USATF Board overturns 392-70 vote, will instead nominate Stephanie Hightower for IAAF Council

j.scranton wrote:

Power was given to the board on a bylaw that was passed at the meeting. The Board needed 2/3 to override the member vote.

There is a way forward that I just posted on the track and field news forums. In short, someone needs to file a complaint with the USOC for non-compliance of the governing body. A national governing body's policy decisions must reasonably reflect the views of the members/athletes.

If you want to know more, leave an email.

What do you mean, "someone?" Should we do this at the regional level, like petition a regional delegate to file a complaint? Or can I as a current USATF coach/athlete pursue individual action?

You could actually go to the Track & Field News message boards and find out:

http://trackandfieldnews.com/discussion/showthread.php?144452-USATF-Bylaws-snowjob-attempt

inequality wrote:

polevaultpower, can you fill everyone in on when/how the Board of Directors were given the power to over-ride the will of the constituents? From what appears (and no one likes to openly talk about it), the "divide" is racially provoked, with Stephanie appointing black people who support her. It's also evident that the sprinters are out of touch with the other event groups, including how to define the criteria for Tier Support (supporting primarily sprinters/jumpers).

Sure. I attended three different L&L meetings and had for the ability to explain it to regular folks ;)

Historically, this was a position elected by the delegates. In 2009, the bylaws changed to make it a board-elected position. Without getting into long details of the why and how, there were bylaw changes this year that returned the vote to the delegates, with the stipulation that the Board have the ability to overturn that vote.

Honestly, if you take all of the people, the drama and the corruption out of the picture, I like this plan. The board abused it.

I know it has been stated in various places that Stephanie appoints the other board members, but that is not how it works.

I am not prepared at this moment to give you a long drawn out explanation of how the board is selected, but I will work to get an explanation.

If all of the USATF members decided not renew their memberships, would the USATF cease to be? Would the USATF be able to conduct business according to their current bylaws?

Something Can Be Done wrote:

USATF's website, of course, is out of date.

Can someone list the current voting board members?:

Yes, it is out of date, though the changes were just made within the last few days, and all the USATF staffers get tied up doing menial work in Indy.

I believe that Deena was replace by Curt Clausen, and Michelle Carter is the new athlete alternate, a position that now gets to attend all meetings, just can't vote unless another athlete is gone.

Willie Banks and whoever represented youth were replaced by two people I have never heard of. One of whom was obviously unfamiliar with the Bumbalough situation, which means they also probably knew NOTHING about the intricacies of IAAF politics.

The loss of Willie Banks is a huge blow for the rest of us. Last year, the Board lost, badly, a floor vote at the Annual Meeting. When the board met after the closing session last year, Stephanie immediately made a proposal to make the changes anyway. Willie Banks and Bob Hersh were the two who were outspoken that the board needed to listen to the will of the people and not override it.

Now that Willie is gone, and Bob couldn't vote on himself, the Board suddenly has a much easier time saying "eff you" to the delegates.

Anyway, I do not know exactly who every current board member is, but I will try to find out and get that information published.

thanks so much becca, your work is truly appreciated here. I know it's against your ethics but i'd donate to someone like yourself in respect of the time you put in to inform those of us who just keep up from afar. just so you know it's actually appreciated.

I feel this weakly ran organization reflects why track is struggling to shine on the bigger stage.

Usatf's website and communication to membership, athletes and coaches is always conveniently out of date. This allows them to select teams, accept entries etc according to their whims without accountability.

I contacted USATF over a year ago & terminated me & my families' memberships. They basically gave me no choice. The Tarmoh/Felix debacle was for me particularly hard to swallow and I feel like after all the bad press that generated, USATF has been on a downhill spiral. Bail out if you will, BUT let them know. Go on their site & at least send them an email. I emailed & called when I had had enough. Bout the only thing left for me to do now is to call them again Monday morning AND to scrape all those USATF stickers off my car!! And you elite athletes…if you are familiar enough with the situation please do speak out & not leave Lauren & David hanging!

sumdude wrote:

If all of the USATF members decided not renew their memberships, would the USATF cease to be? Would the USATF be able to conduct business according to their current bylaws?

The answer is to your first question is "no." USATF is a national governing body created by the 1978 Amateur Sports Act. There has to be a governing body if we are to participate in the Olympics.

The answer to your second question is likely "no." I am not familiar enough with the bylaws to say exactly why but I do know that the bylaws require too much input from their members to be workable without them. That said, the bylaws could be amended.

j.scranton wrote:

Power was given to the board on a bylaw that was passed at the meeting. The Board needed 2/3 to override the member vote.

