accepted another job. The program then gave Scott an 11-month contract as an assistant, with the understanding that another search would occur after the 2012-2013 season.

Scott alleges administrators rewrote the job description, which disqualified him and duplicated other coaches' specialties. Scott didn't apply and the third search failed, so the university again rewrote the description so that it was more general. Scott applied but didn't get an interview for the fourth search. The job went to Molly Jones, who had been a volunteer assistant at Florida State for two years.

Scott's attorneys uncovered a June 4, 2013, email in which track and field coach Layne Anderson tells assistants that he had rewritten the position's job description in a way to attract more female candidates. "It is once again largely driven by the mandate from the administration to hire a female ..." Anderson wrote in an email.

Any gender-based mandate would violate university policy and Iowa law, which bar discrimination in employ- ment, and the university has denied discriminating against Scott. School spokeswoman Jeneane Beck said the university interviewed men and women for the job and the athletic department hired the person it deemed most qualified.

"The university does not agree with Mr. Scott that he was discriminated against based upon his gender, but resolution of disputes by mutual agreement, after mediation, is beneficial for all involved and brings the matter to a close," she said in a statement.

The agreement, which pays Scott's attorneys nearly $81,000 and Scott $20,000 for past wages and $97,222 to settle all claims, says there's no admission of discrimination by the university.

Scott's attorneys said his goal was to expose sex discrimination in college athletics — against both sexes. "It is rare for a supervisor to admit to discrimination in an email to subordinates, but that is exactly what hap- pened in this case," Nate Borland and Brooke Timmer said in a statement. "The state's decision to settle was wise considering its own employees wrote about the administration's 'mandate' that a woman be hired for the position."

Scott, who is now an assistant coach at Missouri State, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 30 - February 2016 http://www.athleticsweekly.com/featured/dopers-to-be-banned-from-holding-scottish-records-38379/

Scottish Athletics confirmed it is looking into examining national records which are held by athletes who have faced historical allegations of doping.

Scottish Athletics has confirmed that the governing body intends to prevent any Scottish athlete who receives a serious doping ban from holding a national record.

The sport has had to endure negative headlines for the past 12 months regarding widespread corruption ema- nating from the top of both the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and Russia’s national federation, including allegations of a systematic doping cover-up and extortion of athletes.

UK Athletics chairman Ed Warner sparked debate recently with the release of a 14-point plan focusing on the

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 31 - February 2016 progression into a new “clean era” of athletics which included the suggestion of drawing a line under all existing IAAF world records.

Chairman of Scottish Athletics, Ian Beattie, has now confirmed that the federation is endorsing its own three- point plan surrounding the issue of doping by any Scottish athletes.

The third point in a statement reads: “We propose to introduce what we see as a very significant step in terms of Scottish national records. As guardians for those, Scottish Athletics have the right to set parameters on Scot- tish national records and we will amend the criteria to ensure that – from this point onwards – any athlete who in the future receives a suspension for a serious doping offence (two years or more) will not be eligible to hold a Scottish national record.”

The federation also reiterated that athletes entered into Scottish national events must agree to the anti-doping procedures undertaken on the day if requested to do so, and confirmed it will be issuing the latest banned sub- stance guidelines to all its registered athletes.

While Scottish Athletics doesn’t have jurisdiction to dictate anti-doping matters, Beattie confirmed that the body is looking into conducting an examination of various questionable Scottish records.

He said: “We have as a board on a number of occasions over the past two years discussed issues relating to some long-standing Scottish national records, against which allegations have been made regarding the use of perfor- mance-enhancing substances by the athletes at that time.

“So far, we have not yet come up with the right framework to take action in a way which is fair to all athletes and takes account of the evidence available for historical performances.

“However, it remains firmly on our agenda and a subject for more discussion.”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 32 - February 2016 http://spikes.iaaf.org/post/did-you-know-brianne-theisen- eaton

20 JAN 2016

World heptathlon silver medallist Brianne Theisen-Eaton explains how Ashton was able to ride on the Jurassic Park, the Revenge of the Mummy AND Flight of the Hippogriff rollercoasters in a single day.

1. I am very organised “Maybe it stems from the fact that I am impatient, but I don’t like to waste time. This makes me very organised. “I think it drives Ashton a little crazy but when we were at Universal Studios and he was really keen to go on all the rides, I got the map and instantly started mapping out which rides we could go on to maximise our time. “Each Sunday night I make a dinner plan for the week and I even base the grocery list on where the grocery items are in the store, so I can be as efficient as possible.”

2. I’m an emotional person “When I see a sad movie or read a sad book I cry easily. I also cry easily if there is somebody I care about who is going through something bad and sometimes I can be for someone I don’t even know. I feel for people. “I don’t think I would get as emotional for myself if I won the Olympics than I would if one of my best friends won the Olympics.

“I’m also a pretty straight forward person. I don’t like to beat around the bush. I prefer to tell people what I’m thinking or how I’m feeling so we can move past an issue. My family are like that. They talk a lot and always have

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 33 - February 2016 a very open communication. I sometimes need to remember that away from family and in the real world that doesn’t always happen.”

3. I love reality TV “I like entertainment and for me drama and reality TV is part of it. I focus so much on track and planning for such a large portion on my day, if I sit down and watch a show like Keeping up with the Kardashians or The Bachelor I literally don’t have to focus at all. I can sit there, shut my brain down and be entertained by the ri- diculousness of the TV shows.

“I like to watch the Sunday night show, which I often tape and watch later in the week, and I religiously watch the Monday night show. Some people see filming a very rich family who blow money like crazy as boring, but the drama is fascinating to me.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/ wp/2016/01/29/the-untold-story-of-bernie-sand- ers-high-school-track-star/ The untold story of Bernie Sanders, high school track star

By Philip Bump January 29 at 8:24 AM

(Madison High School newspaper/Courtesy of Lou Howort)

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 34 - February 2016 Judges at the high school cross-country competition in the Bronx’s Van Cortlandt Park had a problem. Joe and Clarence Scott, the 16-year-old twin seniors from Brooklyn Automotive High School, crossed the finish line of the two-and-a-half mile race that drizzly, cold November day in first place -- simultaneously. Holding hands. The pair were among the top runners in their age group in the city in 1958, often winning or finishing near the top of the standings in distance events.

But the Scotts’ unusual finish was a violation of the rules, since it implied that they’d colluded on the ending. Distance running, even at that level, was a big deal. This was only a few years after Roger Bannister became the first to beat the four-minute mile, and running had captured the nation’s attention. The New York Times ran front-page articles about professional runners shaving a few seconds off one another’s time. In this case, the judges -- not wanting to reject the results (the pair had won by a wide margin) -- declared Joe the winner and Clarence second, with identical times. The whole situation was interesting enough to itself warrant an item in the Times, titled, “Identical Twins Finish Together But School Judges Pick Winner.”

But to an observer 58 years later, in 2016, that’s not what’s interesting about that race. What’s interesting is the guy who came in 18th place, about a minute behind -- the guy who a week-and-a-half earlier had placed third behind the Scott brothers in the borough championship.

A guy from Brooklyn named Bernard Sanders. (New York Times, Oct. 31, 1958) Bernie Sanders’s athletic prowess has become a topic of conversation on the campaign trail of late, spurred in part by his release of his medical records, but more so thanks to the topic having come up during the recent CNN Democratic town hall event.

“I was a very good athlete,” Sanders told CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “I was pretty good basketball player. My elementary school in Brooklyn won the borough championship -- hardly worth mentioning, but we did. And, yes, I did take third place in the New York City indoor one-mile race. I was a very good long-distance runner -- not a great runner, but I was captain of my cross-country team, won a lot of cross-coun- try meets and certainly won a lot of races.”

The basketball thing actually gets brought up with some regularity. It’s mentioned on his Wikipedia page, there elevated to a “state championship.” But it’s also Sanders’s less-interesting athletic accomplishment.

New York City school competitions are run by an organization called thePublic Schools Athletic League, which has been managing how schools compete for borough and city titles since 1903. When I spoke with the organi- zation’s Daniel Harris, he told me all about the PSAL’s basketball tournament for high schools, for which records go back more than a century. But for primary schools?

“His elementary school won a borough championship?” Harris asked, bewildered. “I don’t know what that means.” Harris suggested I call the school -- P.S. 197 in Brooklyn. (In New York City, schools are usually identi- fied by number, with P.S. indicating a primary school, I.S. intermediate and H.S. high.) At P.S. 197, the curt woman who answered the phone said she’d been there 30 years and she’d never heard of it either.

