May 2015 Track and Field Writers of President’s Message America Awards Breakfast TAFWA’s annual Awards Breakfast will be held Friday morning, June 12, in Eugene, (Founded June 7, 1973) during the NCAA Championships, beginning at 9 AM. This year’s event, for the first time, will be held in Gerlinger Hall on the University of Oregon campus, two blocks from PRESIDENT Jack Pfeifer, 6129 N. Hayward Field. We believe this will make it easier for people who need to get to the meet Lovely St., Portland, OR promptly to do so. 97203. Office/home: 917- 579-5392. Email: [email protected] VICE PRESIDENT Contents Doug Binder. Email: [email protected]. P. 1 President’s Message and TAFWA Updates Phone: 503-913-4191. P. 4 William “Bill” Miller’s Sudden Passing TREASURER P. 6 Frank Bertucci’s Sudden Passing Tom Casacky, P.O. Box P. 7 Doping Revelations: The Consequences When Cheaters Win 4288, Napa, CA 94558. Phone: 818-321-3234. P. 9 India’s Milka Singh - Doping is Like A Cancer Email: [email protected] P. 10 Ashton and Brianne - The Journey SECRETARY/ P. 15 Heartfelt Coverage From the “Jamaica Champs” AWARDS CHAIR P. 20 The Jamaica Gleaner: Put A Stop to Athlete Factories Don Kopriva, 5327 New- port Drive, Lisle IL 60532. P. 22 Get Your Intervals In At the Narifta Airport, Terminal Three Home: 630-960-3049. P. 23 The 2021 World Outdoor Championships to Eugene Cell: 630-712-2710. Email: donkopriva777@ P. 24 Rio. Media, Bring Your Corporate Credit Card for Access.... aol.com P. 25 East Grandstands/West Grandstands, Pre’s Home is Going to Change NEWSLETTER EDITOR P. 27 Boston Not Strong Kim Spir, University of P. 29 Even Outside Magazine Runs a Story about T&F Doping Portland, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd., P. 32 Olympic Qualifying Standards Portland, OR 97203. P. 34 Photos That Changed The Boston Marathon Forever Work: 503-943-7314. Email: kim.spir@gmail. P. 40 Vic Holchak Passes com P. 41 Drug Cheats-Paying Money FAST P. 43 TrackTownUSA Announces A Second Round of Indoor Worlds Dave Johnson. Email: Ticket Sales in Portland, Oregon [email protected] Phone: 215-898-6145. P. 44 The Shorty Awards P. 45 Colin Henderson - Lessons Learned at the Penn Relays WEBMASTER Michael McLaughlin. P. 47 Mary Wittenberg Moves On Email: supamac@comcast. P. 48 Racing the Rain. A Review by Paul Duffau net. Phone: 815-529- 8454. P. 50 Partial Fixtures List Awards to be presented this spring: • The inaugural James O. Dunaway Award, formerly the Abramson Award, for track and field journalism • The Sam Skinner Award, for cooperation with the press • The Pinkie Sober and Scott Davis awards for announcing • The Rich Clarkson Award for photography • The Adam Jacobs Award for blogging In addition, members of the winning documentary-film team that won the Bud Greenspan Award this winter will be in attendance to accept in person, as they reside in Seattle, convenient to Eugene but not to New York. TAFWA’s two book awards and our inaugural broadcasting award, named for H.D. Thoreau, were an- nounced and presented in New York in February. Breakfast is $10 for members, $15 for members’ guests. Dues may be paid at the door. Dues remain $30. Copies of the 2015 FAST Annual will also be available at the door. A flyer will be distributed in the press areas on Thursday as a reminder. We expect to have several prominent athletes and coaches on hand for your questions. Festivities should wrap up by 10:30 a.m. USATF Social Event We are also hosting an event during the USATF Championships two weeks later in Eugene. This will not be a formal program with speakers or award presentations. Rather, it will be a private casual get- together for members only, at the home of two of our members, Tom and Janet Heinonen. This will be on the morning of the last day of the competition, Sunday, June 28. Details will be an- nounced next month. Parking at Hayward Field FYI TAFWA investigated the potential for renting our own small parking lot near Hayward Field, near campus, for our members. The university and other sponsoring groups no longer provide convenient parking for most members of the press for their events. Those priorities now go to TV, officials and VIPs. Such a rental is feasible, but we decided that the daily rate is too high. If you have a concern about the parking situation at Hayward Field, let me know. I am willing to fight further on this issue if the demand is there. 