This is a repost of an article that was originally posted on FloTrack here.
Thankfully we were able to get USATF to back down on this issue a few days before Club Nationals and the meet went well.
Nov 13, 2011 by Becca Gillespy Peter
To whom it may concern at USATF,
My name is Becca Gillespy Peter and I am the team manager for Club Northwest. Club Northwest was founded in 1972 and we are one of the founding USATF Elite Development Clubs. We have competed in every Club National Championship in both cross country and track since the meets’ inception. We offer financial support to over a dozen elite and emerging elite athletes annually, one of the few clubs in the country to do so.
We are hosting this year’s USATF National Club Cross Country Championship in Seattle. We were shocked to learn recently that the IAAF uniform guidelines would be applied to this meet.
This decision was made without any consultation or approval from the Club Council or the LOC. I specifically asked national office staff members about this last February and was told that this rule would NOT be applied to our meet. No one involved with the meet or the Club Council was given notification that this had changed. We learned of it when it appeared on the website only a few weeks ago.
Although “USA Cross Country Championships” now appears on the list of meets this rule applies to, it is only a technicality that our meet is considered as such. The vast majority of participants at our meet are representing a scoring cross country team that is competing for team prize money. There is no individual prize money. The athletes all consider this meet “Club Nationals”, not the “Fall Cross Country Championships” even though it is technically both.
Unfortunately, most elite development clubs do not have uniforms that meet the stringent IAAF rules. Their club logo size is too big and/or they have non-compliant sponsor/manufacturer logos.
For Club Northwest, this will cost us a lot of money.
First, we rely on sponsorships to help support our team. We have an extra sponsor logo screened under our team logo, this is in our contract with our sponsor. Only a tiny fraction of our overall membership competes at the Olympic Trials or the T&F Championships, so it has not been a major burden to screen IAAF-compliant jerseys for those athletes. However, we will have over a hundred athletes competing at Club Nationals this year, and we cannot afford to screen separate jerseys for them. Having to wear tape on their jersey makes our athletes feel sloppy and unprofessional, much like the Team USA Relays did in Beijing when their relay bibs were forgotten and they had to wear handmade ones.
Our contract is up for renewal with our sponsor and specifies that we have their logo screened under ours. Because we cannot afford to screen doubles of all of our jerseys, we are faced with both the high cost of screening hundreds of new jerseys, and the high cost of losing this sponsorship.
Second, we are on the hook for Club Nationals financially. We are counting on a certain meet participation based on past attendance. Unfortunately, we are already hearing from clubs that are considering pulling out of the meet due to these uniform guidelines. We risk losing thousands of dollars in hosting the meet because of this.
My understanding was that the uniform guidelines were being expanded primarily for meets that are televised. Club Nationals (both track and XC) are not televised. Who on earth cares what our athletes are wearing? All the Club Council has ever cared about is that the jerseys of team members’ match. Why is the National Office now overriding the committee in charge of our events?
You are hurting the few Elite Development Clubs out there that are offering support to elite and emerging elite athletes. We all know there is not enough support to go around as it is.
This “guideline” hurts our athletes and it hurts our clubs. It should not be applied to Club Nationals. Not this year, not ever.
Thank you,
Becca Gillespy Peter
Team Manager
Club Northwest
http://www.clubnorthwest.org/