Eventually, I found a mention of a Brooklyn basketball championship for elementary schoolers tucked away on page 19 of the Jan. 21, 1948, Brooklyn Daily Eagle. “P.S. 152 Takes Title,” it said, revealing that Sanders’s P.S.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 35 - February 2016 197 had fallen to 152 that year for the championship. This probably wasn’t Sanders’s team; he would have been in first grade. But the point is that the score of that game was 19-15. An impressive hard-court struggle this was not.

(Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jan. 1948)

The PSAL does deal with the city’s cross-country and track-and-field competitions, the former taking place dur- ing the fall and the latter the spring. The organization’s records for how those turned out only go back to about 2001, so Harris recommended reaching out to Sanders’s high school, James Madison in Midwood, for more information.

“You’re not going to believe this,” the athletic director at the school said when I called, “but I’m not allowed to talk about Bernie Sanders.” He’d been told by lawyers from the Department of Education, he said, that Sanders was off-limits. “I can’t say his name,” I was told, “but you can call the principal.”

As it turns out, there was no need.

The track and field team during Bernie Sanders’s senior year at Madison, in 1959, was so successful that the graduating class of 1960 bragged about it, making repeated mention of Sanders in its yearbook despite his hav- ing already graduated.

He started running his freshman year, under team captain Richard Creditor. In 10th grade, Sanders was a “standout,” per the yearbook, finishing first in the Flatbush championships (the local area competition within Brooklyn). The next year, when he was named co-captain, he finished first in Flatbush and took third in the city in the indoor one-mile, as he mentioned on CNN.

The team was successful, too, coming in sixth place in the city during his senior year and second in the borough and earning the yearbook praise of being “one of the best teams in Madison’s history.” (The year after Sanders left, the sole accolade listed in the yearbook is a team second in Flatbush.)

(New York Times, May 1957) TAFWA Newsletter - Page 36 - February 2016 (Madison High School yearbook, 1960/Brooklyn Public Library)

“I remember Bernie being tall. Good athlete. Fairly big guy. Good runner,” Creditor told me when we spoke by phone this week. The two both ran distance, with Creditor graduating when Sanders was a sophomore. “I’ll say he never beat me, but that’s another story. But he was a good athlete.”

Since Creditor and Sanders ran the same events, they trained together. “We didn’t have a lot of good training facilities,” Creditor said, though he noted it was a good school. They ran around the school’s indoor gym and around Madison’s 220-yard coal-cinder track outdoors.

Creditor, who ended up getting a running scholarship at the University of Maryland, remembered Sanders and the team without hesitation. He even remembered one of his competitors when I mentioned the athlete’s name. “Sam Gordon!” he said. “My wife tells me that I don’t remember what I did yesterday, but I remember Sam Gor- don and the Brooklyn championships at Van Cortlandt Park.”

After Creditor went to college, Sanders became co-captain of the team. He began training with new partners who also ran distance, Lou Howort and Danny Jalinsky. With another runner, they ran the distance medley, a relay in which a team of four runners cover a quarter-mile, a half-mile, three-quarters of a mile and a full mile, in series.

“Bernie was a very well-known runner from his freshman year,” Howort said about Sanders when we spoke this

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 37 - February 2016 week. Sanders was “probably the top run- ner in the city for ninth graders,” he said. “He was an elite runner at that point.”

(Madison High School newspaper/Courtesy of Lou Howort)

Howort came to Madison as a sophomore and was a foot shorter than Sanders. By the time both were juniors in the 1957- 1958 school year, Howort was a strong runner, too. “I think he underestimates himself when he says he was just a good runner,” he said of Sanders. “Was he a great runner? Maybe not. But he was a very good runner. He was better than just ‘good’.”

Howort remembered the race in which the Scott twins edged out Sanders; as you may have noticed above, he had come in fourth. As a team, Automotive regularly beat Madison, as it did that day in Van Cortlandt Park. While springtime track and field events could attract tens of thousands of spectators, long cross-country competitions up in the Bronx were more sparsely attended. The athletes would cluster at the beginning of a wide field, near Broadway, and then run a few football-field-lengths into a hilly woods. Once they came out of the woods, they ran across a bridge and back into the flat field for the finish.

Sanders, circled. Howort is pictured in the top row, two to the right of the coach (who is wearing a tie). (Courtesy of Lou Howort)

That day, Clarence Scott ran the two-and-a-half miles in 14 minutes, nine seconds, followed by his brother (two seconds behind), Sanders (seven seconds behind) and Howort (eight seconds behind). The Scotts usually won, Howort noted -- until the last race of his senior year.

But people knew Madison for the distance medley. Howort, Sanders and Jalinsky would train for that four days a week by running “quarter-mile repeats,” running a quarter mile, jogging for 220 yards and then running an- other quarter-mile, over and over. They’d switch off who ran the lead and who got to run behind, drafting off of the leader, and they got to know each other well.

Howort somewhat jokingly suggests that this may be why he, like Sanders, identifies as a socialist. “I don’t know what was going on in that school, but both of us came to similar conclusions,” he said. He said he hasn’t voted for a Democrat or Republican in decades. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 38 - February 2016 He’s planning to vote for Sanders because the senator is a “straight-up, honest guy” and “what he says he’s going to do, he will.” “I know for sure he honestly believes what he’s running on,” Howort said, “because he’s been run- ning on it for 30 years.”

“I’ll tell you,” he said, “if Bernie Sanders’s name was ‘Trump’ and I went to school with Trump, I’d have nothing to do with the guy. Even if I ran with him on the track team, it wouldn’t matter.”

Some might see a metaphor buried in here -- a tale about a guy who is a surprisingly strong runner, who comes in 18th in the race that makes the papers but wins races that no one expects, about a guy who comes from out of nowhere, trains hard and makes the competition nervous.

But this is just an article about sports. http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index. ssf/2016/01/raise_the_state_lodging_tax_he.html

Raise the state lodging tax, help fund world track championship: Editorial

By The Oregonian Editorial Board on January 28, 2016 at 9:27 AM, updated January 28, 2016 at 9:28 AM

Men run the 5,000-meter run during 2014 NCAA Track and Field Championships at Hayward Field, in Eugene, which will host the 2021 world track and field championship. (Thomas Boyd/Staff)

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 39 - February 2016 With debates looming over environmental regulation, the minimum wage, housing affordability and even the proper use of short, even-year legislative sessions, opportunities for bipartisanship may prove rare for state lawmakers next month. They should seize those that do occur, beginning with a proposal to double the state’s 1 percent lodging tax.

The prospect of raising a tax will make some lawmakers, especially Republicans, light-headed. And the prospect of doing so during a short legislative session may give many, if not most, lawmakers pause. But there are good reasons for both.

The statewide lodging tax was created by the Legislature in 2003 in order to market Oregon as a tourism des- tination. To that end, the revenue, about $17 million annually, supports Travel Oregon, the state’s tourism- promotion arm. About 47 to 50 percent of the agency’s revenue is used for global marketing, according to Travel Oregon CEO Todd Davidson, and lesser amounts fund global sales, regional tourism and destination develop- ment.

Doubling the tax would double the revenue, most of which would be used in the same way existing revenue is used. The cost of lodging would rise slightly, but most of the increase would be paid by people visiting here from elsewhere. According to Davidson, out-of-state visitors account for about 75 percent of overall spending by over- night travelers, including spending on hotel bookings.

The Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association, which represents the industry that would bear the brunt of this tax hike, supports it. And why not? As long as the tax isn’t excessive – and at 2 percent it would not be – there’s a lot to be said for extracting money from visitors to Oregon and using it to promote Oregon to other potential visitors.

Why raise the tax now rather than in 2017, during a long legislative session? Doing it this year would allow money to begin accruing sooner to support the 2021 world outdoor track championship, which will take place in Eugene. Organizers would like the Oregon Tourism Commission (the oversight body for Travel Oregon) to allocate a total of $25 million of the new revenue to the championship over four years. That’s about 37 percent of new money during that period.

Events as big as the world outdoor championship simply don’t occur without some public support, and the outdoor championship is big. Very big. This will mark the first time the outdoor championship has been held in the United States, and the host cities for the past five championships are as follows: Beijing (China), Moscow (Russia), Daegu (South Korea), Berlin (Germany) and Osaka (Japan). The fact that the championship is headed to Eugene is something of a miracle. It’s also a unique opportunity to market Oregon to the world. NBC will provide TV coverage of the nine-day event.

