In September 2017, I blogged about a racist-sounding Facebook post by the president of my masters track club.

National-class M60 sprinter Joe Ruggless, who eventually resigned as president of the Southern California Striders, had written: “That piece of shit rich NFL athlete Colin Kaepernick who was raised by white parents has no idea what a real african american has experienced, so for him to disrespect the flag, that my father was seriously wounded for, my uncle, neighbor and friends died for, can go to hell.”

Highlighting Joe’s post won me few friends.

Said one commenter: “Ken Stone, you are a pathetic flaming liberal who happens to also be burned out has been limp wrist athlete. You sicken me with your pompous attitude. How dare you try to brow beat others who disagree with you with your worn out hypocritical ‘I am going to expose you ploy.'”

His comment – one of 33,451 on masterstrack.com — concluded: “Get a life and crawl back in your liberal hell hole. I spit at the sound of your name. You are a disgrace to the sport and society.”

Dave Clingan (left) and me outside my San Diego home. Dave later moved from Oregon to Nova Scotia and formed a band.

So it goes as I look back on three decades as a self-described “masters muckraker” who “showcases and watchdogs” our niche sport.

Thirty years ago this month — in February 1996 — I stole source code from ESPN.com and uploaded the “Masters Track & Field Home Page” to my AOL “member page.” (I was partly inspired by acupuncture.com, my late brother Loren’s website founded in late 1995. I retain my TrackCEO@aol.com email address just because.)

In November 1996, having updated the page with dozens of masters newsbites and opinions, AOL named my site its “Member Home Page of the Month.”

But that wasn’t the biggest honor. During a break in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, while waiting in line for a pay phone, I began chatting with a British gent who said he’d seen my website.

Ohmygod! People were reading me across the sea!

Eventually, I got worldwide recognition — especially after I partnered with national-class masters 800 runner Dave Clingan who posted a meet calendar and suggested, as we sat in the stands at the 1999 Gateshead world masters meet, that we unite our sites, registering the domain name masterstrack.com.

Google would soon list our site first for a search of “masters track.” I became a go-to source on masters track for authors, filmmakers and newspapers. In 2009, I won the inaugural blogging award from TAFWA — Track and Field Writers of America. (And in 2014, coach Steve McGill profiled me on his hurdlers website.)

My original “home page” — was deep-sixed by AOL. But archive.org (The “Wayback Machine”) mirrored my site. (Many links are still good.) And after posting 5,755 times on “mcom,” I created this successor site at masterstrack.blog, with 263 posts. All told, I’ve blogged more that 6,000 times in those three decades.

Along the way, I helped write “Masters Track & Field: A History,” a November 2000 book by masters shot-putter Len Olson. (I got “editing” credit but not much else for my $1,000 freelance gig.) I also teamed with Jeff Davison and Andy Hecker to launch and populate mastershistory.org, which had USATF financial backing in its early years. I created a message board (that eventually becane a spam magnet and was shut down). And I wrote for the late GeezerJock magazine and National Masters News (until USATF masters officials got me banned for noting flubs in masters nationals).

National Masters News founder Al Sheahen (left) and the late Rex Harvey were both heroes of mine. Each ran for president of World Masters Athletics, then called WAVA.

Exposing ills in masters track became my calling card — and a reason for my being kicked off the Tom Jordan-Barbara Kousky track tour to Gateshead worlds. (I had written critically about masters national chair Kousky; Jordan refunded my money. Fortunately, I landed a third-floor master bedroom of a British athlete’s 1800s-era home and stayed for free.)

A few years earlier, my wife took me to the hospital after I felt chest pains. The pains began after I got phone calls and email from a lawyer named Joe Dial, a former world-class pole vaulter and friend of Larry Jessee, another vault star.

After Larry claimed the M40 world record in the vault — clearing 5.50 meters (18 feet) in August 1996 — I got a tip that this mark, like many he set in El Paso, Texas, was bogus. I wrote about it on the T-and-F listserve (an email-based message board). Larry took credit as the first masters 18-footer at a one-event meet that he set up for the sake of winning a Lloyd’s of London insurance payoff.

Joe Dial demanded that I remove the fraud accusation. I “retracted” my post, but only after my visit to the ER. Turns out it was only heartburn.

But then I chatted with Ken Weinbel, the USATF Masters National Committee chair. In a phone call, he confessed that he knew Larry’s vault mark was a sham but that his committee didn’t want to get into an expensive legal fight. So they let the record slide. (Jeff Hartwig later would raise the M40 record to 5.70, or 18-8 1/2 at the 2008 Olympic Trials.)

Critiquing masters records became a cottage industry for me. I became the scourge of Sandy Pashkin, the USATF (and later WMA) records chair who kept records on note cards and acquired a reputation among athletes as a jerk. (She once called me the “bane” of her existence.) Still, Sandy is considered a genius at how to schedule events at masters nationals.

I exposed other would-be record-setters, including a runner in India who claimed to be 119. The New York Times ran him down (and quoted me on age fraud). I also covered accusations that W55 world-class sprinter Kathy Jager was a man. (She wasn’t.) And how Armory Track founder Dr. Norbert Sander was suspected of cheating the IRS. (He was.)

Over the years — especially in the 1999-2009 period when I posted almost every day — I competed (poorly). But I had some shining moments, such as anchoring the M55 bronze-medal-winning 4×100 relay at 2009 Lahti worlds. (The head judge, an Olympic referee, playfully winked at my throwing the baton in joy after I held off Germany and Australia. Team USA could have been DQ’d, but I caught the baton, as documented on the video below by Olympian and masters high jump legend Jim Barrineau.)

I wrote obituaries (like founder David Pain’s) and highlighted milestones like the first M40 7-foot high jumper (Glen Conley in 1997). So the blog became a daily habit for masters tracksters. (Strangers would approach me at meets and thank me for the site.)

More important, and gratifying: Many have told me that my site was how they learned about adult age-group track and field.

With the advent of social media, especially Facebook, my blog receded as essential reading. In fact, masters news is well-covered on FB. I can hardly keep up with the raft of records posted and stories told. And my recent decade as a freelance reporter (for Times of San Diego and other outlets) has taken up my time. So I’ve rarely posted.

Yet 30 years seems significant. Hence this self-indulgent screed.

I take this opportunity to thank the hundreds of thousands of readers over the years and apologize for my own miscues. (For example, I wrongly wrote that the shot-put sector at 2024 Sacramento nationals had an illegal slope, based on one official’s say-so. Masters chair George Matthews chewed me out for not contacting him. The slope had been fixed — unlike the throwing field at the 2013 Olathe nationals, which negated several records.)

Some day, as I find time in my retirement at age 71, I might resume regular blogging. My journalistic motto in a 50-year career remains: “Tell people stuff they don’t know.”

So stay tuned for more yarns from a burned-out has-been limp-wrist athlete.

Me with Olympic coach Payton Jordan at 1997 San Jose nationals when he set M80 world sprint records. See his marks.

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