Ken Goe: Vin Lananna's ideas are "too big, too bold, too risky" for Max Siegel and USATF

Back in 1997, Nancy Ditz and others had the courage to stand up to Ollan Cassell. Too many asskissers in the sport today to have that kind of courage. If we were able to let Vin do his thing from the beginning, USATF and Athletics in general would be much better off.

I personally went up to Vin on the last day and thanked him for bringing Worlds to Eugene. He was appreciative.

Worlds was a great meet and those that were there will say the same thing.

Vin is a good dude and really wants the sport to thrive. USATF is run by toadies and boomers that fear change and are jealous of the opportunities afforded to today's athletes.

Probably the biggest, boldest, idea in the history of the sport was professionalization. It was Boomers who made that happen and AAU toadies who resisted it. When you have a guy like Siegel making an eight figure salary and being treated like royalty whenever he travels on business for the sport you aren't looking at someone who wants more than cosmetic change because real change may cost him that job. And the toadies surrounding him don't want it either because they're positions are dependent on him having that job.

"their" positions, not "they're."

Really simple idea to make track more popular: promote individual races, don't sell TV rights to traditional provider, give them to some social media company, and have race feeds pop up in easier to digest ways. Some text you get five minutes before the 400 hurdles starts with a link to to the race. Or the top athletes would basically be social media personalities/influencers showing their own races. Millions of people would have watched and then tweeted about the race. . . . The advantage of track in this day and age is that the most exciting stuff can be shown in 2 to 3 minute segments. People watch all sorts of dumb videos on their phones, they would also watch live track races. . . . It would be very easy to make the top track athletes much more famous. . . .

Amen,,,,,,,,,and that is doing a disservice to the word "terrible."

Big and Bols w/o anyone in the stands! Brilliant! Rojo stop hating on Max. You sound like you are prejudice.

Considering Max is headed to prison sooner or later for all his shady deals that line his own pockets with millions and payouts to his various companies "working for usatf", no-one should be consulting him further for anything.

He's paid himself to a multi-millionaire from the Nike deal alone.

It's all going to come crashing down.

runnersworld.com

Criminal Investigation Looks at the Financial Relationship Between USATF and Nike

A grand jury has subpoenaed records and contracts dating back to 2012.

Open link

Indeed, Vin is a great champion of the sport! He is responsible for bringing the World Championships to the United States and it truly was a great meet! USATF needs to evolve quickly in order to take advantage of Vin’s efforts and USATF should wholeheartedly endorse his vision for the sport.

Eugene probably failed cuz Max wanted it to. That being said Hayward needed a new stadium just not that one! Usatf is 100% crony and vin can fight if he wants but will never really win, just small wins followed by a basement office.

Just read a bio of Siegel. Wow, yeah. Get rid of him asap

AAU, then TAC and now USATF. Always been a clown show. Max just the latest head clown. I’m sure he picked up pointers from the best; IAAF, FIFA and of course the IOC. Penthouse hotel suites, private jets, luxury cars. In spite of USATF, Eugene was a wonderful expertise for me and my buddies.

You often hear writers, NCAA, and USATF persons on these matters. Their voices are a faint whisper, unheard and ignored since theirs no money, no market in their respective niches of the USA to back their words. For track and field, running, and marathons the critical mass in the USA is centered solely around the Olympic Games. For athletes the market is primarily the southwestern states. For example the 200 mile long Southern California beaches have 100,000 active runners each day, 365 days a year minus one or two weeks of rainy weather. That's more runners each day in So Cal of the year than NY, Chi, Bos, Berlin, and Lon marathon combined entries.

The only time Max Seigel showed passion for anything track related was when he was adamant Shelby should run the trials.

ya know what grinds my gears about NBC coverage and youtube? Every video headline tells you the results of the race!! Insanity

Another case of the blind writing about the blind.