TheFinalSprint.com - Track & Field, Marathons, Racing News, Training Advice, Elite Athlete Blogs, Interviews, Podcasts, Videos and More! - TheFinalSprint.com is the Premier Destination for Track & Field, Marathon, Cross Country, Olympic and Road Racing Enthusiasts.

In memory of Adam Jacobs, support the Challenged Athletes Foundation

In memory of Adam Jacobs, founder of The Final Sprint, please donate so that someone with dreams as big as Adam can reach their goals too.

Dysfunction Run Amuck
Part III: USOC Mandates and
A Question of Authority

Posted November 25th, 2008 at 4:00 PM by Adam Jacobs

Section: News & Results, Track & Field, Olympics

This is the third article in a seven-part series titled “Dysfunction Run Amuck: USA Track & Field and the Need for Change”.
In case you missed them, make sure to go back and read part one & part two, as well. To view a publication timeline for the entire series, please scroll to the bottom of this article.

From 2003 to 2005, under pressure from the U.S. Congress to clean up its act, the scandal-ridden United States Olympic Committee (USOC) took a number of drastic steps to address its own dysfunction. Among other measures, USOC reduced its board of directors from 123 members to 11.

USA Track & Field CEO Doug Logan told Track & Field News (November, 2008), “the USOC itself went through a very uncomfortable internal restructuring process.” He added, “The Congress required USOC to modify the way they did things, and to restructure [itself] and to modernize into a body that can do the business of sports in the 21st century. They went through huge changes on the governance and management sides, and they have required other governing bodies to follow suit.”

Former USOC General Counsel and sports law expert Mark Muedeking contends that the USOC, “recognized that there needed to be reform and that USOC needed to lead the way … to franchise that reform to the national governing bodies that they regulated.”

But why was reform necessary?

Muedeking, now a partner at the global law firm DLA Piper, added that if money is being wasted, if there are ethics issues, or if there is mismanagement or dysfunction at the national governing body (NGB) for a particular sport, “Then it gives everyone in the Olympic movement a black eye.”

From the USOC leadership’s point of view, the same issues that had affected USOC were also hindering some of its NGBs — including USATF — and thus the USOC in fulfilling the core component of its mission, “to support United States Olympic and Paralympic athletes in achieving sustained competitive excellence and preserve the Olympic ideals, and thereby inspire all Americans.”

The inability of NGBs to operate efficiently, according to Muedeking, directly affected “the reputation of the USOC and of the national governing bodies for each sport.” He added, “The protection of the reputation of Olympic sport is essential in this country to the ability to finance Olympic sport and to finance Olympic athletes.”

Keep in mind that, unlike nearly every other Olympic committee around the world, the USOC is merely government-mandated and not government-funded. The USOC has to protect what Muedeking calls “the credibility of the [Olympic] trademarks” so that it can attract the types of sponsorship interest it needs to provide millions of dollars in funding to NGBs. These NGBs, in turn, rely on such infusions of capital in order to, among other things, field the world’s best Olympic teams every four years.

Even the relatively “minor” Olympic sports contribute to the USOC’s reputation. Well aware of that fact, the USOC has followed through on its threats and/or cleaned house at several other NGB’s in the past, including modern pentathlon, team handball and taekwondo.

Each NGB is part of larger whole, that is, supporting the overall mission of the USOC and the American Olympic movement.

The Reform Process Begins

In November 2005, a business analysis by an independent consulting firm — commissioned by USOC and agreed to by USATF — strongly recommended downsizing of USATF’s Board of Directors.

The consultant firm had been asked to identify “current processes that contribute to businesslike operational standards, and to propose future actions that improve the long-term financial stability of the organization.”

Its report praised USATF’s financial management, and indeed its management in general, but it concluded that “the primary areas of recommended change are in the governance realm, and although there have been recent changes in Board size and make-up, further refinement and downsizing is strongly recommended.”

Those “recent changes” were really just a failed attempt to do what they were now being forced to do again. According to Track & Field News editor Sieg Lindstrom, “USATF previously took an axe to its Board in ‘99, chopping it down to what was then hoped would be a nimbler, more responsive group, but the reformatted group, most agree, continued to pull harder for the constituencies of the committee chairs who sat on it than the overall strategic mission.”