Spending $25 million on a world championship isn’t the same, of course, as spending the same amount on a marketing campaign. But to the degree that the spending helps focus the attention of millions of people across the world on Oregon and presents the state in a positive light, the distinction evaporates. And while much of the action will take place in Eugene – bonus coverage for the University of Oregon – the marathon will take place in Portland.

Organizers of the championship ultimately would like about $40 million in state support, which will accompany tens of millions in private fundraising. They’ll make their case for the balance of public funding at another time. What both the lodging industry and championship organizers would like the Legislature to do this year, how- ever, is both reasonable and modest. It would be a shame if it were overlooked amid the shouting.

Oregonian editorials Editorials reflect the collective opinion of The Oregonian editorial board, which operates independently of the newsroom. Members of the editorial board are Helen Jung, Erik Lukens, Steve Moss and Len Reed. To respond to this editorial: Post your comment below, submit a commentary piece, or write a letter to the editor. If you have questions about the opinion section, contact Erik Lukens, editorial and commentary editor, at [email protected] or 503-221-8142. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 40 - February 2016 http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting- scene/ryan-hall-americas-fastest-marathoner- slows-down

THE SPORTING SCENE

JANUARY 28, 2016 | BY PETER HESSLER Ryan Hall, America’s Fastest Marathoner, Slows Down

The marathoner Ryan Hall, pictured here at the Beijing Olympics, in 2008, is retiring from running after years of health problems.CREDIT PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK DADSWELL / GETTY

I am a former mediocre college distance runner who completed a couple of degrees in English literature, and those of us who belong to this particular demographic, in addition to a heightened sense of futility and masochism, are often capable of reciting A. E. Housman’s “To an Athlete Dying Young” from memory.

As a teenager, I especially liked one stanza:

Now you will not swell the rout Of lads that wore their honours out, Runners whom renown outran And the name died before the man.

I thought of those lines when I heard about the sudden retirement of Ryan Hall, who is by far the fastest American-born marathon- er of all time, and who earlier this month quit the sport at the age of thirty-three, after a period of steep physical decline. Housman reads differently as one grows older—despite the eternal and sentimental appeal of a track-star funeral, I often wish that the poet had illuminated a path for the vast major- ity of us who are destined to limp away from the sport. In the end, it’s usually not the honors that get worn out; it’s the hamstrings, the Achilles, the I.T.B.s. For Ryan Hall, trouble began with plantar fasciitis, back in 2012, and then he struggled with severe fatigue. He cancelled some races and dropped out of others; for nearly four years he failed to run well in any major competition. Medical tests showed that he had low testosterone levels, but that had been true even during his best days, and a mess of doctors and specialists couldn’t produce a clear diagnosis or solution. The final outcome was brutal but simple: Ryan Hall, like everybody else, just got slow.

I profiled Hall in the magazine, in 2008, before the Beijing Olympics, when he was coming off a remarkable string of races. In January of 2007, at the age of twenty-four, he won the Aramco Houston Half-Marathon in 59:43, shattering the American record by more than a minute, and becoming the first non-African to break the sixty-minute barrier. Later that spring, he ran the fastest-ever début marathon by an American, and then he destroyed a strong Olympic Trials field at Central Park. In the spring of 2008, on a rainy morning at the Flora London Marathon, he proved that he could run with the best of the Africans, going out at world-record pace and

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 41 - February 2016 staying with the lead pack until the final miles. The London field was the strongest that had ever been assem- bled, and Hall finished fifth in 2:06:17. Going into Beijing, he was among the favorites for a medal.

After hearing of Hall’s retirement, I looked back through my notes from that spring. Before the Olympics, I had asked Hall how he thought the race would compare to London, and he said, “I don’t expect it to go out as fast.” August in Beijing is hot and humid, and Olympic marathons had a long history of slow, tactical starts with un- expected outcomes—no other major marathon is held during the summer. “I don’t think anybody’s going to run fast there,” Dathan Ritzenhein, another member of the United States team, told me, in the months before the race. “I don’t think it’s going to be faster than 2:11.”

Everybody was dead-on about the weather—on the course, it was eighty-four degrees at the start of the race. But nobody had fully grasped the way that the sport of marathoning had been transformed. In Beijing, Martin Lel and Sammy Wanjiru, the Kenyans who had finished first and second at London, set off at what appeared to be a suicidal pace, hitting a world-record pace split at the ten-kilometre mark. But Wanjiru hardly faded—he won in 2:06:32, almost three minutes better than the previous Olympic record. Hall lost contact early and fin- ished tenth.

In subsequent years, Hall sometimes ran brilliantly—most notably, a 2:04:58 at Boston in 2011, the fastest time ever by an American. But he never finished better than third in a non-Trials marathon. His career coincided with a moment when the majority of African talent migrated to the longer distance, because of rich prizes and appearance fees. And nobody influenced this era more than Wanjiru.

After Beijing, the Kenyan never lost a marathon that he finished, and he always ran fearlessly—he declared that someday he would break two hours. He entered his final marathon, in Chicago in 2010, after suffering a bad stomach virus, and that victory, taken in a desperate sprint finish, remains the gutsiest performance of the era. The following spring, at Wanjiru’s home in Nyahururu, Kenya, he died in a fall from a first-floor balcony after a domestic dispute; it’s never been clear whether this was an accident, a homicide, or a suicide. At Wanjiru’s funeral, there was a twenty-one gun salute, heavy police security, and thousands of mourners who came to see him off—townsman of a stiller town.

When I look back through those old notes, a couple of comments stand out. Mary Wittenberg, who in 2008 was the president of the New York Road Runners, told me, “One of Ryan’s biggest attributes is that he wants to do this now. He’s not worrying about protecting a career. My sense is that he’s going to take his God-given talent, his work ethic, his desire, and he’s going to be the best he can be, right now. When it’s over, it’s over.” In June of 2008, I interviewed Sara Hall, Ryan’s wife, who said, “I could see Ryan running for six to eight more years. We’ll take it a year at a time. We want to adopt children.”

The other day, I talked on Skype with Ryan, who lives in Redding, California, and who had just dropped off his kids at school. In October, Ryan and Sara both started and acquired a big family all at once, adopting four sisters from Ethiopia. I had heard some speculation that this contributed to Ryan’s decision to retire, but he empha- sized that this wasn’t the case. “It was totally the opposite,” he said, in reference to his daughters, who range in age from five to fifteen. “They inspired me to try to get back to where I was before. I wanted them to see me run well; I really wanted that to happen. But my body is just falling apart.” He said that in recent months he had reached the point where he couldn’t even finish a half-hour jog. “It was the first time in my career that I believed that my best days were behind me,” he said. “It’s a little bit sad. You look back at the races, and you think that you’ll never get to experience that again. It’s like a little part of you dies.” He continued, “I still go out and run with the girls and with Sara, but the performance part of me, the élite athlete in me, definitely is gone.”

He now coaches Sara, who is preparing for the marathon Olympic Trials, which will be held next month. On the surface, the Halls have many similarities—both are blonde, photogenic Californians who grew up in devoutly Christian homes and then attended Stanford on athletic scholarships. But as runners they are opposites. Sara has yet to make an Olympic or World Championship outdoor national track squad, but she has remarkable range and versatility, having competed at the national level in everything from the mile to the marathon. For a time TAFWA Newsletter - Page 42 - February 2016 she raced the steeplechase; she’s also excelled at cross-country. In contrast, after Ryan switched to the mara- thon, he never ran well at any other distance, and he abandoned the track entirely.

He told me that, in retrospect, this had been a mistake. At Stanford, he had won an N.C.A.A. track champion- ship in the five thousand metres, and he qualified for the World Championships. “I think that having that speed behind me from college, having that 5K fitness, really helped my half-marathon,” he said. “If I could do it dif- ferently, I would have run just one marathon a year. Maybe do a fall marathon and then spend the spring doing track.” This was hardly a new idea—Frank Shorter, the last American man to win an Olympic marathon gold, always incorporated track racing into his marathon preparation, and Hall had often declared his intentions to do the same. In 2008, he told me, “I feel like there’s some unfinished business on the track.” After saying that, though, he admitted, “But track doesn’t seem as much fun right now.”

On Skype the other day, Hall acknowledged that this had been the problem, in part because the longer distance came much more naturally. He often logged a hundred and forty miles a week, and his long, fluid stride was perfect for the ten-mile tempo runs that are a staple of marathon training. “I was so addicted to the marathon,” he said. “When you’re competing with the best guys in the world in the marathon, and then you go down to the track and you’re running with guys who aren’t that good—it’s not that inspiring. I probably just needed somebody to slap me in the face all the time.” He told me that the exclusive focus on the marathon probably accelerated his physical decline. “When you’re running that much and that intensely, your body can only handle so much,” he said. “I think that’s one of the reasons why so many Kenyan runners have such short careers. They kind of train like I train.”

