November 2020 Contents
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November 2020 Track and Field Contents Writers of P. 1 President’s Message America P. 3 Universities Continue to Block Athletes From Talking to the Media. That’s Got to Stop. (Founded June 7, 1973) P. 4 New Virginia Beach Sports Center is a “Game-Changer” for the Hampton Roads Indoor Track Scene P. 5 Instead of Cutting College Sports, Schools Should Stop Spending Money Like Fools PRESIDENT P. 7 Gophers Leaders, Mark Coyle Get It Wrong: Men’s Track and Field Program Too Good to Cut Jack Pfeifer 2199 NW Everett St. #601 P. 8 News Links Portland, Oregon 97210 P. 9 The Fall Of Lamine Diack Office/home: 917-579- P. 10 News Links 5392. Email: [email protected] P. 11 Men’s College Track Is Being Threatened In Budget-Strapped Division I Athletic Departments P. 12 Clickable University of Oregon Video of Walk-Through of New Hayward Field by the Oregon Team SECRETARY- TREASURER P. 13 Pole Vaulter Clark Speaks Out On Confederate Flagl Tom Casacky p. 14 Four Ways That Dance Has Helped Valarie Allman Excel in the Discus Throw P.O. Box 4288 P. 16 Catching Up With ... Jordan Gray Napa, CA 94558 Phone: 818-321-3234 P. 18 Sport Has Had to Adjust to a New Normal Before Email: [email protected] P. 19 Celebrating Women’s Running History – 50 Years Ago Today P. 20 A 100 Year Celebration of Women’s Track and Field FAST Dave Johnson P. 20 In Letter, W&M Women’s Track Athletes Threaten Boycott Linked to Sports Cuts Email: P. 21 Oregon Accepting Public Proposals for Remaining Hayward Field Salvage Materials [email protected] P. 22 NCAA Announces Championship Sites for 2022 and Beyond Phone: 215-898-6145 P. 23 Tracksmith Introduces New York Pioneer Club Collection WEBMASTER P. 24 Selection Criteria for 2020 Division I Cross Country Championships Approved Michael McLaughlin P. 24 William & Mary Reinstates Seven Eliminated Varsity Sports Email: [email protected] P. 24 Clemson to Discontinue Men’s Cross Country, Track and Field Phone: 815-529-8454 P. 25 2020 Fixtures List NEWSLETTER EDITOR Shawn Price President’s Message Email: [email protected] What’s next? Phone: 979-661-0731 William & Mary, one of the nation’s oldest colleges, drops men’s and track and field. The women’s team says it will not compete unless the men are reinstated. The athletic director resigns. Two months later, all of the dropped sports are reinstated. Brown University, an Ivy League school, drops men’s track and field. Alumni raise millions of dollars to pay for the program for years. The athletic director declines their offer, reconsiders, reinstates the track program but holds off on the other sports. They have hired an attorney. Minnesota, of the Big Ten, drops men’s track and field. Their huge financial losses in football come under scrutiny. A state school, it gets scrutiny and push- back from legislators and taxpayers and eventually reinstates the sport, but not indoors. Clemson, an ACC school, announces that it is dropping men’s track and field. It is a college football powerhouse but claims nevertheless that it is losing millions on the sport. Is track the problem or football? They use the devious argument that the problem is Title IX, that is, that they can maintain women’s track and field but must shed the 12 men’s scholarships. Football has 95. The Clemson ath- letic director, Dan Radakovich, announced that his decision was final. Clemson now has 16 teams, the minimum required by the ACC. Cross country The ACC, SEC and Big 12 held conference championships this fall, but the NCAA has scheduled this school year’s national championship for March 15, in Stillwater, Okla. The Pac-12 has scheduled its sea- son for January and February. The NCAA recently announced a formula (see elsewhere in this Newslet- ter) for selecting the field. Regionals will not be held. It is believed that schools that ran in the Fall can do so again in the Winter. At the high school level, some states have scheduled state championships for Spring. Indoor track and field Will there be a season? No one knows, but there are plenty of meets on the schedule. Some college meets are scheduled the first week of December. College football teams are playing; can’t their track teams? Will there be a USATF Indoor Nationals? To our knowledge, no site has been announced. The Mill- rose Games have been added to the World Athletics Gold Challenge, joining the Boston Indoor Games. Both are scheduled for February. Will there be in-person fans? In a major decision, New York State announced that high school indoor track and field will be per- mitted this winter, because it is considered a low-contact sport, along with such other sports as bowl- ing and badminton. Because they are considered high-contact, wrestling, ice hockey and basketball have been tabled for the coming season. Marathons All of this Fall’s major