There is a way forward that I just posted on the track and field news forums. In short, someone needs to file a complaint with the USOC for non-compliance of the governing body. A national governing body's policy decisions must reasonably reflect the views of the members/athletes.

If you want to know more, leave an email.

I would imagine that Bob Hersh, himself (being a lawyer), would be aware of how to take recourse.

AKMarmoset wrote:

What do you mean, "someone?" Should we do this at the regional level, like petition a regional delegate to file a complaint? Or can I as a current USATF coach/athlete pursue individual action?

The other poster was right about a more thorough description being found at

this thread.

Short answer is that anyone can pay the $250 and file the complaint. Section 10 of the USOC bylaws has the filing rules. The filing would be better if handled by an attorney (and I know there are some looking into this now) but a lay person could do it as well.

Let me know if you have other questions and I can point you to other resources or some other folks who are considering this option.

For what it is worth, I don't really have a dog in this fight. I don't know Hersch or Hightower. However, I do think the board's action smacked of an autocracy so I am mostly researching options for shifting the balance of power back to the members.

j,scranton wrote:

sumdude wrote:

If all of the USATF members decided not renew their memberships, would the USATF cease to be? Would the USATF be able to conduct business according to their current bylaws?

The answer is to your first question is "no." USATF is a national governing body created by the 1978 Amateur Sports Act. There has to be a governing body if we are to participate in the Olympics.

The answer to your second question is likely "no." I am not familiar enough with the bylaws to say exactly why but I do know that the bylaws require too much input from their members to be workable without them. That said, the bylaws could be amended.

I think you may be wrong on the first one. There are quite a few reasons USATF might become ineligible to qualify as a national governing body under USOC law, including not being able to conduct business, insufficient membership, discrimination, and failure to promptly resolve grievances of its members. I'm not a law-talking guy, but:

What the hell are you talking about? We pride ourselves on being "the conscience of the sport". We harped on the USATF indoor fiasco all winter, we exposed Mark Bloch at the Nike VIP booth at the Olympic Trials, I asked Carmelita Jeter about her association with Bloch at the Olympics.

jscranton email me at

.

That does happen but when it is done it is explained to people why it happened. Here there is no explanation.

It sounds to me the cynical view is Stephanie's term as President is up soon (when exactly?) and this is a way to keep her involved.

wejo wrote:

It sounds to me the cynical view is Stephanie's term as President is up soon (when exactly?) and this is a way to keep her involved.

Her term is up in two years and she will not be eligible for re-election. If she does get elected to the IAAF Council, IAAF rules require that she be on USATF's BOD. So she would have an indefinite seat on the Board.

Also, the President of the Board and Chair of the Board do not have to be the same person, so she could serve as board chair too.

Becca thanks for your detailed postings.

The business decision to mute the USA's voice at IAAF, and that is what recalling Bob is, shows no knowledge of the political atmosphere at IAAF.

The idea that the new incoming IAAF upper management will not only add mixed gender relays they will also usher females to the inner circle of IAAF policy makers. is beyond folly. The USATF Board members that bought into this three bowl pipe dream of Hightower should be ashamed. Sell the future of the sport in the USA to Nike and silence USAs voice in the international political arena. Yup their new era vision thing covers everything.

Thanks j.scranton for your great info thoughts and showing that a great number of folks actually care.

And so the order came down from the bridge to rearrange the deck chairs one more time.

There are two explanations for what happened with the Board's overule.

One is that Hightower has managed to pack the Board with her cronies and that they conspired to ignore the vote of the delegates at the Closing Session to try to get her elected to the IAAF Council and therefore have an indefinite seat on the USATF Board of Directors (also note that the bylaws state that the President is term-limited to 8 consecutive years but can run again after two years) and will really keep being the power in USATF regardless if she's President or not, or will President again in 2018. Or the Board of Directors thought that Bob Hersh is too identifiable with the corruption in the IAAF (which of course makes the USATF look like the amateurs in the corruption department) and that a new representative from USATF was needed.

I have no idea which one of those scenarios is true. I have a hard time believing the first one is true (a little too conspiracy theory'ish for me) but then again with some of the monumental screw-ups they've had it could be possible. I do know that Bob Hersh is the Vice President of an organization whose Treasurer was just accused of soliciting bribes from one of the athletes in his federation to cover up her drug use (although I guess he had the integrity to give some it back when he couldn't do it). So maybe a clean sweep of the leadership (with the President not running for re-election and now the VP and Treasurer presumably gone) isn't such a bad thing.