Did USATF Blow Its Big Chance?
Posted by Jimmie R. Markham | July 18, 2008
USATF just installed Doug Logan as its new CEO. Logan brings some baggage to the job, having been the commissioner of Major League Soccer from its inception in 1995 until 1999, when he was fired for failing to bring up attendance and for accusations of losing the league some $100 million in his 4 years at the helm. Oh, boy. What does that mean for USATF?
According to this New York Times article, "Logan was a sports entertainment executive when he joined M.L.S. and acknowledged he had little knowledge about the world’s most popular sport." Apparently he is a lifelong runner and has a sub 4 marathon to his credit. Does he know more about track & field than he did about soccer? If not, does that mean he will surround himself with insiders like he did at MLS? That’d be the last thing USATF needs.
This little nugget may reveal how Logan is going to work with track & field media (I wonder what he thinks about bloggers?):
Logan wasn’t… diplomatic… and had a habit of making enemies with people he really needed to work with.
In 1997, Logan got into a public row with D.C. United’s Bruce Arena, the league’s most successful coach. "He frequently only opens his mouth to lace his shoes," Logan said of Arena, in one of his lesser moments.
Logan also was testy with the media and got into a tiff with Soccer America’s Paul Gardner, sometimes called the "dean of soccer writers." Instead of humoring the irascible Gardner, Logan took him on personally, using the MLS web site to attack the veteran writer.
I’m going to keep an open mind about the hiring of Logan as CEO of USATF. Here’s where I’ll draw the line, though: If I’m still seeing the same crappy, unenlightened, almost-non-existent, tape-delayed, interrupted-during-the-middle-of-the-race coverage of track & field on television by the end of the 2009 season that I’ve seen for the past several years, I’m going to assume he doesn’t have a clue about how to go about rescuing our beloved fringe sport.
Update: A quick read of the excerpts from Logan’s teleconference today reveals that he does know a little something about track and field (do you know who Ron Delaney is?). I’m impressed:
I’ve been going to track meets my whole life. I remember the seat I was in at Madison Square garden, watching the Wanamaker Mile as Ron Delaney slapped down those boards. It’s a rhythmic, pastoral experience, but unfortunately it’s one that has some trouble translating into television. We have to come up with some norms that fit better into a television broadcast.
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