July 2018 Track and Field Contents Writers of P. 1 President’s Message America P. 3 2018 Awards Breakfast (Founded June 7, 1973) P. 4 Hayward Field Rebuild Starts With Razing of East Grandstand P. 5 Getty Images Announces Sad Passing of Steve Rose PRESIDENT Jack Pfeifer P. 5 Athletics World Cup Suffers Major Blow as Adidas Refuse to Pay Out Bonuses to Stars 216 Ft. Washington Ave., Wearing Nike GB Kit NY, NY 10032 P. 6 McChesney Family Memorial Rooted at Hayward Field Office/home: 917-579- 5392. Email: P. 7 USATF Board Meeting Recap - USOC Slams Mt. SAC Bid for Olympic Trials [email protected] P. 9 Women’s Decathlon: Overdue Game-Changer or Heptathlon Killer? P. 11 Dismantling of Historic Hayward Field East Grandstand in Eugene Starts with Removal SECRETARY- TREASURER of Wooden Bleachers Tom Casacky P. 13 The Chris Froome Ruling Just Broke Anti-Doping P.O. Box 4288 P. 15 Tribute to Jon Hendershott Napa, CA 94558 Phone: 818-321-3234 P. 17 2018 TAFWA and FAST Awards Breakfast Email: [email protected] P. 26 Hayward Field Demo FAST P. 29 Partial Fixtures List Dave Johnson Email: [email protected] President’s Message - July 2018 Phone: 215-898-6145 The East Grandstand WEBMASTER It is time to accept that Hayward Field is no more. The sport’s last remaining outdoor Palace in Michael McLaughlin the United States has been torn down, exemplified by the rushed destruction last month of the Email: [email protected] 99-year-old legendary East Grandstand, which dates to the days when the stadium was home not Phone: 815-529-8454 just to the Oregon track team but also its football team. There was a brief town scuffle over the fate of the East Grandstand. The private foundation NEWSLETTER EDITOR that is financing the new track stadium withheld its intention to knock down the grandstand Shawn Price Email: until the last moment, saying that because it was a private entity, it was under no obligation to [email protected] share any information. The track community in Eugene believed that only the newer but less Phone: 979-661-0731 adored West Grandstand – built in 1974 – was to be removed, along with the unsightly Bower- man Building. That had been the announced architectural plan a year earlier. That information was not updated until the last minute. A few concerned citizens quickly tried to organize around this sudden new development, ar- riving at a Eugene City Council meeting demanding action. They underestimated their opposi- tion, as this move had already been anticipated by Nike, the company that is apparently paying for the new stadium. The City Council’s attempted initial actions to protect the grandstand were quickly blocked -- not by Nike, which technically had no legal standing in the matter, but by the University itself. It seems that the Oregon president, Michael H. Schill, was in on the arrange- ment from the start. The university administration took care of the remaining dirty work, and within hours of the end of the NCAA championships on Saturday, June 9, destruction of the East Grandstand began. The new stadium is supposed to open April 2020. It is supposed to have 12,900 permanent seats, be a horseshoe construction, have a roof over at least some of the seats, and include a “tower” that will have office space formerly in the Bowerman Building. Phil Knight, the Nike founder who is presumably pay- ing for most of the construction, has already had to step back from using Bill Bowerman’s name on the tower, deferring to objections from the Bowerman family. Knight has also admitted that he is going to be unpopular for tearing down the East Grandstand. It’s not clear how much animosity will remain in the Eugene track community over the way this project has been handled. Will season ticket sales decline? Or, looking at a gleaming new stadium, will opposition evaporate? There is precedent in Eu- gene for this. After a long, protracted attempt by the university to tear down beloved McArthur Court – the school’s basket- ball arena since 1926 – Matthew Knight Arena was built in 2011. That new building has stadium-style seating, not bleachers – more comfortable for alumni who buy the season tickets and make donations, but frequently do not show up for the games themselves. The student body, who had the best seats in the house at Mac Court and as a result gave the place a notorious homecourt advantage, has been removed to out-of-the-way seating. Will this tradeoff – shiny, boring new for passionate, packed-in old – be Hayward Field’s fate as well? Those of us here at the TAFWA Home Office do not know what the plans are for media services and media seating in the new Hayward Field. We were not consulted in