This is why Hall, who inspired huge numbers of running fans, also frustrated plenty of others. After his first few years as a professional, he coached himself for a spell, explaining that he would rely on prayer. (Once, when asked to list his coach on a form for a post-race drug test, he wrote, “God.” It’s worth noting that under God’s tutelage, Hall not only passed the drug test, but he also made the 2012 Olympic team and ran his 2:04:58 at Boston.) In recent years, he frequently switched coaches and advisers. The message boards at Letsrun.com, the most knowledgeable and active site for running fans, were often full of rants by people who were annoyed by Hall’s religion and dismayed by his failures.

But they missed the more subtle qualities of his character. Fierce independence was critical to the audacity of Hall’s career—no other top American runner of his generation committed at such an early age to the marathon, and nobody else ran as fearlessly as the Africans. To a non-believer, deep religious faith is often perceived as certainty and smugness, when in fact many strains of Christianity have a strong tradition of exploring doubt and self-criticism. In person, this is one of Hall’s most likable qualities—he’s brutally honest about himself, and he admits mistakes and weaknesses in a way that seems rare among top athletes. In 2008, we talked about his famous “Big Three” high-school rivalry with Ritzenhein and Alan Webb. In high school, Webb was the most suc- cessful; he defeated Hall in all of their track races and broke the four-minute barrier in the mile, which had been Hall’s dream. I asked Hall if it had bothered him when, during their senior year, Webb ran the mile in 3:53.43, shattering a record that Jim Ryun had held for thirty-six years.

“I would be lying if I said no,” Hall said, and then he told me that immediately after watching Webb’s race on television, he got in a near-fight during a pickup basketball game at a church. “I got real mad at this kid I was playing,” he said. “I got a little rough, and we got into it a little. It was at a church; it was supposed to be a nice summer game! He didn’t know why I was getting worked up. I walked away mad.” Hall gave an embarrassed laugh and said, “I don’t think I’ve ever told that story to anybody.”

Hall said that his naturally competitive streak was something that he didn’t like about himself, and he had worked hard to control it. “I just have a hard time seeing Christ being competitive,” he said. He told me that one reason he liked the marathon was that so much of the training is solitary, and competition feels more internal— an athlete pushing against the limits of his body.

Hall, Webb, and Ritzenhein have very different personalities, and their post-high-school careers followed dis- parate paths. For a spell, Webb was America’s top miler, whereas Ritzenhein initially ran best at cross-country. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 43 - February 2016 But as time passes, their separate legacies are likely to coalesce once more. When they were high-school juniors, American men’s distance running was so weak that the country was only able to send one marathoner to the Olympics in Sydney. Immense expectations were placed on the “Big Three,” and it’s remarkable that all of them went on to strong professional careers—each set at least one major American record. (Webb retired from track in 2014, while Ritzenhein is one of the favorites for next month’s marathon Trials.)

“There’s a special connection with those guys,” Hall said. “We all came along and pushed each other, inspired each other.” Most important, all three were bold racers, sometimes to a fault. Since they appeared on the scene, there’s been a striking improvement in American distance running, and young runners nowadays seem much less intimidated by their African competition.

When I asked Hall over Skype about future plans, he said, “If anybody out there has any job openings, shoot me an e-mail.” He told me that at some point, after Sara’s career is finished, the family might move to Ethiopia, per- haps to work in the field of development. He told me there’s no chance of a comeback. “When I flip the switch, it’s off,” he said. “My body has given everything.”

But throughout the conversation, his tone was slightly wistful, which had always been his character. When I saw him a few days after his phenomenal race in London, in 2008, he said, “I don’t feel like that was all that I had.” The lead pack had gone out at world-record pace for the first half, and then Hall had the audacity to ask the rab- bits, the men paid to lead the race in the early miles, to speed up. For a stretch he lost contact, but he rejoined the leaders just as the weather changed. “Right when I caught them was when we hit the storm, with the wind and the rain, so I didn’t push it.”

He shook his head and smiled; at the time, he was only twenty-five years old, and it never would have crossed his mind that his best performances were already behind him. He said, “I don’t know if it would have changed the outcome, but I kind of wish I had tasted the lead.”

http://cyrushostetler.com/blog/javelin-mecca-in-san-diego/

American men’s throwing has struggled to win medals at the World Championship and Olympic stage.

The throws aren’t usually on television, and there is minimal to no money in the sport, and most people couldn’t describe a “hammer.” Go figure we struggle in the throws.

You can nearly go anywhere and find a “track” club or a group of runners that train and feed off each other; yet the throwers are a secretive bunch that is spread across the nation.

The trouble is there aren’t that many coaches in America that know our extremely technical sport (please don’t take offense if you are a throws coach). But in a sport where there is no money for the athletes it leaves even less money for the coaches. And thus only a small group of passionate coaches are left.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 44 - February 2016 Many of these coaches are in the NCAA system. And because of NCAA rules, coaches cannot coach post colle- giate athletes unless they too are assistant coaches or train at completely different hours of the day. So for many of us we look for answers alone.

The USOC created a training center in Chula Vista California (near San Diego) for potential Olympic athletes to train after college. The training center is mostly for field athletes, without big contracts, or who can’t afford to make athletics their full time job.

The training center has been running for the last 20 years and is the closest thing to an athletic club where throwers and jumpers are actually welcomed.

The last few years have been incredibly successful for some of the groups at the center. We have some of the best long jumpers in the world training here. Art Venegas coaches some of the best throwers in the world as well. But the javelin group hasn’t particularly taken off.

The training center hasn’t invested much into the javelin. There are no coaches at the training center that coach the javelin. Many of the javelin throwers that have been residents have left after a few short years, for unknown reasons, or been told to leave. But things are really changing, and it’s all because the javelin throwers have banned together.

Sean Furey (83.08m PB) has been training at the center for years. He was joined by Craig Kinsley (82.31m PB) and Ryan Young (79.89m PB) in 2012, and myself in 2015. And we just added our newest member to the group, Sam Crouser (83.33m PB).

That’s right five male javelin throwers, that have thrown 80m, all working together in the same place! What other location in the world can boast this?

We still don’t have a coach, but we work together. We throw together. We help each other.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 45 - February 2016 http://portlandtribune.com/pt/12- sports/292089-168264-portland-has- had-long-run-with-indoor-track

PORTLAND HAS HAD LONG RUN WITH INDOOR TRACK Created on Thursday, 04 February 2016 11:57 | Written by Kerry Eggers | KERRY EGGERS ON SPORTS

COURTESY: BENYON SPORTS - Indoor track and field competition has been going on this year at the House of Track in Northwest Portland, built by Benyon Sports, as a prelude to two major events coming soon to the Oregon Convention Center.

The focus of the international track and field world will be on Portland in March, when the U.S. Indoor Champi- onships and IAAF World Indoor Championships will take place a week apart at the Oregon Convention Center. They will be the first indoor meets held in the city in nearly two decades.

Only old-timers will remember the Oregon Indoor, which began as the brainchild of legendary University of Oregon coach Bill Bowerman in 1961 and continued to its slow death in 1997.

The Oregon Indoor was held annually during the winter months in Memorial Coliseum, beginning just a few months after the new facility opened its doors. Members of the Oregon Track Club and the Oregon State University track and field program ran the meet through the early years. Eugene’s Bob Newland served as meet director of the international night meet for its first 20 years. Fellow Eugene resident Al Tarpenning conducted the daytime developmental meet to the bitter end, and filled in as nighttime meet director after Newland until Tom Jordan took over in 1986.

A crowd of 7,100 was on hand for the inaugural meet, which featured New Zealand’s Murray Halberg breaking the world indoor 2-mile record by more than 10 seconds.

The ‘60s saw an assault on the record book, with China’s C.K. Yang bettering his personal record by 18 inches to set a world record of 16-3 1/4 in the pole vault; Oregon’s Neil Steinhauer setting a world record of 67-10 in the shot put in 1967, and Finland’s Altti Alarotu setting a European record and becoming the second person to clear 17 feet in 1968. There were appearances by many of the world’s greats, including four-time Olympic shot put- ter Parry O’Brien, distance-running stars Bill Baillie, Dyrol Burleson, Gerry Lindgren and Francie Larrieu, high jumper Otis Burrell and sprinter Jim Hines.

