I’m going to tell you some things about a very close friend of mine. I hope you’ll take the time to read about this amazing women. Her name is Marie Walker. Many of you who are new to our sport may not know Marie. But those who have been around know her very well. But even then you may not know many of the things she has done and accomplished in her career. Marie Walker skated Senior Dance in the Northeast Region from 1953 through 1958. In 1962 Marie, with her husband Ed won Esquire Dance at Nationals in the inaugural year of that event. She began judging in 1954/55, and in 1963 became Northeast Regional Representative to the American Judges Council, and remained so until it was disbanded at the time of the merger, about 1972. After the merger, Marie was the first woman to serve on the new USARS Board of Directors and was its first President. She remained either President or Chairman of the Board until 1992 when she retired from active participation in Roller Skating. During that time, she also chaired the USARS Artistic judges committee, which including responsibility for naming the panels to judge each event at the National Championships for those years and evaluating the performance of the judges following each meet. In addition, she corrected every RSA judges commission test written in the USA from 1969 until 1992. Like her work for USARS, this too was strictly volunteer. Marie never turned professional in any way, never receiving anything beyond the same per diem received by the judges for the national meets,. When roller skating was accepted as a Pan American medal sport for the 1979 Games in Puerto Rico, Marie became roller slating’s member of the Board of Directors of the United States Olympic Committee. During her tenure there, she was elected Secretary of the Council of National Governing Bodies for some ten years, which consisted of the voting members of the USOC Board for each Olympic and Pan American sport. She was twice elected by the NGB Council to the nominating committee that named the slate of USOC Officers, and was voted overwhelmingly to represent the Council as a member of the executive board of the United States Olympic committee. When the United States Congress passed the Amateur Sports Act in 1979, the USOCs Membership Committee was charged with responsibility to determine full compliance with the Act and with the USOC Constitution, of each Olympic and Pan American sport. Marie was a member of that Committee from the day they were first charged with the examination of the documents of each sport, until she retired from her USOC responsibilities after the Olympic Games of 2000. It was this committee who determined that Roller Skatings Governing Body was NOT in compliance with USOC Regulations, and forced USARS to institute a nomination and voting procedure to make USARS Board of Directors an open rather then closed entity. The USOC did not appoint people to such important Committees because of their positions within their own sports, but rather because of their value to the United States Olympic Committee itself. The Sports Act and the USOC Constitution were designed to guarantee athletes/other participants, guarantees to their right to participate, and to receive due process. The group serving on the Membership for any length of time, did become recognized as experts on the Act and the Constitution, and although she officially retired in 2000, she is still contacted by some of the sports, seeking advice. Marie has also been credited in George Pickard’s wonderful book “Titans and Hero’s of American Roller Skating”. ……………………………………………… The reason I’m telling you about Marie is because I wanted everyone to know of her incredible background and credentials. Marie has asked me to post her observations and comments regarding actions taken at last weekends USARS Board of Directors meeting. Those comments will be posted shortly
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 19:02:36 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015