any way. No detailed plans have been released regarding this aspect of the structure. We do assume that the electronic part of the infrastructure will be state of the art, and it is our understanding that there will be an elevator at the rear of at least one side of the grandstand, which would be helpful to members of the press who now have to run up and down multiple flights of stairs to do their jobs. Heck, even Sac State has an elevator. We also do not know about physical plans for still photography and television, though we suspect the latter has been duly consulted. We also do not know about parking, though we assume that no new parking places will materialize. On the contrary, it is our understanding that 15th Street – the street directly north of the stadium – will be closed permanently and become a walkway, eliminating some 150 existing parking spaces. 2020 Olympic Trials USATF announced that the new host of the Trials would be announced on Friday, June 8. That came and went. Since then it has been announced that there are now three finalists for the Trials – Eugene, Sacramento, and Austin, Texas. Mt. SAC is gone away, and we wonder if the new Hilmer Lodge Stadium will ever get built, given the continuing lawsuits and financial battles. If it does, Mt. SAC could be a future home to such meets as the NCAA and the USATF, given the excellent climate and location. But first the school will have to rebuild its credibility. Meantime, the Mt. SAC Invitational continues to be held at other locations each April. Eventually, does the name change, or that meet die off? Speaking of that, what of the 2019 Prefontaine Classic? With Hayward Field out of the picture, it is our understanding that the 2019 Pre – which is to be held a month later than usual, because of the lateness of next year’s World Championships and USA selection meet – will remain in Eugene, at Lane Community College. To accommodate the event, some 8,000 temporary seats are expected to be set up, and the meet is expected to be a one-day event, dropping the Friday schedule. We expect the event to tax the two-year school’s infrastructure considerably, but this is a way to keep the event in Eugene, a real plus for meet organizers. It would return to Hayward Field by the spring of 2020, assuming that the new building is completed on time. Similar relocation issues have arisen regarding the NCAA Championships and the Oregon state high school champion- ships, demonstrating the crucial role adequate facilities play in this and any other sport. The Oregon high school association plans to break its current six-meet event into three parts and move them around the state. One meet would be held in Portland – possibly Mt Hood Community College – one at Western Oregon in Monmouth, and possibly the third in Bend. This way, the anticipated crowds can be accommodated at each smaller locale. As for the NCAA, as previously announced, the University of Texas will be the host school for 2019 and 2020, and the meet will return to Eugene for 2021 and 2022. Then of course, there’s also those pesky World Championships – technically that is the main reason given for the New Hayward Field – set for Eugene in 2021. Word has it that a new organization is being formed in Eugene to handle the final three-year run-up to the big event. Rumor has it that this new org may actually take the place of the TrackTown group, includ- ing changes in the management team. This could mean the permanent end of TrackTown as an entity. We are not sure what any of this means, and it’s hard to find out because the principals in the organizations mentioned above rarely give a straight answer to anything. As for the 2020 Trials, Eugene – host of the previous three – is the presumed frontrunner. After all, they would have a gleaming new stadium. The main sticking point would be Eugene’s inability to guarantee completion on time. Nothing much has changed at Sac State – honestly, who wants to go back there? As for Austin, it is a vibrant city full of en- ergy. It has far more places to eat and stay than Eugene. It actually has direct flights from other time zones, and has a stadium that seats 18,000. Texas is a bigtime university. The weather in the summer, however, would be disastrous for the distance events. The stadium has no overhead protection, whether in 100-degree heat or the torrential rainstorms that frequently pass through town. Stay tuned. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 2 - July 2018 2018 Awards Breakfast The remainder of TAFWA’s awards for 2018 were presented before a packed house at Gerlinger Hall, on the university campus, on Friday morning June 8.