And there was Steve Prefontaine, who had a five-year run winning the 2-mile event from 1971-75. In 1972, Pre- fontaine — then a UO junior — nearly lapped the great Jim Ryun to win in a collegiate-record 8:26.6. Pre broke the American record the next year in 8:24.6, edging Stanford’s Don Kardong before a packed house. In 1974, Pre TAFWA Newsletter - Page 46 - February 2016 lowered his U.S. standard to 8:22.2.

There were major international entrants every year, but the staple of the Oregon Indoor through the1960s and ‘70s were athletes from Oregon and Oregon State, both among the nation’s top 10 programs at the time. The meet drew crowds of 8,000 to 10,000 through those years. “There weren’t many indoor meets on the West Coast in those years,” says Chuck McNeil, 82, an assistant coach at Oregon State beginning in 1964 who went on to become the Beavers’ head coach. “Oregon and Oregon State established the meet for both of us to have another meet for our athletes to get involved with during the indoor season. We had nice crowds every year.”

Things changed when world-class athletes began reaping guaranteed appearance fees in the mid-’70s. By 1985, the Oregon Indoor had become largely a regional meet with a smattering of big names.

The original plywood running surface — the first portable indoor track west of Kansas — was used for 21 years. There was no artificial cover, and the millions of spike marks turned the track into a mass of miniature craters. In 1982, former Oregon State runner Jose Cruz — who worked in environmental services and in lumber and marble importing/exporting in Portland — was called upon under the direction of Nike to design and construct a new track. Cruz was in the first year of a 25-year run as a member of the meet’s board of directors.

“It was the first time I had designed anything like that,” says Cruz, 79, now retired and living in Sedona, Ariz. “The highest bank was 4 feet (the previous track’s height was 3 feet), and it turned out to be a little too high. I redesigned it and lowered it 6 inches the next year.”

The six-lane, 200-meter rainbow-colored track with a plastic coating took Cruz about a month to complete. It was used through the ‘80s.

“I wasn’t sure how the track would fit together in the coliseum,” Cruz says. “It fit perfectly. (Former OSU coach) Berny Wagner got the plywood donated from Longview. People donated space for us to store the track at a ware- house in Hillsboro.”

The meet got a lift in 1986 when Jordan was hired as meet director. Jordan, a former Stanford and Illinois runner, had moved to Eugene in 1982 and had served as the Prefontaine Classic director for two years when he came on board for the Oregon Indoor.

“Tom was a tremendous promoter,” Cruz says. “He was largely responsible for building the meet back up.” The first year under Jordan’s direction, on a shoestring budget, the meet’s attendance was 3,800 despite a field that featured such names as Jimmy Howard, Jarmila Kratochvilova, Doug Padilla, Marcus O’Sullivan, Ruth Wysocki and Brian Oldfield. Howard high-jumped 7-7 3/4 to earn the outstanding performer award. Then a title sponsor was landed thanks to Tarpenning, long-time coach at Lane Community College and the father of Olympic pole vaulter Kory Tarpenning.

“On a plane flight, Al happened to sit next to the general manager of Pacific Northwest Bell,” Jordan says. “Al was always filled with enthusiasm for track and field and pretty much sold the GM on the concept of sponsoring the meet. Al and I met with the GM and sealed the deal.”

Jordan added KOIN-TV as co-sponsor for the 1987 meet.

That year, the Oregon Indoor was the second stop on the 14-meet Mobil Grand Prix world indoor circuit. A sell- out crowd of 9,368 was on hand for a stellar meet featuring three current world record-holders and six Ameri- can record-holders. Earl Bell set a world best by clearing 19-2 3/4 in the pole vault. World outdoor 110-hurdles record-holder Renaldo Nehemiah won the 55 hurdles in a hand-timed 6.9. It could have been a world record — the coliseum’s unofficial record put him at 6.87, faster than his own WR of 6.89. But the Accutrack electronic timing device malfunctioned, disallowing any record.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 47 - February 2016 “I can still remember going out onto the concourse 20 minutes before the meet and looking down at the ticket booths, where they were telling people the event was sold out and they were out of luck,” Jordan says. “I was never so glad to see people pissed off.”

The meet did well at the gate through 1990, when the Oregon Indoor board bought the track used for the San Francisco Examiner Indoor, which had folded, for $15,000. U.S. West came on as the title sponsor in 1989, but dropped out after 1992. Jordan resigned his position, and the meet limped along with smaller crowds until its final curtain call in 1996.

“After we lost U.S. West, everything was difficult money-wise,” says Cruz, who ran the meet during its final four years of existence. “One year, we couldn’t pay the printer that put out the meet program. We paid the bill the next year.”

A meet was scheduled for February 1997 but never came off. “We had tried to get Nike to help us, and they may have given us a few thousand bucks, but they weren’t interested in getting more involved, which was strange to me,” Cruz says. “They had another agenda. “Then I could not get a confirmed date at the coliseum from the Trail Blazers. They would not give me a date for the meet. They started playing games why they didn’t want to give us a Saturday date — they wanted it on a Sunday or Monday night. It was really frustrating. Without a weekend date, we could not function.”

Now, for the time in 20 years, indoor track returns to Portland.

“It’s fantastic,” Jordan says. “Kudos to Vin Lananna, TrackTown USA and USA Track & Field for getting it done. The World Indoors is setting the bar very high. I’ll be there as a spectator, for sure.”

Editor’s Note: Kerry Eggers is a former TAFWA president.

Mary Slaney and Zola Budd 30 years later.... facebook.com TAFWA Newsletter - Page 48 - February 2016 TAFWA Newsletter - Page 49 - February 2016 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/ othersports/athletics/12141511/ Athletics-world-records-blow-as-Wang- Junxia-admits-being-part-of-Chinese-state- sponsored-doping-regime.html

By Ben Bloom | 10:47PM GMT 04 Feb 2016

Athletics world records blow as Wang Junxia ‘admits’ being part of Chinese state-sponsored doping regime 10,000m and 3,000m world record holder reportedly signed a letter detailing being forced to take “large doses of illegal drugs over the years”

Wang Junxia (right) currently holds the 10,000m and 3,000m world records Photo: REUTERS

The legitimacy of existing athletics world records took another hit on Thursday night when Olympic champion and multiple world record holder Wang Junxia reportedly admitted to being part of a Chinese state-sponsored doping regime.

Wang, whose 10,000m world record set in 1993 is a huge 22 seconds ahead of the next best runner in history, has long had question marks over her performances after producing a series of incredible times when part of a group of runners nicknamed Ma’s Army, after their controversial coach Ma Junren.

Ma has been accused of numerous doping offences over the past two decades - all of which he denies - and it has now emerged that Wang, who also holds the 3,000m world record, apparently signed a letter back in 1995

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 50 - February 2016 detailing being forced to take “large doses of illegal drugs over the years”.

The letter, which was also reportedly signed by nine of Wang’s team-mates, was sent to a journalist named Zhao Yu, but remained unpublished until Chinese state media revealed its existence this week. The letter reportedly details how Chinese female athletes attempted to discard drugs that were forced upon them only for coaches to personally inject them.

“We are humans, not animals,” reads the letter. “For many years, [Junren] forced us to take a large dose of illegal drugs. It was true.”

Wang took Olympic 10,000m silver in 1996 having won 5,000m gold

Following the publication of the letter in China, the International Association of Athletics Federations con- firmed they have launched a probe into the claims.

“The [Chinese state media] story confirms the existence of the letter allegedly written to the journalist only became known yesterday,” said an IAAF spokesman.

“Therefore the IAAF’s first action must be to verify that the letter is genuine. In this respect, the IAAF has asked the Chinese Athletics Association to assist it in that process.”

Honoured with a place in the IAAF Hall of Fame for her achievements in 1993, Wang retired from the sport in 1997 having never failed a drugs test. If the letter’s legitimacy is proven, the IAAF confirmed that any admission of guilt could see Wang’s world records scrapped. The emergence of the Chinese letter comes less than a month after UK Athletics called for all world records to be frozen and replaced with a new set of record heralding the start of a “clean athletics era”.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 51 - February 2016 http://running.competitor.com/2016/02/olympic-trials/brad-hudson-hoping-to-elevate-american-marathon- ing_144557

Coach Brad Hudson Hoping To Help Elevate American Marathoning By Mario Fraioli, Published Feb. 8, 2016, Updated 2 days ago

Brad Hudson leads a workout in Boulder, Colorado. Photo: Brian Metzler

Brad Hudson of Boulder, Colo., isn’t shy about sharing training information, and heading into the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon on Feb. 13 in Los Angeles, he’s hoping that his open-book policy can help elevate the status of marathoning in the United States—even if it takes a few more years.

