t-and-f: White etc
mark--of short stature (not that Tolan was that tall either), he simply shot out of the blocks in a race started by the legendary Herr Mueller of Germany (who was probably the most trusted starter in the sports' history; in 1948, though Germany was barred from competition in London, he was invited to be a starter, but sent his regrets, saying My day is past.) The point is what might happen to Yoshioka today when false starts are judged electronically, not by the starter alone. The rules presume that no one can have reactions faster than the minimum limit; would his have been faster? Maybe so. In the reruns of the Drummong start in paris, there was certainly no detectable break. He was caught by the starting blocks. And what would 1960 Olympic champ Armin Hary have to say about all this. His dictum was, of course, that the race starts when I say it starts. But his starts in Rome, fast as they were, were also perfectly legal (I was seated above the starting line at the time. I am bot defending Jon's conduct following his d/q, only saying that he had good reason to feel I was robbed, The rules, after all, are the rules, But then, we have the fact that he, along with most of the field, was put in the psotiion they found themselves in for no fault of their own by a stupid rule borroed from a stupid (in the wway it is often run) sport. Remember, this was the sport (swimming) which, before the electronic age, would decide races not on who got to the wall first, but who had the fastest hand time. And that is not its only sin again fairness. My biggest beef with the rule, however, is the way it came about---to satisfy TV complaints that false starts were disturbing the tempo of the meet. And it didn't work anyway. On its opening day of coverage here, two promised events could not be shown because the meet ran late; fortunately they were shown in their entirely the next day with no attempt to conceal the fact that they were a day late. Ed Grant
t-and-f: TV nystery
Netters: Having been lavish (quite deserved) criticism of Tursday;s TV offering from Paris, I have to be just as lacish in praise of today;s progtam. My only question is, why such a complete reversal? Today's show opened with full coverage of the two events which were missed the day before because (I guess) a time overrun. Not only were they shown in full, but they were introduced properly as something that had happened the day before, unlike the pitiful Tuesday masquerade that would have had us believe the 100M finals came after the women's 200M trials, not a day or two days later, I can only conclude that different hands were at the controls of the two shows (or that the first-day gaffs were so obvious that something had to be done about it). The Tuesday coverage was typical network-style bilge, treating fans as if they were a bunch of ignorant boobs. Today's show was what we have come to expected from the ESPN international coverage, as good an attempt as U.S. coverage can make to match the kind of TV coverage European fans take for granted---given the limitations of time allotment.I would expect we we will see the same kind of coverage the next two days, It is the weekend that worries me. Because of the wall-to-wall college football coverage on both ESPN channels Saturday, the Parish coverage will begin at midnight here on the East Coast (and maybe elsewhere as well, for all I know.) Then we get the network coverage the next day, which, if past performances give any indication, will simply ignore the fact that ESPN has been covering the meet for five days and waste a lot of the three and a half hours showing events we have already seen. Another indication of a possible difference in the production these past two days was the cutdown today in the number and length of commercials. Fortunately, where was even time left after the closing decathlon 1500M to show a few events which had been earlier neglected: the second semi of the women's 200M, the women's TJ.. Ed Grant
t-and-f: What is a professional sport
Netters: Recent stories in local NJ papers about two professional leagues have led me to this post Just what constitutes a truly professional sport? The easy way is to say that it is a sport whose athletes are paid for their services and, as it goes, I guess that is an acceptable definition. But it doesn't satisfy me. Let's start with naming the sports that are undoubtedly professional and have been for some time: baseball, pro football, pro basketball, hockey, boxing, horse racing (yes. technically, everyone but the athlete gets paid here, but there is little doubt that it qualifies anyway) What do these sports have in common? Each and every one is basically independent of outdoor sources of money., Yes, I know that TV is a principal contributor these days, but these sports (as well as the amateur endeavors of college football and basketball) get those huge contracts because of their innate popularity with the sporting public and, if somehow the TV money diasppeared (it won't) they would still be around, even if the salaries might have to revert to the sensible levels (adjusted for inflation) of the pre-TV days. The recent stories I alluded to were about two women's leagues: soccer and basketball. The women's soccer league, to no one's surprise, is in financial trouble. Its attendance figures continue to drop; it used up its seed money, projected to last four or five years, in the very first year. And, or course, the men;s league isn;t that much better off. The WNBA exists solely on the subsidy ($12 Million a year) provided by the NBA. That, in itself, takes care of the payrolls of all of the member teams. Reported attendance figures are much higher than the soccer league, but are themselves questionable. Most major arenas have season packages which are gobbled up by corporations and these seats are considered sold for all event even if they are ampty. And, of course, the ticket price for the WNBA does not begin to compare with the extortionist figures charged for prime tickets by both the NBA and NHL. So where does that leave track and field. In my view, the American pro scene is little else than an advertising vehicle for Nike (principally) and other shoe companies, And the odious appearance fee system has either resulted in the elimination of some meets or in the scramble for outside sposnsorship (which can, and does, evaporate so quickly) to put the athletes on the track. Anyone who has lived through the truly golden age of track and fiueld in this country---which ended a generation or more ago---is aware that things are not what they used to be (and, unfortunately, never will be again). We still have high school and college track to enjoy, but they, by law, cannot be considered professional.. The European scene is, of course, something else again/ But, even there, meet promoters in recent years have voiced concerns about the increasing demands for the upfront money and there, too, some meets have disappeared. However, the profesional side flourishes there from simple lack of competition and benefits from ample media coverage which has simply disappeared in our country. )As much as 90 percent of the words that appeared in NJ papers on our sport this past year were strictly concerned with the high school scene; even our colleges get short shrift, particularly from the state's largest circulation newspaper. Ed Grant.