2016 World Indoor As you know, the 2016 Indoor Worlds will be held in TAFWA’s current hometown, Portland, Ore. Will you be attending? If there is sufficient support for it, TAFWA would host an event in conjunction with the Worlds next March. Let us know your plans. Want to know where to get the funkiest meal or the best salmon or hear the newest indie band? Watch upcoming TAFWA Newsletters, or better yet, tune in to the TV show Portlandia. Olympic Trials It’s also not too early to be thinking about next year’s Olympic Trials, also set for Eugene. It will be TAFWA Newsletter - Page 2 - May 2015 TrackTown’s third consecutive Trials, the second time that has happened (72-76-80). This means that over the next 13 months, all of the major upcoming events – two NCAAs, 2015 USAs, 2016 Trials and World Indoor – will take place in Oregon. The 2016 USA Indoor Champs will also take place in Port- land, next March, one week prior to Worlds. TAFWA plans to have four events in ’16 – Awards galas in NYC (Millrose Week in February) and Eu- gene (NCAA week), a luncheon and a private social event during the Trials. The latter will probably be held at the private home some of us rent in the hills above Hayward Field, where some of you attended the famous Cordner Nelson surprise birthday party seven years ago. Details to come. Abramson Award For years there were two Abramson Awards, a confusing state of affairs. One was given by TAFWA, the other by the Penn Relays. For the record, your current president received this year’s Penn Relays Abramson Award along with the splendid Relays watch that goes with it. By-laws In order to become an official tax-exempt 5.01c3 organization, TAFWA needs to prepare and approve a set of by-laws. We’re looking for a member with the time, expertise and willingness to draft our by- laws. If interested, please email me [email protected]. USTFCCCA Partnership The USTFCCCA (U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches’ Association), under the direc- tion of Sam Seemes, is onboard again this year in helping to underwrite the cost of TAFWA’s annual Awards Breakfast. TAFWA is grateful to the college coaches for their continued support. Sam is expected to be in attendance again this year at the event so be sure to say hello. Because our event is held during the NCAA Championships, we plan to have coaches and athletes from the cham- pionships present, another good reason for our partnership and for your presence. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 3 - May 2015 New Yorker Bill Miller dies at 91 Two New York Times veterans: Bill Miller, left, and Frank Litsky, right, at the 2014 Penn Relays. (Spir) Bill Miller, one of the lions of track journalism in New York City for the last 70 years, died of heart failure in Nyack, N.Y., on May 20. He had been admitted to the hospital one day earlier. Miller, a medical textbook publisher by profession, reported on scholastic track and field as a freelance writer for The New York Times beginning in 1947. He was an excellent runner in his own right, competing in the quarter-mile for La Salle Academy, a Jesuit school on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, in the late ‘30s and early ‘40s, and for Manhattan College after serving in the Pacific during World War II. Miller was a raconteur of the old school, sometimes taking 15 minutes to tell a story but disappointing his listeners that it wasn’t longer. He once told this reporter a long baseball story that began with his days growing up in the Bronx as a boy, when he could walk to both Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds to watch the Giants and his be- loved Yankees. Eventually, he said that he finally persuaded his parents to let him take multiple trains and see his first game at Ebbets Field, and he dropped in the name Johnny Vander Meer. Bill said Yes, his first game in Brooklyn had been on June 15, 1938, the day Vander Meer threw the second of his TAFWA Newsletter - Page 4 - May 2015 consecutive no-hitters as the Reds shut out the Dodgers, 6-0. A teenaged Bill Miller was there to see it. Miller’s favorite week of the year was the last week of April, when he journeyed to Philadelphia to run in, or work at, the Penn Relays. He ran the mile relay at Penn in the 1930s and worked at the Relays for The Times virtually every decade after that, writing the prep sidebar to accompany the lead stories by his friends Frank Litsky, Neil Amdur, Jim Dunaway and other legendary New York track writers. Bill knew them all. For The Times, he wrote hundreds of track articles, on deadline, finally landing on the front page of the Sports section when Alan Webb became the first schoolboy to break 4 minutes in the mile indoors.