“I think that Americans are training very hard and smart,” contends the 49-year-old Hudson. “I just wish there were a little more dialogue. The information is there—that’s why I put the Little Black Book out—but I’ve always felt that if coaches would be willing to share a little more, we’d all be better because of it. Some of the athletes are pretty open with what they’re doing and I like seeing that stuff. I think we’re on the right track, but I just don’t think we’re there yet.”

Hudson, ever the stickler for details when it comes to marathon training, is wrapping up a six-week pre-Trials training camp in Henderson, Nev., with some of the members of his Hudson Elite squad. He’s focused on put- ting his athletes on track for a solid showing in L.A., but in order to do so, he felt it was important to get away from their high altitude base for a bit so they could better dial in the specific demands of the event. Boulder is situated at 5,400 feet above sea level, whereas Henderson sits at 1,330 feet.

“Altitude is great and Boulder is one of the best places in the country to train,” explains Hudson, who will have eight athletes competing in Los Angeles. “And for a marathon buildup, it really works for the first half or three quarters of the training, but in order to take the mystery out the specific endurance workouts, I felt it was im- portant to go down [to lower elevation] for a few weeks beforehand.” TAFWA Newsletter - Page 52 - February 2016 Hudson and his crew rented a house in Henderson, and they have been training in the area since early January. They’ll drive from the desert to L.A. for the Trials before heading back to Boulder, where Hudson has been work- ing to fulfill his vision of a training center that can support elite athletes—who in turn can support the local community. In fact, it was the support of the local running community—many of whom are coached by Hud- son’s athletes—that helped make his squad’s pre-Trials training camp possible.

“We mostly raised the money through community coaching,” explains Hudson. “All of those funds come back to the team. We also had some donations and raised $10,000 at our gala a couple months ago. We’re probably about two years away from being a really good club that can cover more things for the athletes, but we’re start- ing to cover more things, like medical expenses, blood work, massage and whatnot. Are we there yet? No, but we’re a lot closer.”

Of Hudson’s eight qualifiers for this year’s marathon trials, four of them are based in Boulder as part of his Hudson Elite training group and meet with him on a regular basis for workouts. Those athletes include Adams State alum Matt Daniels, who will be making his marathon debut in L.A., and qualified with a 63:43 clocking at the Rock ’n’ Roll San Jose Half Marathon last fall; Kara Lubieniecki and Addie Bracy, who ran “A” qualifiers of 2:35:25 and 2:35:55, respectively, at the Cal International Marathon in 2014; and Claudia Becque, a three-time Trials qualifier with a 2:39:12 personal best. Fernando Cabada, who was seventh at the 2012 Trials in a then personal best of 2:11:53, is Hudson’s fastest charge, followed by Carlos Trujillo, who owns a 2:14 personal best. Tera Moody, who was fifth at the 2008 Trials, and two-time Trials qualifier Rachel Jaten of Spokane, are the other two non-Boulder-based exceptions to Hudson’s crew.

“Brad is literally a genius when it comes to marathon training,” says Cabada, who has been bouncing between altitude training in Mexico and sea-level work in his hometown of Fresno, Calif., in preparation for this year’s Trials. “Not only has he had experience on an elite level, he has also done the research. I trust him just off that information alone, but also because he has one of the biggest hearts in the world. He loves to help athletes and has never been in it for the money.”

Coaching for the love of the sport and sustaining an elite racing team fulfills a vision Hudson has had since his early days as a coach. “I knew I wanted to coach from day one,” says Hudson, who in the past has coached U.S. Olympians Dathan Ritzenhein and Jorge Torres, along with Australian Olympian Benita Willis and American marathoner Jason Hartmann, among others. “And once I started coaching, I knew that I wanted an elite train- ing group someday. I wanted it to be on the lines of a professional cycling team without the bad stuff [doping]. It takes time to get the right people. I have some great people around me who all share the same vision and they’re putting stuff together for members to utilize five or six years down the road. I’m thankful that I have people who are on the same page with this vision.”

As an athlete, the hard-working Hudson—who was coached by current University of Colorado headman Mark Wetmore as a grade-schooler—would go on to set a national high school record in the indoor 5,000m as a junior, and later garnered multiple All-American honors at the University of Oregon. He set his marathon personal best of 2:13:24 at Cal International in 1990, the high point of a professional career that was cut short by injury and burnout.

A lifelong student of the sport, Hudson knew he would always make his mark in coaching. In addition to Wet- more, he’s had other top-level mentors along the way, including Pat Clohessey, Arturo Barrios, Mike Manley and Bill Dellinger, among others.

“I was always asking people about training and studying training, and even in high school I was kind of coaching myself a lot, getting workouts from different people,” recalls Hudson, who counts Italian coach Renato Canova, who has led many of Kenya’s top marathoners to world-leading times and high-podium finishes with his specific approach to marathon training, as his biggest influence. “My favorite thing when I was a kid was to read from the training logs of Runner’s World. You never know if you’ll be a decent coach until you actually coach, but I never gave it a second thought that I wouldn’t be coaching.” TAFWA Newsletter - Page 53 - February 2016 Hudson has had athletes compete in the last three Olympic Games. In 2012, 11 of his athletes qualified for the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon, with three of those runners—Cabada (7th), James Carney (9th) and Patrick Rizzo (13th)—finishing in the top-15. Despite his own athletes’ successes and improvements, however, Hud- son’s ultimate goal is to help elevate the status of American marathoning on the global level. Never one to be shy about sharing training information, Hudson, who still tries to spend an hour a day studying training, believes more runners need to specialize in the marathon from earlier on in their careers to be successful at it. Mastery takes time he says, and so does adapting to the specific demands of marathon training. He also believes that coaches and athletes need to continue emphasizing consistently high training volume, demanding race-specific workouts and an intimate understanding of the role that fueling plays on race day.

“I think it’s a very, very hard event because the training matters,” Hudson told me last summer. “It matters a lot, more so than probably most other events. You can’t get by just on talent because you’ll run out of fuel. The training very much matters.”

“The biggest lesson I have learned working with Brad is that marathon training is hard,” admits Cabada. “I mean, really hard.”

American marathoners are heading in the right direction, Hudson says, and more and more coaches and athletes are realizing what it takes to be world-class in the event. He believes it’s only a matter of time before there are more sub-2:10 and mid-to-low 2:20-type women competing at an international level.

“The only thing we really haven’t been great at is the marathon,” contends Hudson. “And I’m really hoping I can make a difference in that in the next 10 years.”

Read more at http://running.competitor.com/2016/02/olympic-trials/brad-hudson-hoping-to-elevate-ameri- can-marathoning_144557#G8GHCYW0f3UV1EWL.99

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 54 - February 2016 http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/assignment-chica- go/2013/05/the-idiocy-of-eliminating-a-photo-staff.html#.VrP- MY6rbUvc.facebook

05/30/2013 | Alex Garcia

The Idiocy of Eliminating a Photo Staff

A picture of former Chicago Sun-TImes photojournalist John H. White, at center, hangs at the Billy Goat Tavern, a long-time gathering place for Chicago journalists. Alex Garcia/Chicago Tribune

The bad management sinking the Sun-Times was on full display today. And I’m not just talking about laying off probably 500+ years of cumulative experience with a 30 second announcement in a sterile hotel conference room with nary a whiff of gratitude for years of service.

It’s about thinking you could deliver a product people would want by gutting the visual professionals from your news organization.

Some people think this was a union-busting move. You fire all the photographers, most of them unionized, by

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 55- February 2016 saying you are switching their duties to others. Essentially, you’re “eliminating their positions”.

Then, months from now you announce that oops, your experiment has failed. So you hire staff again. This time they’re very different positions – part-time positions, with little if any benefits.

That’s business. They wouldn’t confess to any of it, even if absolutely true. That wouldn’t play well with the Na- tional Labor Relations Board, especially after the union complained about the fact that mass layoffs were never mentioned during current negotiations. The union was as surprised as anyone.

But you know, the Sun-Times business executives spend as much time looking at numbers as politicians look at chessboards. They think 2-3 steps ahead of everyone and act innocent or go silent when confronted with accusa- tions of ulterior motives.

The reason why this is poor management and not smart Machiavellian management is because although you’ve saved your bottom line, you’ve exposed your naked disregard for your customers.

The photographers they fired were not button-pushers, they were journalists and trusted members of their com- munities.

