Stephanie Hightower

Landslide victory predicted for Willie Banks as USATF’s pick for IAAF Council rep

Becca Gillespy Peter, the PoleVaultPower.com legend who made her masters vault debut at Spokane over the summer, has posted her valued endorsement of Willie Banks, our masters track friend, for IAAF Council. One commenter on Becca’s post said: “Fearless prediction – Banks in a landslide.” Delegates will make their pick this coming Saturday at the USATF annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio, where the favorite daughter (and local resident) is Stephanie Hightower, the incumbent U.S. rep to the IAAF Council. If Willie wins, it will be a ratification of my bit role in his career. In 2009, at the Reno annual…


M60 Olympian Willie Banks seeks election at Ohio meeting as IAAF rep nominee

Willie Banks may be forgiven if he doesn’t have time to compete in coming years. My M60 jumper friend is leaping into USATF/IAAF politics big time. As I note in my Times of San Diego story, Willie is seeking to replace Stephanie Hightower as the American representative on the powerful IAAF Council. His candidacy is a surprise, and since nobody else had reported this (besides the USATF Document Library), I jumped on it. My first story covers the basics, but notable is something Willie says in his statement of candidacy: “I believe I am uniquely qualified by both experience and…