Mr. Douglas G. Logan
Chief Executive Officer
USA Track & Field
132 E. Washington Street, Suite 800
Indianapolis, IN 46204

Dear Doug:

A few weeks ago, in Denver, a few of us sportswriters were invited to a quiet get-together with Lamine Diack, the president of the IAAF, the international track and field federation. The president was in a genial mood. He talked about what an intriguing idea it would be to stage the 2015 world championships in the United States.

Ha.

I say ha because if the president is just now reading the reports about the way the meet last Saturday in Carson, Calif., went down, my guess is that he would be shaking his head sadly.

Because I know I am.

That meet in Carson was seriously not good. Its several failings underscored some of the key challenges that must be addressed for track and field to again assume a station in the American sports scene as something other than a once-every-four-years phenomenon.

First and foremost is this: USATF needs to own the sport of track and field in this country. Right now, it does not. Who does? Shoe companies? Agents? Coaches? Promoters? It’s not clear. But what is clear is this: If your federation is going to work with people who put on meets under the USATF aegis, the responsibility is then on you to insure the meet is up to acceptable standards. If it doesn’t go well, what entity is most vulnerable to looking bad? Yours. Who has ultimate authority and responsibility? You.

To continue the thought: Do you see the NFL ceding that authority – granting individual promoters the right to put on its games? The NBA? Major League Baseball? Hardly. So that’s the case in track and field because – why, exactly?

Track athletes have always had it hard because they are individual performers. And now, it’s true, the scene has evolved so that it’s possible to make a living at it – just like other athletes in other professional sports. But the time has come for another paradigm shift.

Because it’s obvious there needs to be a league or a circuit of some sort in the United States, something that makes track and field here something other than a collection of warm-up meets for the summer scene in Europe, and whatever takes shape in this country must revolve around a great meet in Los Angeles.

Eugene, Ore., is a nice-enough place; Hayward Field there is rich with tradition. So what? You and I both know you’re not going to grow the sport from Eugene. Indeed, it’s not unreasonable to argue that going back time and again to Eugene – the Olympic Trials there last summer, the nationals there in a couple weeks and again in 2011, the Trials there again in 2012 – only reinforces the image of track and field as a niche sport in an eco-cute college town when what you need is instead an electrifying presence in New York, in Chicago and especially in L.A.

Why L.A.? Because L.A. is the entertainment capital of the world.

And, increasingly, sport is entertainment.

A gold medal-winning Olympic gymnast, Shawn Johnson, just won “Dancing With the Stars.” Need I say more?

But no one would make any sort of entertainment connection at the Carson meet – even though it’s but a 20-minute straight shot down the Harbor Freeway from the Staples Center, and that whole Lakers scene. You’re a former concert promoter. Jack Nicholson would look good in the front row watching Allyson Felix, wouldn’t he?

Hey, what about the Laker Girls?

What about bringing in U2 or Bruce Springsteen or the Rolling Stones, or whoever, pick a headliner from the Coachella Valley show if what you’re after is to skew the demographic younger than Mick and Keith, and putting on a rockfest after a track meet featuring, let’s say, Usain Bolt?

Whatever. You get the idea.

You need to think imaginatively. You need to think big.

Because that Carson meet was embarrassingly, unacceptably small-time.

Where to start?

How about with me? I live in Southern California. I had the choice of staying home and driving 15 minutes to Carson – or flying across the country to Charlotte, N.C., to watch Michael Phelps swim.

Guess which was way more appealing?

My decision to go to Charlotte was proved even more right when a few days before the Carson meet organizers announced that two of the bigger names in sprinting, two-time Olympic 200-meter champion Veronica Campbell-Brown of Jamaica and American Tyson Gay, the 2007 100- and 200-meter world champ, would not be running.

Campbell-Brown was said to have a lingering left toe injury. Gay ran the 400 at the Texas Invitational a few weeks back but was reported in the Los Angeles Times to be still feeling a “knee injury that hindered six weeks of his training at the beginning of the season.”

