polevaultpower wrote:
TrackCoach wrote:1. The last couple of national championships have went well.
2. XC Club National's have clearly become a success.
3. Membership is up.
4 Anti -doping controls are working better.
5. USATF has the best sponsorship deal in its history.
6. Participation in the youth programs and JOs are up.
She seriously has little to nothing to do with any of these things, unless you want to give her credit for everything Max does.
I've been on the LOC for Club Cross, been on the the Club Council for awhile now, and been team manager for a team that always attends the meet. Stephanie has NOTHING to do with the meet. I do not believe she has ever attended. She was less than helpful in 2011 when we were dealing with the National Office trying to restrict the logos on uniforms for Club Cross, failing to speak up when she could have, and actively working to support Nike instead of the best interests of our sport and our athletes.
If you want to give someone credit for Club Cross, give credit to volunteers like Mike Scott, Bill Roe, and Bill Quinlisk who have worked hard to build the meet over the years, and National Office staffers like Jim Estes and Veronica Rodriguez who work really hard and are very competent.
If you want to give people credit for our National T&F Championships improving, give credit to volunteers like Sue Humphreys, Ed Gorman, the standards sub-committee, etc and staffers like the ones listed above plus Duffy Mahoney and others from High Performance. We've had plenty of screwups over the years, but I have watched Ed, Sue and Duffy genuinely try to learn from the screwups and figure out how to make things better going forward, and they are very interested in hearing what athletes have to say. It's a shame that AAC is set up to fail and is structured in such a way as to keep athletes OUT the meetings they should be actually attending.
I don't know how Stephanie would get credit for membership being up. That mostly goes to the local Associations who put on the events that require membership.
She's not involved with anti-doping, that is all USADA and National Office staffers. It is fair to criticize her somewhat for not doing _anything_ when USADA leveled extremely serious charges against Jon Drummond, and for not taking action when drug cheat Dennis Mitchell was named to a coaching staff.
I guess you can give Stephanie part of the credit for the Nike sponsorship, she clearly stated in 2011 that as USATF President she has a fiduciary duty to them, and made it clear that what they want goes. But most are critical of that sponsorship, at least the length of it, not praising it. Max is the one who gets credit for sponsorships. Stephanie has a day job in Ohio, Max is the one pounding the pavement, calling sponsors, and making things happen.
I don't know how you give her credit for youth participation being up, that goes primarily to the thousands of local volunteers and coaches who years after year put tremendous work into building clubs, coaching athletes, and putting on quality competitions that require them to join USATF.
For someone who claims to be on the side of fairness, you don't seem to have a very good understanding of how things work.
I am jumping out of this discussion because I can see where some people are so entrenched in their opinion and/.or have an agenda that there is perhaps nothing I can say that will make a difference. I am not a personal friend of Stephanie or close enough that I have a desire defend her unwarranted. However, I do know her enough to know that she in not this mean idiot people are making her out o be. Stephanie does have a strong personality that is perhaps not the perfect mix for a not-for-profit type organization.
Btw, I remember when people turned on Bill Roe, Logan and even Masback, therefore, maybe it is just natural thing for track & field people to not like whoever is in charge.