polevaultpower wrote:
A little before my time, but my understanding was that when USATF let clubs have athletes from anywhere, a few all-star clubs formed and the rest of the competitive open teams almost all disappeared. It's been a lot of hard work to rebuild since then.
Your time must be pretty recent. In any case before people start talking about the "old days" when roving bands of ringers swept through USATF competitions decimating the clubs I'll have to point out the rule to get rid of "national teams" went into effect after the 2003 meeting in Greensboro, and was modified again in 2008.
The only real effect has been to keep Nike from bringing a team. In 2003 they had Webb and Lincoln there and to my knowledge they haven't had a team since. So we've managed to keep some top runners out of clubs. Woo hoo. Outside of the fact Hanson's provided housing so guys have an address for USATF there's really not much difference between Hanson's and the shoe company teams. With Olympic Development teams in the mix they should welcome, not hide from, the competition.
It's also a complete misnomer that all the teams in clubs are all the blue collar runners hunkered down in cabins in the woods with 5-7 of their closest training partners because of the proximity rules. If you put in a rule that actually enforced what has been argued is the intention of the proximity rule, i.e. you have to train together in order to compete together, there would be howls of protest because the bulk of the teams don't all train together and wouldn't make numbers with that requirement. They may train in the same association but that's not training "together" and there's not a ripping bit of difference between training 100 miles away in the same state, and 3000 miles away in two different states.
The reality of the situation is Hall or Ritz aren't ever going to join the Aggies, Twin City Track Club, the River City Rebels, or even Hansons. They're going to wear the kit of their primary sponsor in competition, and that's that. Everyone below that level who gives a crap who they run for? If some 35 minute 10K guy wants to run wants to run for a club in New Orleans because he got the best bl** J*b of his life there what does that really matter? The effect of the rule just lowers the level of competition at clubs.
Claiming that a few all star teams are the cause of a weak club system is a HUGE stretch, as is the claim that unless the system is rigged to keep out the top competitors no one will come. I just pulled up the results from 2002 and who's the top team? Hansons. Look down the teams and outside of no more Nike farm teams the list (and quite frankly the order) isn't that much different than Charlotte.
So in my mind the geography rule is a solution in search of a problem and another example of a silly rule put in place by USATF. It's incredibly ironic when you look at their other "big idea" which was to have ALL STAR TEAMS compete in regional competitions to improve fan support. So we don't want to have all stars in clubs, so we'll set up a whole separate set of competitions and structure. Dumb. Let the existing clubs keep talent regardless of geography and instead encourage team longevity instead of proximity. Use rules to discourage club swapping and creation of teams that only live for the duration of the competition.