Some of them were deeply connected to areas of Chicago in ways that a freshly minted multimedia journalism graduate from New York will never be.

Everyone in the city, it seemed to me, knew John White and Brian Jackson. I couldn’t walk up to a crime scene or a neighborhood center without them receiving slaps on the back and having doors thrown open. Scott Stew- art had deep access to firefighters and fire officials in the city, on a first name basis. Me? I was just some Trib schlep trying to piggyback on their reputation by standing closer to them while hoping to get a little better ac- cess or better treatment. It was maddening.

Most Sun-Times photojournalists I knew, because of their decades of experience, were unsung journalists more than photographers. They knew how things worked and what made communities tick. They found stories and passed them on. They helped to shape stories, correct misperceptions and convey understandings that have deep resonance with readers. I am sure that many of their reporter colleagues would attest to this. I would also bet that some reporters will continue to call them, hoping to get a little help here and there.

By eliminating their deep knowledge, connection and trust to their communities, the Sun-Times has signaled to its readership that it doesn’t really care.

And so begins the death spiral.

Moreover, the idea that freelancers and reporters could replace a photo staff with iPhones is idiotic at worst, and hopelessly uninformed at best. Why? It’s a logistical nightmare.

News is demanding. Even when you have a staff, the assignment editors want to pull their hair out. You need to have people in place on a regular basis, ready to move when assignments fall through and news happens. As- signments are not what you expect. They get cancelled, moved, dropped, and disregarded depending on priori- ties that change like the wind. That’s why photo departments have schedules and shifts. You can’t hope to make calls to 10 freelancers each day hoping to find a few that will cover the news. You can’t expect a freelancer to drop a higher-paying job or to get into the city from Crystal Lake when everything busts loose. Good freelancers know they’re good, and will likely drop out for higher-paying assignments.

The IRS isn’t fooled.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 56 - February 2016 The minute you put a freelancer on a schedule, train them, give them equipment or work them a majority of the week, they start to become a de facto employee. I’ve been down this road before. When I worked at the Los Angeles Times, I was hired as a part-time staff photographer, working alongside part-time “independent contract” photographers. They weren’t independent, however, by the criteria established by the Internal Revenue Service. End result? They were all hired on staff. It has happened at other newspapers around the country. At best, a freelancer could be retained in such a manner for a temporary basis. But after their time is up, the talent churns and a work environment destabilizes.

Reporters are ill equipped to take over.

That’s because the best reporters use a different hemisphere of the brain to do their jobs than the best photog- raphers. Visual and spatial thinking in three dimensions is very different than verbal and analytical thinking. Even if you don’t believe that bit of science, the reality is that visual reporting and written reporting will take you to different parts of a scene and hold you there longer. I have never been in a newsroom where you could do someone else’s job and also do yours well. Even when I shoot video and stills on an assignment, with the same camera, both tend to suffer. They require different ways of thinking, involving motion and sound.

The brand will suffer.

You’re trusting your brand with freelancers, who are not loyal to you. Not that they’re aren’t loyal and ethical freelancers, but when you have someone on staff they likely won’t do things to get fired.

When you run freelancers around for little pay, you won’t get the best from them. It’s more of a service-provider relationship than a journalist-mission relationship. You can’t trust they will uphold the ethics that could jeopar- dize the integrity of a newspaper’s reputation.

The equipment is still deficient.

An iPhone is just an iPhone. It doesn’t have a telephoto to see way past police lines or across a field, ballroom or four-lane highway. It doesn’t have a lot of manual controls to deal with the countless situations that automatic exposure will fail to capture. How many situations are 18% gray, anyway?

The reason why photojournalists have the best equipment on the market is because we use it. Our gear is put through demands that stretch camera technology to its limits by the sheer number and diversity of assignments on a regular basis.I could go on about today’s decision, but it’s too much for me to summarize four years of blog posts about why professional photojournalists are valuable and needed.

The layoffs today were sickening, for the photojournalists whose talents and careers were buried, and for the people of Chicago, who will suffer the effects of bad management disguised as “changing times

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 57 - February 2016 http://registerguard. com/rg/news/lo- cal/34048079-75/story. csp

EUGENE 2021 IAAF WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS Portland agencies object to proposed doubling of Oregon lodging tax, posing hurdle for TrackTown Eugene subsidy

BY SAUL HUBBARD | The Register-Guard |FEB. 11, 2016

SALEM — Portland government agencies are resisting a proposal to double Oregon’s lodging tax, a potential obstacle for Lane County lawmakers’ efforts to secure a $25 million state subsidy for the 2021 world track and field championships in Eugene.

The objections from the city of Portland, Metro — the Portland area regional government — and Travel Port- land have nothing to do with the subsidy for the track event, per se, which they say they support.

Instead, the agencies worry that permanently doubling the state lodging tax, to 2 percent from 1 percent, is too much of an increase, given that local lodging taxes already add up to a combined 13.5 percent on hotel rooms in Portland, the highest of any city in the state.

In the short term, the proposed state increase would put Portland at a disadvantage with other big national cit- ies when it comes to hosting conventions and other group travel, the agencies’ lobbyists argue. Conventions play a key role in keeping Portland hotels full during the winter, they say, and lodging tax rates can influence where organizers choose to go.

The proposal “would harm the state’s ability to continue attracting lucrative convention groups,” Randy Tucker, a lobbyist for Metro, told lawmakers at a hearing this week.

A 2015 industry survey found that Portland ranked 43rd among U.S. cities in total combined lodging taxes. It would jump up to 25th nationally, should the state lodging tax increase to 2 percent.

Long term, doubling the state tax will make it more difficult to increase local lodging taxes to pay for tourism- linked facility improvements in Portland in coming years, they say. Money is needed for the Oregon Convention Center and a new nearby publicly subsidized hotel, and upgrades to the Expo Center and Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

“Portland does have its own tourism infrastructure and event needs, just like Hayward Field and the track event” in Eugene, said Jeff Miller, CEO of Travel Portland.

The 2021 Hayward Field event will be run by the Eugene-based nonprofit TrackTown USA, headed by University of Oregon athletics executive Vin Lananna. Because event expenses would far outpace revenues, such as ticket sales, Lananna is seeking government subsidies, including from the proposed hotel tax increase.

The objections from Portland are a challenge to the backers of the lodging tax increase, House Bill 4146, which in turn threatens the track subsidy.

Because it is a tax bill, it needs a three-fifths vote in both chambers to pass. Majority Democrats could struggle to get the needed votes if they lose too many Portland area legislators.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 58 - February 2016 Portland also generates a big chunk of the tax: About 30 percent of state lodging tax revenues are collected in the city, 40 percent if one includes the entire metropolitan area.

So far, a compromise isn’t at hand.

Portland and Metro have proposed two alternatives to the current version of HB 4146. One would boost the state lodging tax to 1.5 percent, for only four years, raising roughly enough to meet just the Eugene track event’s request.

The other would increase the state tax to 1.5 percent but permanently. It would create a new competitive grant program, worth about $4 million a year, that could be used to fund the track championships, exclusively, in its first few years. Afterward, the grants would be used for tourism facilities and events.

That version would permanently boost funding for Travel Oregon, the state’s tourism marketing agency, and for the regional tourism agencies around the state.

But both proposals are a far cry from HB 4146, which would increase the state’s lodging tax revenues to about $35 million a year, roughly doubling Travel Oregon’s budget and greatly boost funding for regional tourism agencies.

Under HB 4146, the Legislature wouldn’t specifically earmark $25 million for the track championships. Instead, Travel Oregon’s governing board, a governor-appointed panel of nine volunteers who represent lodging and tourism, would make the final call on the subsidy, using money from its new funding stream.

Rep. Nancy Nathanson, a Eugene Democrat who is the chief sponsor of HB 4146, said Wednesday that she is prepared to tweak her proposal to provide a greater share of the new money to the regional agencies, including Travel Portland.

But Nathanson said she isn’t open to a lodging tax increase of less than 1 percentage point, or to a temporary increase.

The smaller increase would mean that most of the new money would most likely be needed for the track champi- onships until 2021, meaning less would be available for other tourism-related projects.

“There are other requests out there,” Nathanson said. The larger increase “gives more immediate help to other parts of the state.”

“There are legislators who think Portland get too much of the (tourism) money already,” she added, pointing to several Portlan area projects that have received state money in recent years.

HB 4146 is up for a work session on Thursday in the House Revenue Committee. The amendments will be con- sidered at that meeting.

