Selig, Goodell could learn from USA Track chief

Selig, Goodell could learn from USA Track chief
January 31
Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Bill Livingston

"The head of American track and field recently went into the lions' den, a gathering of dietary supplement and health food producers, seeking to cleanse his sport. Doug Logan, the CEO of USA Track and Field, issued strong challenges to the group in a rock 'em, sock 'em speech. He posted his remarks on the organization's Web site, USATF.com.

It certainly (Not!) brings to mind Major League Baseball's hollow man, Bud "See No Evil" Selig.

Logan regularly writes a blog called "Shin Splints." NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, in a sport filled with behemoths who have possibly been artificially enhanced, doesn't blog.

Arguing that performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) are choking the life out of track and field, Logan added, "The supplement industry has been assisting in braiding the noose."

He mentioned the role supplements played in the football deaths of Korey Stringer, of Ohio State and the Minnesota Vikings, and Rashidi Wheeler of Northwestern. He decried supplements that are "spiked" illegally with PEDs by unscrupulous manufacturers.

"Where were the regulators?" Logan asked, adding: "With powerful inside-the-Beltway friends like Sen. Orrin Hatch on their side, the supplement industry has consistently lobbied against any federal regulation whatsoever."

Former President George W. Bush called on sports to crack down on illegal drugs in his 2004 State of the Union address. It was unclear how that was to occur since "regulation" was a taboo concept in the Bush White House.

Logan knows his sport must win fans back. "The NFL can afford to have a drug problem. Baseball can afford to have a drug problem. Track and field can't," he said.

Actually, no sport can afford it.

He decried the tainting of the sprints, saying, "If your 100-meter superstar isn't clean, 99 percent of athletes might be clean, but it wouldn't matter."

Translation for "See No Evil" Selig: "If your one-season home run records and your career homer records are in part the result of what's in a syringe or what's being cooked up in a test tube, it doesn't matter."

On his first day on the job, Logan sent a strongly worded letter to Bush, urging him not to reduce the prison sentence of disgraced sprinter Marion Jones.

Some wondered if Bush would pardon family friend Roger Clemens, who, in testimony at a congressional hearing, was described as walking around with bloody gauze stuck to his pincushion butt after getting jabbed with needles loaded with PEDs so many times. But the Clemens pardon had no chance after Bush rejected Marion Jones' request for clemency."
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