t-and-f: Brianna Jackucewicz
Netters: John Molvar's posts on Brianna Jackuceqicz deserve some comment. \ First of all, congratulations to Joan Beniot Samuelson for apeaking out as she did at Falmouth.,No one had more credibility in our sport than Joan and I jusr hope Brianna's parents take her words seriously. I have been at the Falmouth race a couple of times in the past and know full well it is no event for a 12-year-old. I am surprised they do not have a minimum age for entrants, at least 14. In NJ, we are both amanzed as Brianna's accomplishments and concerned about her future. She is not the first wunderkind we have had here, male and female, but her running schedule surpasses by far any nyone in the past. We are also familiar with what a tryannical parent can do to a young runner,. About 20 years ago, we had a pre-teen just as good if not better than Brianna but her father was so abusive (verbally) during her races that she finally quit the sport---her younger sister, also talented, did not ever run in HS. I also have some experience at conducting a youth running program, When George Miler, who had really begun the youth progra here in NJ, went out to Arizona for some graduate work, I took over his CC program with a local HS coach. It was very low key with appropriate running distances and out of it came some very fine HS and college runners, topped by Janet Smith, a National Kinney CC winner later a star at NC State. When George returned, he moved his operation from Union to Hunterdon County and the rest, as they say is history--oput of it came the two-time National JO champsionship teams from the Hunterdon Harriers and the greatest four-man HS team in our sdtate's history (it would jhave been five in 1984 had not Brad Hudson defected to Eugene South for personal reasons having nother to do with the program here). It is important, in this day and age, to get youngsters into the sport at an early age. The competition for talent from football, baseball, soccer and, now lacrosse, is intense. Those sports can offer so much more: community interest, uniforms, etc., that it is a wonder we get anyone at all. This spring, I left an early HS relay meet in a town once famous for its CC teams and, passiong the local high school, saw what looked like 100 fully-equipped lacrosse players running around, none of them more than 10 years old. But the programs should be kept at the same kind of low key that proved so successful under Miller's tutelage. Long road races should be few and far between, if, indeed, they are part of the program at all, Toward the end of the Hunterdon series, ywo young brothers came along to dominate the younger divisions. But they also competed in such road races as the mammoth Asbury Park 10K.But their high school careers werebrief and unproductive. I have also been a track father and am now---at long ranbeg--a track grandfather. My older son began running at an early age when he realized that his chances foir athletic success were not bright in the more popular team sports. He ran in somne of George Miller's earlier races and, very occasionally, when he reached the 8th garde and was 14, a longer road race. He is still running todfay, as well as coaching road runners. His brother took up the sport in HS and had a little more success and also continues to train though his racing days seem to be over So I know there is nothing wrong with taking the sport up young, as long as things are kept under control. I hope that Brianna has all the success her talent deserves when she gets to HS in 2005. Het 3K times this summer would right now put her among the top five distance runners in our state---the only ones sure to beat her at that didtance would be the Trotter twins, Lindsay Van Alstine (A Footlocker finalist in 2001, and Ocean City frosh Brittany Sedberry But, in our local JO meets this summer, at the shorter 1500M distance, she was severely challenged by a girl who was a newcomer to the sport, indicating that her real talent may lie in distances beyond the nromal HS raneg. But this is not the time for her to be concentrating on them. Playing other sports, as Joan suggested, would also give her a taste of what it is not to be the leader of the pack,: never a bad experience for one so young. Ed Grant.