Although USATF had agreed to this review, acting on the suggestions was another matter entirely, as evidenced by the nearly three-year gap between publication of the report’s recommendations in November 2005, and the announcement, in October 2008, of a proposal by the board for restructuring and governance reforms.

Having itself experienced a similar, but far more extensive restructuring crisis, the USOC leadership understood the difficulties involved with such an undertaking. Even so, their patience with the USATF’s beleaguered leadership was coming to an end. In late 2007, USOC CEO James Scherr began sending USATF President Bill Roe a series of strongly-worded letters that ultimately resulted in threats of the reduction of funding by the USOC and the possible decertification of USATF as the NGB of track & field in the United States unless the USATF concluded a “full governance reform implementation by the end of 2008.”

In June of 2008, and just prior to the announcement that Logan would be take over as CEO at USATF, Matt Taylor of Runnerville.com wrote, “it appears that USATF did not take seriously the USOC demands, and is now forced to take action at the same time it’s undergoing a nationwide search for its next leader.”

On July 17, 2008 a reform-minded Doug Logan was hired by USATF, and the long-stalled process finally began to move. Within three months the board had, as Logan writes in his blog, “approved several proposed changes to USATF Bylaws aimed at restructuring how we govern ourselves and how we do business. These proposed changes are the results of countless hours and days of analyzing ourselves as an organization and working together to come up with a blueprint that will put USATF in the best possible position moving forward.”

Logan also painted a picture of what this proposed new structure would look like, writing in his blog, “our Board will reduce significantly in size, becoming more independent while still having all constituencies represented by committees; management of USATF will become the responsibility of the professional staff; and the organization’s decision-making processes will become much more streamlined and responsive. Accountability, responsibility and efficiency are cornerstones of the plan.”

A Question of Authority

Asked why such a dramatic overhaul of USATF’s governance structure was necessary, Logan told us,”with or without the… recommendations made by the USOC, the great majority of the changes in governance that we are proposing to the membership I would’ve recommended to the board myself.”

Logan’s sentiments are shared by many within USATF’s leadership structure, and have become central to the campaign platforms of several USATF presidential candidates. Subsequent sections of TheFinalSprint.com’s “Dysfunction Run Amuck” series will investigate and examine the dysfunction, inefficiency and other evidence that may or may not support the contention by Logan and other leaders regarding the imperative need to reform USATF’s governance model.

However, an important question remains unanswered regarding the USOC’s authority to force USATF to comply with USOC’s restructuring mandates. What would happen if, in what many view as an unlikely and potentially costly turn of events, the USATF membership votes against the reform proposals at the annual meeting in Reno, NV?

Does the USOC have the legal grounds to — as it has threatened — reduce its funding and/or decertify USATF for non-compliance? Do the USOC mandates represent an infringement of the sovereignty of USATF – an independent organization?

A few months ago, some board members publicly stated their opposition to core aspects of the reforms and their rallying cry was that USOC was infringing upon the sovereignty of USATF – an independent organization. However, with the USATF presidential election heating up, these members found themselves in the minority and largely silenced their criticisms with a belief that opposition to the reforms by candidates for president and/or their supporters was akin to touching the “third rail” of USATF politics.

Until his resignation from the board in early October, former USATF High Performance Division Chair Brooks Johnson was at the forefront of the public opposition to interference from what he terms “outside influence.”

Paraphrasing language from Section 522(a)(5) of the Amateur Sports Act, as well as the USATF and USOC charters, Johnson asserts: “These agencies should make every effort to remain independent” from those agencies. The central point of his argument seems to be that, since the two organizations have their own sets of “enabling legislation,” they are necessarily independent, and therefore, entitled to remain independent from that “outside influence.”

However, Muedeking takes a different view of the language in the Amateur Sport Act:

“Section 521 of the Amateur Sports Act… deals with the responsibility and authority of the USOC to recognize amateur sports organizations as national governing bodies. It is quite clear that under section 521, as well as 522, of the [Amateur] Sports Act, the USOC has broad discretion in setting standards for determining eligibility as the national governing body for sport for the Olympic, Paralympics, Pan Am Games, etc.”

