Craig Alford Masback (born 31 March 1955) is a retired American middle distance runner who specialized in the mile and 1500 meters, recording 30 sub-four-minute miles, including a best of 3:52.02, winning the U.S. Indoor Championships at the mile distance in 1980, establishing an American record at 2000 meters in 1982, and representing the United States 10 times in international competition between 1976 and 1985.
After retiring as an athlete, he pursued careers in sports marketing, law, and print and TV journalism. He has covered five Olympic Games for NBC Sports as a color commentator in track and field. He later became a noted sports official, serving as the CEO of USA Track & Field from 1997 to 2008, where he tripled revenues, quadrupled sponsor revenue, and helped implement programs that substantially increased funds to and services for elite athletes. He is currently the Nike, Inc. Vice President of Sports Marketing for Greater China, Japan, & Global Business Affairs.
Early life and education
Masback was brought up in White Plains, New York. He graduated from White Plains Senior High School in 1973. He attended Princeton University, where he was co-captain of the track and field team and competed on the cross country team. He was a Magna Cum Laude graduate of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs in 1977 and received Princeton’s Harold Willis Dodds Prize, which recognizes the senior who best embodies “qualities of clear thinking, moral courage, a patient and judicious regard for the opinions of others, and a thoroughgoing devotion to the welfare of the university and to the life of the mind.” He also received the William Winston Roper Trophy, awarded to the Princeton “man of high scholastic rank and outstanding qualities of sportsmanship and general proficiency in athletics.” He was awarded an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship and attended Trinity College, Oxford University from 1977 to 1979 on a Henry Griffth Keasbey Memorial Scholarship. At Oxford, he pursued a graduate degree (M. Litt.) in Politics, but did not receive a degree. In 1994, he earned a J.D. degree from the Yale Law School, where he was a recipient of a Ford Foundation International grant and was an editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Athletic career
In high school, Masback was the New York State Indoor Champion at 600 yards (1973) and won the Eastern States and Golden West Invitational track and field meets at 880 yards (1973). At Princeton, he was the anchor leg on a Two-Mile Relay that won the NCAA Indoor Championships (1975) and finished second in the NCAA Distance Medley Relay indoors (1976). He finished sixth in the NCAA Indoor Championships in the mile run (1977). He was a two-time IC4A Champion and an eight-time Heptagonal (and Ivy League) Champion at various distances (including relays).
He launched a professional running career while at Oxford, improving his personal best mile time from 4:01.8 (1977) to 3:52.02, which when he ran it on July 17, 1979 in Oslo’s Bislet Stadium established him as the sixth fastest miler in history. It was one of his 30 sub-four-minute miles. His first sub-four-minute mile was run at the Iffley Road track in Oxford, England, where he was the second man to break four minutes.
Twenty-four years earlier, on the same track, Roger Bannister's legendary run shattered the four-minute barrier for the first time in history. Masback became U.S. Indoor champion in the mile run in 1980.[3] He finished third twice in the 1500 meters at the English Championships, the AAA Championships, in 1978 and 1981. His best 1500 meter time was 3:35.28, recorded in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1982. That same year Masback established an American record of 5:00.11 in the 2000 meters in Bordeaux, France.
Masback represented the United States 10 times in international competition in indoor and outdoor track and field. He won a bronze medal at the 1985 Pacific Conference Games. He also competed at the 1985 IAAF World Cup as a member of a U.S. team that captured the team title.
Masback was a co-founder (with John Smith and Henry Hines) of the Association of Track & Field Athletes (1980), an athlete’s union for professional track athletes dedicated toward bringing about “open” era of track and field competition (“Track Athletes Spur Union Activity in Bid for Rights,” NYTimes, July 1, 1980, B14). Masback was also involved in later efforts to unionize track and field athletes, including in 1985.