t-and-f: A couple of things
Netters: A couple of comments on recent posts 1) First of all, congratulations to fellow Peacock Sean Albert on his selection to the U.S. Pan-American team. It is not his first international competition, but the first for him or any graduate of our college to a multiple event competition om our sport. And congratulations to the other Jerseyans on the team--M'elisa Barber and Hazel Clark 2) On the quetsion of who is and who isn't an athlete (in relation to the nomination of Sir Donald Bradman as Australia's greatest all-time athlete), I feel it is somewhat parochial to limit the term :athlete to those sports (track and field, swimming, wrestling, wrestling, etc. where the rules of the game have (or should) a very secondary role in determing the outcome---where ciyius, altius, fortius (the last in one way or another) are primary. But even these sports do have a degree of articiality about them, if only in setting the distances of competition and assuring fair play My own test for a sport is that it involve some degree of physically and that it have an objective means of detemiring the outcome. (this is why i always refer to gymnastic diving, figure skating and, heaven help us, synchronized swimming. as jumk sports) There used to be a saying that golf was not a real sport because a 50-year-old can defeat a person half his.her age. But that is happening now in much more strenuous activities (though you will forgive me if I doubt that it is happening regularly without artificial--and presumably--illegan aid. And precision, the hallmark of the great golfer, is, in its way. just as much an athletic skill as running the 100M dash under 10.00. That's why they call it a humbling game. Cricket is, to the casual viewer, not a very athletic competition. Its American cousin, baseball, demands much more in the areas of strength and speed. But Bradman's wizardry at his sport of choice has seldom mbeen matched by anyone in the more universally popular sports (or games, if you insist). I recently read a short bio of an English don whoi was at the same time one of the great science practitions, teachers and writers of the 20th century and an avid cricket fan. Bradman was his norm for s=assessing the greatness of scientists, statesmen and artists and there were onlt a hanful (Einstein among them) who received the accolade, He is a Bradman. Or, again, to make a comparison with baseball, there are countless arguments as to who is the greatest in our national game; no one ever questions who is number one in the other ball and bat game which spans the globe--if only in those many nations which were once part of the Bristish Empire and now make up the Commonwealth. Ed Grant
t-and-f: Meghan Hughes
Reiben: A question I have forgotten to ask you: What happened to Meghan Hughes this year I note she is going to cllege to run (according to DyeStat) Was she injured? Ed Grant
t-and-f: Track and headline news
Netters: Liberia is much in the news these days with the request for American troops to go there and ease the tensions. What has this to do with our sport Well, the Liberian situation came very close to hoime in NJ during the oast decade. The first instance was the presence of Ruth Doe, daughter of the infamous Lt. Doe, who briefly took over the Liberian government in the mid-90s. Ruth was a firts-class hurdler for Passaic HS; where she is now, I have no idea A couple of years later, Maxwell Booker emerged as a top sprinter at essex Catholic. His career was extended [past the usual age limit because he had lost two years of school (and very nearly his life) during the conflict that followed the ouster of lt. Doe. He went to TCU btiefly, then returned to NJ, but his running career seems over Ed Grant
t-and-f: New HS PV rule
Netters: A new rule has been passed for the PV at the annual meeting of the National Federation of HS AA. It would mandate that the bar be placed over the landing piut rather than, as now, electively at a range of some two feet laterally., The rulemakers acknowledged that this might, temporarily, results in lower height clearances, but said that the vaulters will eventually adapt to it. I would like to hear from some PV mavens about this. I do know that the leading underclassman in NJ this year will probably have problems with it. I watched him vault at 15-0 at the AG meet (he failed that height there, but later made it in a post-season open meet) and have real doubts as to how he will fare with the new placement. The object of the rule is to insure that all vaulters will land on the pit, not in that dangerous area just over the planting spot. It is a noble idea, but not necessarily a true one; stalling, if it takes place, has little to do with the present placement of the bar which, as noted above, will vary from athlete to athlete. Ed Grant
t-and-f: In at the beginning