Section 521(d) of the Amateur Sports Act:

REVIEW OF RECOGNITION – The corporation may review all matters related to the continued recognition of an organization as a national governing body and may take action it considers appropriate, including placing conditions on the continued recognition.

Muedeking: “I don’t see [an NGB] as an ‘independent organization’ that means independent and you don’t have any authority over what I do. The organizations are clearly independent, but if they want to be a national governing body then they have to comply by the rules set by the U.S. Olympic Committee.

“If the USOC were to say that in order to be a NGB you have to do something that is completely arbitrary or completely unrelated to the function, I think then that is another matter. Just like in anything with law there is a reasonableness test that would likely be imposed there. But I think it is a reasonableness that is tempered by recognition under the Sports Act that the USOC is essentially the arbiter of what is necessary.

“If you look at the USOC by-laws and specifically to Section 8 which deals quite clearly with the authority of the USOC to sanction national governing bodies and to terminate the NGBs authority if they feel it is appropriate. If an NGB said that they wouldn’t agree to changes that were mandated by the USOC in, for example, the NGBs constituent documents because they didn’t agree that the changes were necessary … and then the USOC was to take action in order to decertify them, it would be a very, very uphill argument for the NGB to make.

“It seems pretty clear based on the evidence, and not just at USOC or with the USATF, but with all of the NGBs that these kinds governance reforms are good for Olympic sport. It would be very, very difficult to overturn such a conclusion.”

But of course, one never can tell what may happen when issues of this kind end up in a courtroom.

The next installment, Part IV, of TheFinalSprint.com’s seven-part series, “Dysfuncton Run Amuck,” will be published on Friday, November 28, 2008.

The topics that have already or will be covered and the publication dates for each segment are as follows:

11/20 - Introduction

11/21 - How Did We Get Here?

11/25 - USOC Mandates / A Question of Authority

11/28 - Cannon’s Allegations / Financial Mismanagement

11/29 - ‘Jets vs. Sharks’ Dynamic / Racial Tensions

12/02 - Overstepping / Conflicts of Interest

12/03 - Pres. Election / Logan / Restructuring

— — —

CREDITS:

Segment Title:
“Part III: USOC Mandates and A Question of Authority”

Series Title:
Dysfunction Run Amuck:
USA Track & Field and the Need for Change

Author:
Adam Jacobs, Editor-in-Chief of TheFinalSprint.com and CEO/President of the TFS Media Network. Jacobs also serves on the Board of Advisers for Giving Athletics, Inc and is a co-founder and the current Executive Producer of the Running Film Festival (RFF).

Additional reporting by:
Jimmie R. Markham, associate editor and podcast co-host at TheFinalSprint.com. Markham is also the founder of 400meteroval.com.

Special Thanks To:
Mark Muedeking: Currently a partner at the global law firm DLA Piper, Muedeking earned his JD from the University of Notre Dame in 1980. Prior to joining DLA Piper, Muedeking served as the Managing Director and General Counsel of the United States Olympic Committee and a member of the US Olympic Team staff for the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney. Hired in connection with management changes implemented as a result of the Salt Lake bid scandal, he was responsible for managing all legal affairs of the organization, including representation of the athletes and the US Olympic Team in disputes arbitrated before the American Arbitration Association (AAA) and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). Muedeking was also involved in Senator George Mitchell’s investigation of alleged steroid use in Major League Baseball, an investigation into alleged ethics violations by the directors of an NGB for an Olympic sport, and the formation and oversight of an independent, international panel to review the alleged cover-up of doping violations at USA Track & Field.

James Dunaway: A senior editor at Track & Field News for four decades, Dunaway writes for the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) and is the editor of American Track & Field and Athletes Only! He has covered fourteen consecutive Summer Olympic Games, twice served as president of the Track and Field Writers of America (TAFWA), and written stories for newspapers around the country, including The New York Times and Austin American-Statesman.

— — —

Please direct all inquiries, including requests to reproduce or republish this article, to Adam Jacobs: adam(at)thefinalsprint(dot)com