Both Brown and Gay are first-rate; each has repeatedly proven commitment to the sport; in this instance they deserve the benefit of the doubt.

But in general – it is just not OK when your big names cancel, and it happens way, way too often in track and field. Did you see Kobe cancel out of the Laker game Tuesday night against the Nuggets? He just came off a seven-game series against Houston. He’s undoubtedly banged up. But did he suck it up?

It’s different in track, and the clear question is, why? “It’s the nature of track and field,” Mark Wetmore, the Carson meet organizer said. The “main focus” for American athletes, he said, is the U.S. and world championships. “And I applaud that. That’s the way the sponsors want it, the coaches want it. These meets,” a meet like the Carson event, “showcase these athletes – if they run.”

And when they don’t? A quarter-page ad ran on Page Three of the L.A. Times’ sports section on Thursday, two days before the event, promoting Gay in a big way. Oops.

When your big names don’t go, for whatever reason, it sends the message loud and clear to fans: The meet isn’t important enough. Why care?

Which the attendance, naturally enough, reflected.

The Dodgers were in Florida. The Lakers had the day off. Meet organizers reported to USATF an announced attendance of 4,500. Really? Take a look at the front page of the meet website. See those bleachers behind the still image from a video of pole vaulter Jenn Stuczynski? Granted, that’s only one side of the complex. But let’s be real: Do you get the feeling you’ve seen more people at a bar mitzvah?

Not to pick at this too much but that image of Stuczynski – that’s from 2008, when she jumped 16 feet, ¾ inch. When attendance – and mind you, in an Olympic year – was an announced 3,508.

Take one more look at that webpage, by the way. Who’s that in the top right corner, above the word “newsletter”? Oh, that’s Tyson Gay.

The words “half-hearted effort” and “meet promotion” come to mind.

Just to put the 2009 attendance in perspective: Elsewhere in Southern California on Saturday, in a Class A minor-league baseball game, the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, playing at home in their cool stadium about 90 minutes east of downtown L.A., defeated the Lancaster JetHawks, 9-5. Attendance: 5,859.

In its early years, the Carson meet played to big crowds: 10,094 in 2003, with stars such as Mexico’s Ana Guevara; 11,266 in 2004, when Marion Jones was among the headliners. The 2005 crowd was announced at 10,723 but probably was more like 9,000. Since then, crowds have been down dramatically.

Then again, 2005 was the last year the meet was overseen by AEG, the owner-operator of the Home Depot Center, the facility itself in Carson. Since then, it has been run by Global Athletics & Marketing in Boston, headed by Wetmore; the firm also produces the likes of the Reebok Indoor Games in Boston and the Millrose Games in New York.

He pointed out in our phone conversation that Saturday’s Carson meet drew a decent-enough cable television rating, at least measured relatively – evidence, he said, that track and field’s following extends well beyond Southern California.

That is certainly a fair point.

At the same time, what actually happened at the track meet itself? The most egregious thing of all.

In the men’s 400-meter hurdles, the eighth hurdle was placed way too close to the seventh. Hurdles are supposed to be placed 35 meters apart. Angelo Taylor, the 2008 Olympic gold medalist in the event, told the L.A. Times the two hurdles were more like 15 meters apart.

Someone could have gotten seriously hurt. Elite hurdlers rip around the track at real speed.

“Certainly that was a bad mistake,” Wetmore said. “Again, ultimately, that comes down to me. I was the meet director and that’s my responsibility. I’m not going to blame the meet officials, not going to blame anybody else …

“I can’t apologize enough to these guys,” the hurdlers. “They deserve better than that. When they line up on the track, they should expect that things are going to be technically done well. It was something the meet regrets and we feel completely responsible for and I’ll do whatever I can to make it right.”

In a different context, Doug, I would urge you to do the same.

Sincerely,

Alan

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at 7:09 pm and is filed under alanabrahamson. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.