races were cancelled, and they have begun setting up a schedule for next Fall (see Calendar). The Boston Marathon has postponed its 2021 race from April to the Fall, date TBA. Outdoor track and field The Texas Relays, Drake Relays and Penn Relays are on the calendar. If those traditional blockbuster meets are held, what will they look like? Will they be on TV? Will there be fans in the stands? Will the college and high school divisions be separated? Will there be an Open presence? The spring and summer seasons, including the postponed Tokyo Olympics, will probably depend on the development of a vaccine. Stay tuned. HIGH SCHOOL TRACK 1940 Jack Shepard, boys HS editor for Track & Field News and editor/publisher of the High School Track series (since 1980), along with Bob Jarvis, FAST Award winning statistician, have spent decades gathering data to con- tinue High School Track back into the pre-1950s. The first of this historic series covers the year 1940. The booklet contains 30-deep yearly lists, with meet/site/date, along with the then HS records and 10-deep all-time lists. [26 8½” x 11” pages] Send a check or money order for $20, made payable to Jack Shepard, 14551 Southfield Dr., Westminster, CA 92683. Postage is included in the price for North America. Add $2 for foreign postage. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 2 - November 2020 Universities continue to block athletes from talking to the media. That’s got to stop. For athletes at many of the nation’s top athletic programs, talking to the news media is regarded as a punishable offense By Frank LaMonte | Poynter | https://www.poynter.org/educators-students/2020/universities-continue-to-block-athletes- from-talking-to-the-media-thats-got-to-stop/ There has never been a time when America more urgently athletes say, because they control essentially every other aspect of needed to hear the voices of college athletes. players’ lives: what they eat, where they live, what medical treat- Fall sports tentatively resumed across America’s college cam- ment they receive. But speech is different, because it’s explicitly puses under the shadow of a deadly pandemic that has already cost protected by the Constitution. one college football player his life. Abusive behavior by coaches is Of all of the possible affronts to the First Amendment, courts belatedly coming to light as former athletes share their stories. most forcefully disapprove of the “prior restraint” — a blanket And the young Black men who disproportionately make up the prohibition that keeps speakers from being heard. An order rosters of revenue-generating sports are also those at greatest forbidding unauthorized contact with journalists is a classic prior personal risk of overzealous police violence. restraint. Yet for athletes at many of the nation’s top athletic programs, Let’s assume athletes have only the level of free-speech rights talking to the news media is regarded as a punishable offense. that state employees have. Fifty years of legal precedent tells us Players caught giving interviews without their athletic depart- that government employers can’t gag public employees from giving ment’s approval — about any topic, even one unrelated to sports “unapproved” interviews (even though many are unaware they’re — can be punished with sanctions including withdrawal of their breaking the law). So if athletes are regarded as “university em- scholarships, ending their college careers. ployees,” it’s unconstitutional to tell them not to give interviews. In a just-published study for the Nebraska Law Review, our But athletes aren’t employees — as colleges will be the first research team at the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information to tell you. In fact, the then-head of the NCAA popularized the sought to answer two questions: How often are public universities buzzword “student-athlete” in the 1950s in reaction to a widow’s gagging athletes from speaking to the media, and is it legal for attempt to claim employee death benefits after her husband died them to do it? playing football. Although athletes are increasingly winning the Our answers: frequently, and no. right to obtain previously-taboo financial compensation and endorsements, colleges disclaim “employee” status (and, in fact, What we found fought fiercely to defeat a unionization effort when Northwestern Our research looked at the policies at public university athletic football players sought recognition by the National Labor Rela- programs regulating student-athletes’ communications with the tions Board). media. Using a combination of public records requests and online While universities might argue that athletes have even fewer searches, we gathered rulebooks from 58 state universities that First Amendment protections than employees, because they sign compete in the NCAA’s elite Division I.