Newtters: One oif the more plesant things in our sport is seeing a great career at the very beginning. This is why I take particular pleasure in Steve Slattery's win at the USATF meet in the SC. Steve was, I believem just a sophomore in HS when he first ventured into the event at the NJ Junior Olympic meet at Montclair State University. The distance was 2K. What impressd me was his hurdling form; I had already seen what he could do in the flat distance races. In fact, I said to him after the race, only half-jokingly, that he might take up the IH (he was running 50-second relay legs at the time). You don;t have to be a good hurdler to succeed in the SC; witness Kip Keino stepping on every barrier at Munich, but it does help. Steve, I think, has a good chance of eventually getting the AR for the event. Ed Grant
t-and-f: Farewell to a great ione
Netters: New Jersey lost one of its legendary athletes this week with the death of Larry Doby, the first player to break the color line in the American League and a member of two pennent winning teams at Cleveland. While Doby was known best for his baseball exploits, he was---like his near-contemporary and onetime Newark Eagle teammate, Monte Irvin--a multi-talented athlete who dabbled in our sport (when not breaking down fences all around New Jersey with his booming bat. I first heard of him in 1941 when he ledt his Paterson Eastside football team against our local public schools, Lincoln High (a notable track power itself) It was a game I normally would have seen myself, but there must have been a conflict with a St. Peter's contest that day, so my best friend was the one who told me of this remarkable athlete who ran over the Lions that day at Jersey City High School Field. Larry was a four-letter man in high school and, in 1941, he placed 5th in he Gr. IV LJ at the state meet. (Irvin's track career, a few years earlier, was a little more spectacular--he swept the weights for Orange in the Gr. III meet and set a state record of 192-8 in the JT.) Monte, by 1941, playing for the Eagles (actually, he played for them while still in HS, I have been told), actually saw one of Larry's HS games because, by one of those small world conicidences an Eagle teammate was dating a girl whose sister would later become Larry's wife.) After his major league career (as both player and managed) ended., Larry returned to New Jersey and settled in Montclair, giving that town two baseball Hall of Fame residents, the other being the inimitable Lawrence Peter Berra. He spent a great deal of his time visiting inner-city schools and being in every way a model citizen, a perfect example of what great athletes should be in their golden years He will be sorely missed. Ed Grant
t-and-f: More on NJ group
and Vento tying one. They will have a final shot (in the state) at 6-00 tomorrow, a height never reached outdoors by a NJ HS jumper. Colleen Farrell of Warren Hills won Gr. III at 5-8. 8) Jennifer Jackson of Eastern, also leading her team to a group title, had a, 11/98/24.81 sprint double and also ran 2nd in the 400 in 55.87. Her battle with Harris and Speed in the 100 and with Dobson as well in the 200 will be most interesting. 9) Winslow frosh Krystal Cantey had a fast 400 doubvle, taking the flat race from Jackson in 54.46 and the hurdles from Erin Crawford of Hillsboro in 1:00.63. Britany Caserta of Highland was also under 1:01 beating Ogbuokiri in Gr. III. 10) Kim Mineo of Glen Rock, who has beaten Katy Trotter the past two years for the 800 AG title, coasted in Gr. I in 2:18.37 and also won the 400H in a MR 1:02.74 and was 2nd in the 400 leading her team to a repeat victory. This AG meet may end her track career, unfortunately, as she goes to Rutgers on a soccer scholarship in the fall. 11) Unlike the boys, the goirls produced some good weight marks. Kelly Fazekas of demarest led the shot put at 45-5 1/2 with 11 other girls over 40-0. One of them was Sylvia Galarza of Millville, who led the DT at 137-7. The Raritan pair of Amanda Harmata and Kelly Robinson topped the JT at 151-0 and 147-9, the former a Gr. III record. The new events produced some interesting action. Danielle O'Reilly of Shawnee headed the girls' PV at 11-0, followed closely by Tracy Sawczak at 10-6 in Gr. IV. Trish McGowan of Ridgewood led the girls' TJ as she topped Crawford in Gr. IV at 37-8 1/.2. Vernard Hoover of Hasbrouck Heights, who had jumped 47-9 1/2 leading into the group meet, topped the public school jumpers at 45-9 1/2, but the postponed Parochial A event produced two better efforts, possibly wind-aided, today as soph Tiquan Underwood of Notre Dame won at 46-7 1/2 and Rayon Taylor of Seton Hall was 2nd at 46 1/2, both huge improvements over their Saturday trials' efforts. (Of course, the chance to totally concentrate on the event with plenty of rest may also have accounted for the marks). Ed Grant PS: A new middle distance star may have been uncovered in soph Rob Novak of Bordentown, who won a hotly-contested Gr. I race in 1:56.12. Bordentown is a school that does not compete indoors and does not compete much outside its immediate Burlington County area outdoors.
