I have a lot of things I want to say, and in an attempt to avoid writing a novel, I have numbered them…
1. You should watch Athlete A on Netflix.
2. The US Olympic Committee has not changed, they just stuck a SafeSport bumper sticker on and are pretending things are better. The underlying issues that fostered an NGB like USAG have not changed. Most of their key personnel are the same.
3. The USOC loved Steve Penny and USAG.
4. The USOPC wants cookie cutter NGBs that operate the way USAG did. Remember we have that SafeSport bumper sticker on, so everything is OK now.
5. The USOPC hates USA Track & Field. They hate our system.
6. USATF’s governance includes a President/Board Chair who is directly elected by the hundreds of delegates who represent the entire membership.
7. These delegates include at least 25% representation from our Athletes Advisory Committee, and within the delegations from all 56 Associations, each is supposed to include at least 20% athletes.
8. Our AAC has always been one of the best among the NGBs at meaningfully empowering our athletes.
9. The USOPC does not want empowered athletes.
10. Empowered athletes want to get paid.
11. The people at the highest levels of the Olympic movement are making a lot of money.
12. USATF’s governance has a system of governance that provides a certain amount of checks and balances. The USOPC does not want this.
13. The USOPC wants cookie cutter NGBs where power in concentrated in the Board Chair and CEO of each NGB.
14. The USOPC has been threatening to decertify USATF off and on for decades. We go through cycles where we make changes, they are quiet for awhile, then they demand more changes.
15. I personally witnessed Rick Adams from the USOC at an L&L meeting threaten to sell the training center in Chula Vista if we did not make the changes they wanted. We did not make all of the changes they wanted and they did sell Chula Vista. No one made a stink about it because we managed to retain access for the athletes.
16. Imagine my horror when USAG’s malfeasance was exposed and the USOC repeatedly claimed that they have no leverage over the NGBs! They have leverage when they want to have leverage. They just.did.not.care. that athletes were being physically, emotionally, verbally and sexually abused by their coaches.
17. While many, oh so many, track and field athletes have been sexually abused, I have not been able to find any evidence that USATF, as an NGB, was _complicit_ in their abuse the way other NGBs were.
18. There are many reasons for this, but one of the reasons is our system does not allow one individual to have the kind of power and control that Steve Penny or Chuck Wielgus did.
19. The USOPC wants the power to be concentrated at the top, because that makes us easier to control.
20. The USOPC gives lip service to empowering athletes, while forcing USATF to make changes that weaken the power of our athletes.
21. In February 2020, the USOPC sent USATF another letter telling us that they would decertify us if we did not make governance changes by the end of the year.
22. The four areas that they want us to change are:
a. Currently the L&L committee makes recommendations to the delegates who ratify them at closing session. The USOPC wants the recommendations to go to the Board and the Board will have the final say (note that with USA Diving, the USOPC also forced them to do this with competition rules). They also want term limits for L&L committee members and all committees to submit multiple recommendations to the diversity committee who would then decide who will sit on L&L.
b. The President to not automatically be the Board Chair. They also want to move all committee appointments from the President to the Chair. These things would effectively strip the President of all power.
c. Add more independent members to the Board.
d. Move all power for national championship site selection to the national office and effectively cut the committees out of the process. Because that worked so well at the 2016 Marathon Trials.
23. The USATF Board of Directors voted several weeks ago on these and approved something in each of these categories.
24. I do not know the language of what passed, because the powers that be have not deemed us lowly volunteers worthy of being notified that our bylaws have changed.
25. The athletes have been asked to support these changes, despite being given minimal information about what was passed. You are supposed to just trust them that USATF was previously engaging in “bad” governance and that the USOPC is proposing “good” governance.
26. Not all changes are bad. Not everything the USOPC is proposing is bad.
27. At the end of the day, the goal is to concentrate power within USATF so that the USOPC can “manage” us better, which will allow them to better exploit the labor of our athletes and make more money off of them.
28. Who knows what good governance is? Let’s look at the fruit of these systems…
29. How many lawsuits is the USOPC named in because they failed to protect athletes from sexual abuse? A lot. How many is USATF named in? Zero. We didn’t wait for a lawsuit to start protecting athletes, we looked around at what was happening at USAG and USAS a dozen or so years ago, and we started taking our own steps to protect athletes.
30. How is diversity going for our organizations? Take a look at the USOPC’s executive staff and board of directors, and then look at USATFs.
31. Which organization is more financially stable? Who has laid off more staff at this point? Who is going to be financially healthier if Tokyo never happens?
32. We have “drama” within USATF because we are an incredibly large and diverse sport filled with volunteers who are passionate about doing what is best for the athletes. There will always be some level of “drama” as the sport evolves and we try to figure out the best way to allocate resources. Not all drama is bad.
33. An NGB where the Board and the CEO make all decisions, and the volunteers have no power is exactly the type of NGB that fosters the abuse and exploitation of athletes. If you think SafeSport has fixed things, well, bless your heart, but even if SafeSport was working, it does not address the financial exploitation of athletes that has occurred since day one of the modern Olympic movement.
34. The USOPC’s models of “good governance” are based on what is best for corporations to make a lot of money, not what is best for athlete safety and well-being.
35. While we should always work with the USOPC, we must make sure that athlete safety and well-being is what drives what we do, and a system that removes the checks and balances within our governance leaves our athletes more vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, not just from their coaches, but from the Olympic movement itself.