Ed:
That again goes back to your association. I'm both a high school coach and
club coach as well as youth chair. We regularly have mass mailings as well
as word of mouth. We pass out literature at the high school coaches
association meeting and that association even has a seat on our board. In
other words high school coaches and usatf kinda work together, so the word
gets out. Those that don't know here don't want to know. It has nothing
to do with money from the USOC or the national office of USATF. It has to
do with how active your association chooses to be in the high school arena.
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Patrice Wilson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: Ed Grant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; track net <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Date: Tuesday, July 17, 2001 5:34 AM
>Subject: Re: t-and-f: Junior qualifying
>
>
> >Netters:
> > First I'm surprised that so many of you were unaware of the
> >qualification process for the world youth games. It was highly publicized
> >last year at both the Youth Athletics Nationals and at the Junior Olympics
> >meet in Buffalo. Much of the problem lies in the ages of the competitors
> >for the World Youth Team. The format of that meet forces the selectors to
> >pick from the Youth and Intermediate age groups only. The age limits are
> >15-17. One may not turn 18 during the year. In all the complaining I
> >haven't heard a lot of kudos for all the medallists that we did have and
> >the fact that we did win the team competition. Even our Junior National
> >team has not had a better result on the international scene.
> >
> > In Illinois our USATF association is very strong. We host local
> >invitationals most weekends which draw 500-700 athletes. Our J.O.
> >association meet drew 1360 athletes even though the national meet is in
> >California. We hosted the Youth Athletics National Meet in Decatur, IL and
> >drew over 3000 athletes. When you look at the results from both USATF
> >J.O.s and AAU J.O.s the results are always superior at USATF in every
> >event. AAU even cost more to enter. A membership card for USATF is
> >$12.00. For AAU it is $25.00. Coaches know upfront that not attending
> >the USATF meet will cost their athlete a shot at making an international
> >team. It is their choice. When USATF is the national governing body for
> >Track and Field in the US why in the world should we go outside our own
> >house for athletes. If the USATF association in your area is not putting
> >on meets as well as hosting a quality Junior Olympics program then maybe
> >some of you should get involved in the local association. Just my .02.
> >
> >Patrice Wilson
> >Youth Chair
> >USATF-IL
>
> Patrice:
> Airing it at these meets is preaching to the converted. The only
>way to ensure full participation is to spread the lkiterature at major HS
>meets.
> Ed Grant
> >
> >>Netters:
> >> Since I started this discussion over the qualifying for the world
> >> youth team, maybe I should clarify exactly what my position is:
> >>
> >>
> >> 1) Qualification should be, when possible, from meet(s) held the same
> >> year as the competition. (A world yotuh meet in the Antipodes could be
> >> early the following year, in which case we probably wouldn't have much of
> >> an entry no matter how we qualify our athletes.
> >>
> >> 2) Whatever meet(s) are used, something has to be done about the
> >> abysmal failure (and not just for junior meets) of too many local USATF
> >> unioits to properly emply the local media to get the word around.
> >>
> >> 3) It is obvious that in some areas, the AAU JO meet remains more
> >> popular than the one sponsored by the USATF. That issue could have been
> >> solved long ago by a simple use of logic. No one-sport organization has
> >> any justification to use the term "Olympics," which is, by definition a
> >> multi-sport competition.
> >> In the best of worlds, the USOC would run the Junior Olympic
> >> program as it does the US Olympic team itself--farming out the qualifying
> >> to designated organizations such as USATF. Since it evidently doesn't
> >> want to do this---it has had 20 years to pick up the ball---then the only
> >> multi-sport organization around to do this would be the AAU.
> >> In either case, the USATF could run its JO qualifying meet, send
> >> these athletes to a multi-sport competition and, at the same time, send
> >> those qho qualify to the World Youth Games. There would then, perhaps, be
> >> an end to the redundancy of two junior competitions run each summer by
> >> USATF. Or would that be too simple a solution?
> >>
> >> Perhaps we ought to look into how other nations do it.
> >> Ed
>Grant
> >
> >