Rep. Phil Barnhart, a Eugene Democrat and chairman of the committee, said Wednesday that Nathanson’s fa- vored approach, with a bigger slice of the increased tax revenue for regional agencies, “seems reasonable to me.” He added that Portland’s objections “were a bit disingenuous” since “lots other cities have higher lodging taxes than they do.”

Asked if Portland’s objections could threaten the bill’s passage, Barnhart said: “That hasn’t appeared to be an issue at this point.”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 59 - February 2016 http://www.latimes.com/opinion/livable-city/ la-ol-garcetti-olympics-subway-20160210-story. html

Opinion Mayor Eric Garcetti on the death of Olympic Piggyback Yard plan, and how it actually helps L.A.’s transit future

Mariel Garza

Mayor Eric Garcetti and International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach at UCLA campus for the LA 2024 Olympic bid at UCLA on Feb. 1. (Harry How / Getty Images)

One of the biggest pieces of any Olympic bid is the plan to accommodate thousands of athletes, if not in high style, then at least in relative comfort and proximity to sporting venues. This can also be the priciest piece because, unlike arenas and coliseums, cities don’t generally have gigantic housing developments sitting around waiting for a huge influx of temporary visitors.

To that end, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s bid for the 2024 summer Olympics included a $1-billion proposal to build an athlete village in a rail yard along the L.A. River near downtown called Piggyback Yard, which could then be turned into market housing after the games were done. This site was already identified as future open space as part of the river restoration plan. The price tag and the various challenges of developing housing on an industrial site (hello toxic soil) made it the single most controversial piece of the Olympic bid package.

But Garcetti said blowback wasn’t the reason for the surprise announcement last month that the LA 2024 Com- mittee had shelved the Piggyback Yard idea in favor of a more practical and vastly more economical plan of using student housing at UCLA.

Garcetti sat down for an interview earlier this month to talk about how this shift happened, what it means for

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 60 -February 2016 downtown and what will happen to Piggyback Yard now.

Below are highlights of that conversation, starting with whether moving the athlete Village to Westwood would alter the eastside flavor of the 2024 games.

Garcetti: Piggyback Yard is an isolated piece of geography even for the northeast, right? It doesn’t exactly bleed into a main street or a neighborhood. Obviously we have big ecology plans for it too. And when I thought about getting from there to the Coliseum, it’s probably as long as it will be from Westwood, assuming the subway stop, because it’s a 21-minute ride from Westwood to downtown. Maybe add a couple minutes for the transfer to Expo [line]. But it’s not substantively much longer.... You’re right it’s a different geography, but it’s not changing the emphasis of where the Games themselves are.

We do have the hub still from Figueroa between the Convention Center and Exposition Park. That’s where you’re going to get the big three: swimming, gymnastics and track and field. Artist’s rendering of the proposed 2024 Olympic Way between the convention center and the coliseum.

You said it’s a 21-minute stop from Westwood to downtown, via what?

Garcetti: The Purple Line. … assuming the Purple Line gets done by then, which we feel decent about. (Author’s note: The Purple Line, aka the “Subway (almost) to the Sea,” broke ground a little more than a year ago.

The projection [for completion] is 2035.

Garcetti: That was an old estimate. I wouldn’t say Metro is prepared to update it yet, but we just got shortlisted -- it doesn’t mean we got selected yet -- for an extension to the [Veterans Administration hospital].

There are three phases. Western to La Cienega and Beverly Hills. La Cienega to Century City. Century City to the VA. I got one underway and the second one accelerated.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 61 -February 2016 Now we have [phases] one and two going simultaneously. The environmentals are already done on phase three. So all that’s waiting is our own Measure R money coming in. By being able to get federal money now we think we can get all three not exactly parallel but overlapping instead of in sequence. And could get it done by 2024. Would get it done by 2024.

But this is independent of the Olympic bid. Could it speed things up at all?

Garcetti: Yes, because what you have -- and I’ve talked to [Transportation] Secretary [Anthony] Foxx and others -- is a sense of national purpose. We’re bringing an American Olympics home. It’s like “OK, yeah let’s figure out creative financing.” Look, if the Olympics don’t come we’re still going to be doing that too, because I’m impa- tient. I don’t want to wait until 2035, period.

Shifting the village … tell me the narrative of how this unfolded.

Garcetti: Two years ago UCLA wasn’t sure it could meet the number of units because they hadn’t made the deci- sion, which they have in the meantime, to build another 2,000 dorm rooms, which does take them well over the beds and units that we need. We had gone to them first, early on, and to USC, just to say “Hey, we want to do a sustainable Games we want to do a cost effective Games.”

We evaluated like 24 sites. ... and this was this most athlete-centric. Athletes want three things: A good place to sleep, a good place to eat and a good place to warm up and train. There’s never been an Olympic village built with what UCLA has. Not just a track but a track where legends have trained. But you could have built that, right, at Piggyback? We could have built anything the athletes needed, right?

Garcetti: I don’t think we could have financially built the sports facilities and not have them also be white el- ephants and meet anything of the river plan. It would have been financially totally irresponsible.

There’s no way we could have ever built everything UCLA [has]. I don’t think there’s enough land even at Piggy- back to do that much. Like to put a whole gymnasium down, I don’t think so. An arena?

So that was never part of the plan?

Garcetti: No, warmup field and open space that we could horseshoe into what we needed for the river so runners can warm up there. But not like you would have fencing right next to them and all the things UCLA can do for all the sports.

The third thing that was a closer for me: The old way of looking at Olympic legacy is we’re going to revitalize a poor part of town (or maybe not poor, but it could be warehouses or some kind of underutilized part of town). South Bank in London is a great example. I don’t know how much exactly they spent but I think it was 5 or 6 billion dollars. That was part of the big cost overruns. Give me 5 or 6 billion dollars and you tell me what part of town you want me to revitalize and I’ll do it, but what does that revitalization mean?

And if you wanted to make it a giant affordable [housing project] that comes at a huge subsidy. Is that the most effective use of affordable housing dollars? And that’s one one small part of town, which can have a catalytic effect to that area and some sort of transformation. When we looked at the numbers, we have a $150-million profit. This takes a huge -- what did we have for [the cost of] Piggyback Yard, a billion dollars? -- it takes that off the books.

We’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars that the legacy of the Games can spend now, which is what I’d like to see, on the city afterward in every neighborhood.

How much rent is UCLA going to charge?

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 62 -February 2016 Garcetti: I don’t know. We have to work out the terms. Nobody is looking to game anyone. We will have to pay for an overlay, probably, just like we have to do at the Coliseum for track -- $150 million to do track and field there. So it will be something. It’s not going to be zero dollars but it’s not going to be a billion.

What’s the prospect for Piggyback Yard now?

Garcetti: The biggest thing right now is figuring out the acquisition with something we don’t have direct land use authority over because it’s a railroad company and that means it’s federal.

The sprawling Piggyback Yard is no longer a possible site for an Olympic Village in Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Is it a given that something’s going to be done with it?

I want it to be. It’s not a given.

It’s too special a piece of land to not do everything we can to get it. What it requires obviously is the funding sources to make that happen, to clean the land and to relocate the rail yards. It’s also [an] economically vital piece of our logistics. But we also don’t know long-term how freight will move; that’s a bigger conversation. All the talk about hyperloop as a human-carrying mechanism, I really think hyperloop’s promise is cargo.

(Author’s note: The hyperloop is a gigantic pneumatic tube system that Space X and Tesla founder Elon Musk suggested as a low-cost alternative to the bullet train.)

(SpaceX)

So your vision hasn’t necessarily changed?

Garcetti: No, it predated the Olympics.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 63 -February 2016 (Helpful link: Click here to read more about how the Piggyback Yard fits into the L.A. River restoration plan.) http://www.piggybackyard.org/the-concept/vision

How about the rendering of a covered 101 (in the LA24 bid book)? Wishful thinking?

Garcetti: [Laughs]

(This conversation was edited for clarity and length.)

Rendering of a hyperloop passenger transport capsule within a tube that would zoom passenger capsules through elevated tubes. Three Southern California companies plan to build tracks to test how well the speed-of-sound transportation concept.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 64 -February 2016 Partial Fixtures List

2016

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 IAAF 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. May 27-28 Prefontaine Classic, Eugene, Ore. June 8-11 NCAA Div. I Outdoor Championships, Eugene, Ore. June 17-19 New Balance Outdoor Nationals, Greensboro, N.C. July 1-10 U.S. Olympic Trials, Eugene, Ore. July 19-24 World Junior Championships, Poland Aug. 5-21 Olympic Games, Rio de Janeiro

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 65 -February 2016