As many of you may know, Daniel Shaye and I have had ongoing differences for almost three years, regarding the direction of the Colonial Road Runners. Since our annual elections meeting two weeks ago, we have both come to the realization that it’s time for us and the club to move forward. We are making a sincere effort to “bury the hatchet,” met privately for almost two hours last week, and have even made “peace offering” gifts to each other. Maintaining a sense of humor about all of this, which is one of the best ways to heal and defuse the situation, we are even making jokes about our mutual excesses.
First off, in our recent campaign for president of the CRR, I sometimes used excessive rhetoric against Shaye, including a reference to a recurring cinematic character. For that I apologize to Shaye and to the club. I could have made my central points about our respective merits for leading the club without that unnecessary language and personal attacks.
There are actually many similarities between Shaye and me. We both love running, competition, the Colonial Road Runners, the team concept, and being around other runners, and we both avidly follow what we consider the best sport. After successful high school years in cross country and track, we both attended the College of William and Mary, went out for the cross country and track teams for a year, but with limited success, due to injuries. Although our best running came in our 20s, we both continue to compete seriously as Masters runners. Since we both have slowed a bit since our peak performances, many of you may not realize how good of a runner Shaye was in the 1990s, getting down to the 15:30s for the 5K and the 32:30s for the 10K. I wish him the best in his quest this year to conquer the marathon distance.
Many of the ideas that Shaye has proposed to the club are excellent ones, and they have been agreed upon by the CRR board, and implemented by the club. Our club has never been stronger, in part due to those suggestions and ideas, including in recent years developing or instituting a strong board of directors, a membership chairman, a media coordinator including editing the club newsletter, regular financial statements, a club conflict of interest policy, a bike leader for most of our races, quarterly board meetings, etc., etc. Shaye has often served as a catalyst for positive change in the club.
I will be the first to admit that sometimes I can be stubborn and resistant to change. Just ask my good friend and past CRR vice president Jim Goggin, who almost daily tells me to ditch my dialup service and join the real world of high speed internet access. So a kick in the butt is sometimes necessary, and for that Shaye has served a valuable purpose, to initiate needed change.
I also want to emphasize that none of our personal disputes have anything to do with Dr. Shaye professionally. He is and always has been a dedicated medical professional, who uses his formal education, years of running and competition, while dealing with various injuries, to help other runners, other athletes and the general public to recover from the ailments that occur in daily life. I recommend him highly as a resource in successfully overcoming running injuries, etc., whether chiropractic, acupuncture or general running advice.
I have been discussing various options for Shaye to become a positive part of the CRR, to move beyond our disputes, and to serve the club and make it stronger. We welcome him as an excellent and long-time CRR finish line volunteer, especially in the important areas of timing and the pull tag crew. But he can be valuable to the club beyond just that finish line crew.
Many good things came from the May 13th elections meeting. We had a record turnout for a CRR meeting, which showed that the club members truly care about the future of the club. Apathy would have been the worst problem. We had an excellent talk by Tommy Neeson, and a great post-meeting social.
So again I apologize to Shaye for the personal attacks, and want to work with him to better the future of the Colonial Road Runners. If the Hatfields and the McCoys can end their long family feud, and now have a joint marathon/half marathon in West Virginia named after them, so can Daniel Shaye and I “bury the hatchet” and end our feud. We will work together in the coming years for the betterment of our fine running club.
Sincerely,
Rick Platt, President
Colonial Road Runners
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