Sacramento to host 2003 NCAA track championships

 

By Don Bosley
Bee Staff Writer
(Published June 25, 1999)

 

EUGENE, Ore. -- John McCasey came to America's most beloved little
track and field shrine Thursday and pitched Sacramento's case as a shrine
wannabe.

The way he's going, it may be time to order up some covered wooden
grandstands and thousands of nutty cowbells.

McCasey and his Sacramento Sports Commission cohorts were awarded the
2003 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships on Thursday, even as they
sat at picturesque Hayward Field and soaked up the first day of the 1999 U.S.
outdoor nationals. The four-day NCAA meet will be staged at Hornet
Stadium in June 2003.

With the 2000 Olympic Trials already in pocket and a battle raging for
an annual Grand Prix meet at Hornet Stadium, Sacramento is quickly
becoming one of the sport's most favored suitors. The commission last week reached
agreement on a 10-year partnership with Sacramento State on the use of
the stadium facilities. That's one reason the NCAA championships will be
coming to Northern California for the first time since 1968, when they were
staged in Berkeley.

"It's another building block," said McCasey, the sports commission's
executive director. "I've been told -- by people a lot more knowledgeable
about track than me -- that this is truly one of the greatest meets out there."

The affection is apparently mutual. The NCAA Championships have struggled
with poor attendance in recent years in Buffalo, N.Y., Bloomington, Minn.,
and Boise, Idaho, and the NCAA Track and Field Committee was plainly
taken with the commission's marketing strategy and experience in the sport.

"It's about fans -- numbers in the seats, like this," said committee member
Ralph Linderman, gesturing to an enthusiastic Eugene crowd that braved
an all-day drizzle. "We've lost a lot of money the last few years. We saw
what Sacramento did with the USA Championships a few years ago (1995) and
what they're doing with the Trials. Their bid was the best one we saw."

The committee recommended Baton Rouge, La., as the site for the 2002
NCAA meet and Sacramento for 2003. The NCAA Championships cabinet will not
formally vote until February, but all parties agree that approval is a
given. A recommendation has never been reversed, Linderman said.
Sacramento, Baton Rouge and Gainesville, Fla., were the only cities to
bid on the 2002 and 2003 NCAA meets.

Not everything is pure sunshine for the commission. Top U.S. athletes
want a crack at Hornet Stadium this spring to get a feel for the surface
before the Olympic Trials come to Sacramento in July 2000. But there is some
frosty disagreement between McCasey and national officials about whether that
opportunity should materialize. Craig Masback, president of USA Track &
Field, says a May meet at Hornet Stadium could damage attendance and
interest in the Trials less than two months later.

"We don't want to cannibalize the (Trials)," Masback said Thursday.

"You're competing against yourself, in a sense."
McCasey isn't buying it.

"That's one way to look at the half-empty glass," he said, informed of
Masback's comments. "The other is that we're going to promote and help
(the Trials) with a meet like that.

"I mean, we're going to cannibalize the Olympic Trials? I don't think
so." Last summer, Masback shot down Sacramento's bid to host a Grand Prix
meet in late May 2000. But the SSC doesn't necessarily need USA Track & Field's
help; the hallowed Prefontaine Classic, staged at Hayward Field, is a
Grand Prix event run entirely locally.

More likely, given the narrowing time frame, McCasey's group may opt to
host a non-Grand Prix meet next spring -- it wouldn't have world-class
fields from top to bottom but would offer an opportunity to athletes who
wanted to come.

"We've got people like Dan O'Brien calling and saying, 'Hey, put on a
meet, and I'll come,' " said Deanne Vochatzer, the meet director for the
Trials.

 

"We want to give them that chance."

 

 

 

 also see:

Sac State's Official Hornet Athletics Page - HornetSports.com