USATF President/Acting CEO Bill Roe on Tuesday spoke with the media at
the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Track & Field. Below are excerpts
from his remarks.
It's great to be here in Eugene. Obviously this is one of our best
Olympic Trials ever. Just a comment last night from our Olympic Weight
[Throws] Coach, Criss Somerlot, who came off the field from the weight
throw, wondered what all the commotion was about in the 800 which had
taken place while he was out of the stadium. I said, "I can tell you in
very short order, 'Oregon Track Club, Oregon, Oregon Track Club.' He
said, "they should be charging for people to leave tonight." I thought
that was indicative of the many comments.
A couple of highlights include the classic finish by Amy Yoder Begley
[in the women's 10,000] was an amazing effort to get the A standard and
to be on the team. I thought maybe one of the more humorous moments came
when Dan O'Brien was interviewing Brian Clay after the narrow miss of
Dan's record. I think he's still sighing that breath of relief.
The LOC here has done a fantastic job. I want to thank particularly two
people on our staff who have made it an easy effort for me in keeping
the transition going after Craig (Masback) left the position so that I
didn't have to get into the daily nitty-gritty of putting on a Trials
event last minute. Sandy Snow and Brian Brase have just done a great job
for us in keeping the show moving.
I'd like to thank also, Nike, our number one partner. The vision that
has been exemplified by all the various extras that have gone on is just
indicative of the commitment by everyone, from Phil (Knight) on down to
the whole organization. Excellence is the word of the day and they've
done a great job of keeping things lively for the fans. I'm so impressed
with the fan fare [Fan Expo]. 8,000 people a day at the Fan Fare is an
incredible addition to the Trials. Especially when you have a stadium
that seats 15,000 - getting another 8,000 people a day actively involved
in the Trials has been a great way to do it.
On the CEO Search
I would like to be in this job [acting CEO] as few days as possible.
It's already been a few more days than I anticipated. My original goal
for bringing on a CEO was June 1, but in an Olympic year, everything and
anything happens. So, that date got pushed back a little bit. We're
still moving forward very rapidly.
The search committee is working very hard. It's a completely independent
search committee of our Board of Directors. There's not a board member
on the search committee. It's made up of, among other people, Bob
Greifeld, the Chairman of NASDAQ, John Bennett for whom we have named
our decathlon award. He's the man who brought the Visa Decathlon program
to USATF a number of years, ago. Also former Olympic Coach, Deanne
Vochatzer, Adam Nelson, who is well known to all of you and was not
particularly happy with his shot put performance the other night but has
been happy to serve on this committee, and a few others. They have been
doing this process independently so that we can get the best possible
CEO that we can get for USA Track and Field. That's my goal. Rather than
do it fast, we're going to do it right and get an exemplary replacement
for Craig as soon as we can.
On Board restructuring and work with the USOC :
Many of you have also read about our USOC involvement. I can tell you
that I met with [USOC CEO] Jim Scherr and [USOC Chief of Sport
Performance] Steve Roush as they enjoyed the first few days of our
Trials. I can tell you that my personal relation, and my relations as
President, with all of our USOC folks is exemplary. I count those people
as very good associates of the sport and very good partners of the
sport.
We've been working toward restructuring along the lines as they have
promoted. Their own board shrunk from 124 people down to nine in 2003.
We've been working toward that for quite a while. The only glitch in the
whole process was that we wanted to take a little more time than they
were comfortable with. They wanted that process to be competed sooner
rather than later. So we had a little disagreement on the time schedule
and that resulted in the letter that was apparently made public at the
end of May.
We've satisfied their demands in that letter currently and are fully on
board with them in having restructuring concluded by December. Most of
the Board Members will be non-constituent representation. That was one
of their two main objectives with the board as governance. As an
organization, we should be spending as little as possible on governance
and having governance noise be kept to a minimum. Our focus should be on
the athletes and events and program. That's what our common goal has
been. The only difference has been our time tables.
On the IAAF:
Many of you know that [IAAF President] Lamine Diack was here. We
introduced him to the crowd. We brought him around to a series of events
just so he could meet people. Mr. Diack and I have had conversations for
years, hoping we could get an event on the IAAF World Series here in the
United States. It's been my fond desire to bring the World Cross Country
Championships to American soil for the first time since 2002. We've been
working very hard, as a matter of fact we have two very dedicated cities
working to bring the Cross Country Championships to the U.S., and we're
going to have to choose one of them. I suppose that's a great position
to be in.
We also have four or five other cities that have expressed interest.
It's going to be a six or seven city process to determine one to make a
bid to the IAAF to put the Cross Country championships back in the U.S.,
in 2010 or 2011. That's our goal. That's my goal for the end of the year
before my term expires, to place a World Cross Country. But President
Diack isn't satisfied with that. He wants to see us be able to host a
World Athletic Series event on the track and field side as well.
On the athletes who have made the Olympic Team thus far:
I think it's a very strong team. I'm surprised by the strength in some
of the events. We've obviously again demonstrated why we have Trials and
why we pick our team in trial-by-fire here on the track. Because we get
some people who may not have been on anybody's list to make the team.
It's always fun to see how they will compete once they get on the track
in Beijing. There area some exceptional veterans, led by some incredible
people in the shot put once again for us. In the 400 meters, we're going
to have all the strength we can hope for. In the 400 hurdles, we're
excellent. I could go on and on. You can see the strength that we have.
One thing the USOC did say is that they wish they could import the
Oregon fans to Beijing in the 800 so those guys would be as inspired as
they were last night. With that kind of crowd support you're going to do
some great things.
Know someone else who's interested in running and triathlon?
