04/24/2025
A message from the national youth chair-
Good evening, Youth Members,
Like many of you, I expected to receive some sort of response or information as promised, from the National Office concerning the 2025 National Junior Olympics Championship, unfortunately there was none. As I shared with many of you, I have been in direct contact, frequently with our National Office Liaison and have had our Youth Division Law and Legislation Representative trying to make contact with Sarah Austin, USATF legal counsel, for any information that we might be able to share with you concerning the bidders or location for this year's championship. There have been no open lines of communication.
As we know, we are less than three full months from a registration deadline for a JO’s scheduled in July. Without having any information available on a host or location, this can restrict your ability as a coach, parent or athlete to prepare the necessary travel arrangements in order to compete at any meet, let alone a championship. Each day that passes without information concerning the bidders or the location of the 2025 National Junior Olympic championship, causes irreparable damage to those clubs, parents and or athletes that have purchased airline tickets or hotel rooms for North Carolina, when they were announced to everyone as the host at the 2024 Annual meeting in December. In addition, no information or communication also means that our track and field teams, coaches, parents and their families will look to other competitive events to fulfill their track and field schedules. Many have already informed us that they will not attend USATF meets and have made other plans for the season. Those that are looking forward to attending a USATF Championship could incur an increased fee when reserving hotel rooms or purchasing airlines tickets depending on what's scheduled in the selected city.
After receiving a number of your calls and messages concerning this, your disappointment and frustrations have been made clear to me. The failure of the organization to provide basic information in a timely manner is unacceptable. To this point, there seems to be a lot of confusion about the Championship awarding procedures and process and the role of the Youth Division. We do not have a role in any part of the contractual procedures. To ensure that there is no misinterpretation on my part to any of you, I have attached a copy of Regulation 18 of the 2024 USATF governance handbook (most available version online), for your convenient review. The awarding procedures, as they stand now, can be read in Reg 18.F.1-9. While this process did not occur, we are still in a time crunch and on standby waiting to hear the awardee and location of the Championship, in hopes of meeting our obligation to our USATF youth members in 2025.
In conclusion, the National Office has chosen to keep this committee in the dark on the status of any pending agreement for the 2025 National Youth Championship. After hearing multiple complaints, and being unable to answer your questions, we recommend you address your concerns and questions in a written email to the authoritative parties of the organization concerning this championship. Our urging has fallen on deaf ears with the National Office and legal department. Please send your emails to the following:
Max Siegel, CEO, [email protected]
Sarah Austin, USATF Legal Counsel, [email protected]
Curt Clausen, President, [email protected]
Thank you,
Jacci White
USATF National Youth Division Chair
[email protected]
