Sub-4 miler Masback '77 now CEO of USA Track & Field

College admissions offices, alarmed at the number of applications from students with bulging, possibly inflated resumes that list more activities than number of hours in a given week, have started to say they are not looking for well-rounded applicants so much as well-lopsided ones — good students with a particular aptitude or musical interest or proven athletic ability.

Back when Craig Masback '77, now CEO of USA Track & Field (USATF), applied to Princeton in 1973, he would have defied any such categorization. Collegiate coaches recruited Masback for his stellar abilities in soccer as well as track, and he began at Princeton with the intention of competing in both varsity sports on top of his academics.

Masback eventually chose to focus on track, and his performances in the following four years certainly did not disappoint Larry Ellis, his "inspirational leader and coach." Among the many victories, the sweetest may have been anchoring the winning NCAA Indoor Championship 2-mile relay in a huge upset over traditional powerhouses such as Arizona State.

"The end of the race was interesting," he said. "The third runner passed the baton to me with a huge lead, which I promptly lost. But I came back [at the very end to win]."

In the 30 year span since the Princeton gates unleashed Masback, he has served on the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne, Switzerland, worked as a TV commentator, founded a sports marketing and TV production company, and practiced law at a prestigious firm in Washington, DC. In 1997, Masback was tapped to take over as chief executive officer of USATF, where he has since spent his time.

While these opportunities may seem far removed from attending lectures in McCosh 50, Masback has found ways to integrate his Princeton experience into multiple careers.

"My Woodrow Wilson School education has been valuable to me at every stage of my career via my ability to analyze problems and look for solutions," Masback said.

Masback describes his position as president-elect of an organization, the National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity, as "a perfect extension of his WWS major." The organization looks at policy solutions for the problem of sedentary lifestyles.

Accordingly, Masback does not only have the aim of discovering and supporting the most talented track and field athletes. He has, so to speak, redefined the role of the national track and field organization to act in the nation's service.

"What USATF offers is the chance to make a difference in the lives of everyone touched by our sport," Masback said. "In a society facing huge problems with [obesity, that chance] is important beyond winning medals at the Olympic Games."

Masback drew a parallel between approaching the problem of drugs in sports and the ethics espoused in classrooms and on the track at Princeton.

"Essentially, there is an honor code in sports," he said.

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The issue of drugs in sports is one of the greatest challenges he has faced at USATF. The organization has received bad press in response to the recent years of publicity over the use of performance-enhancing designer drugs in track and field stars such as Marion Jones.

"That is why places like Princeton are so important — the group of student athletes at Princeton demonstrate that athletic success does not have to come at the expense of education or integrity," said Masback. "The general commitment from all involved athletes, coaches, administrators, professors is to have an athletic program dedicated to excellence and to the proposition that winning the right way is as important as winning."

Masback, a world-class runner who competed on 10 U.S. National teams, certainly knows quite a bit about winning. After graduating from Princeton, Masback attended the Trinity School of Oxford University on a Keasbey fellowship. He continued training there, and he ran his first sub-four-minute mile on the famed Iffley Road Track in Oxford, England.

"I may not have continued running if I had not attended Oxford after Princeton," he said.

Masback had the distinction not only of being the second person to break the four-minute mark at Iffley, but also of doing so in the presence of Roger Bannister, who had run the first sub-four-minute mile in history on that very same track 24 years before.

With that success under his belt, Masback went on to clock a 3:52.02 mile in Oslo, Norway, in 1979, which earned him the distinction of being ranked the sixth-fastest miler in the world at that time.

Upon returning to the United States, he was the U.S. indoor mile champion in 1980. Of all his races, his favorite places to run were in Oslo, Norway, where Masback ran his two best miles and at the Penn Relays at the University of Pennsylvania track in Philadelphia.

When he continued to run postgraduate school, Masback noted that he often returned to Princeton.

"I returned to Princeton because of the outstanding training conditions," Masback said, referring to both the running routes and the indoor and outdoor tracks.

His favorite run was a loop featuring the hills of Pretty Brook Road, which lies north of campus.

"When I came to school it was called a 10-mile run," he said.

Current runners at Princeton should take comfort in Masback's recollection that he struggled through his first 10-miler on Pretty Brook, which he had to run in preparation for his first cross-country season his sophomore fall. Today, Pretty Brook is still a favored training route for the varsity runners.

Perhaps he will get a chance to pound that familiar stretch of pavement this May when he returns to Princeton for his 30th reunion. Masback is bringing along a special guest, his 8-year-old daughter Grace, and plans on showing her the campus.