USATF has troubles passing the baton. How will a search for a new CEO go? (TIME)
It was bad enough that USA Track & Field had their hands full competing with Jamaica in the sprints, Africans in the long distance and the entire world in field events. Now, they add the search for a new CEO onto their plate with less than two years away from the Summer Olympics in London.
Doug Logan, CEO of USATF since 2008, was ousted by the federation's board of directors this week. His firing ended a tumultuous tenure where some argued that his ambition outweighed reality and his strategic vision was not shared by all. Logan was given a departure package of $2 million through his departure. More troubling about his firing is that the USATF would rather him pay that sum of money than keep him around until after the London Olympics.
Logan's own ambition may have gotten in him the most trouble. He took over for Craig Masback, who left to take an executive position with Nike. Masback's tenure lead a resurgence of USA Track & Field, but it may be remembered more vividly for the period when the Federation had its darkest hour with doping scandals that resulted in the following: six forfeited medals from the Sydney Olympics, the lifetime ban of track coach Trevor Graham, sprinter Justin Gatlin and the admission of doping and imprisonment of superstar Marion Jones. After a 2008 campaign in Beijing where Team USA won a competition best 23 medals but went 0-6 in gold medals in the sprint events, Logan started a report and commission about the national team selection process called Project 30. The '30' in the name referred to Logan's goal of 30 clean medals by Team USA in the 2012 London Olympics athletics competition. During his tenure, Logan secured $10 million in sponsorship dollars and was recently appointed to a position on the board of the IAAF, track & field's international governing body. Now, his departure will only further damage a tenuous relationship between the U.S. Olympic Committee and the IOC.
Is 30 clean medals a realistic goal? The USATF sure thinks so. Stephanie Hightower, president and chairman of the federation says that while Logan is out, his plan is still in play. Before anything is done on the track, a new CEO has to be in place, even if only on an interim basis. Not having someone in place by 2012 would be a huge disaster for USATF as they head into what is arguably their most competitive Olympic athletics competition in history. Jamaica has overtaken the U.S. in sprinting prowress and if anything drastic needs to be done, it must be correcting the well-documented headaches of the U.S. men's and women's 4 x 100-meter relay teams. The U.S. men were disqualified in Beijing when the baton exchange between Doc Patton and Tyson Gay was fumbled in the last leg in preliminaries. They haven't won an Olympic gold in the event, which they never lost in Olympic competition until the 1996 Atlanta games, since 2000 in Sydney. The women followed suit with a bad exchange between Lauryn Williams and Torrie Edwards; they haven't won an Olympic gold or any other medal (due to the 2000 team's bronze medal DQ per Marion Jones' admission) in the race since 1996. Both men's and women's team followed those follies with fundamental mistakes in the IAAF world championships in Berlin last summer that resulted in no sprint relay medals. Still, there are promising young American sprinters on the horizon that puts strength behind the USATF's goal of 30 clean medals in London.
Either way, the organization has to get its act together and find someone to head the effort heading towards the world championships next year in Daegu, South Korea and to the big test in 2012 in London. An embarrassment, either by doping scandals or by underachievement, isn't the way USATF wants to move forwards after Logan's firing.
