about the Gold, Silver and Bronze designations being a good idea, however, there is a concern that to use those designations would be an infringement on the intellectual properties of the International Olympics Committee, the IOC.

I am not sure what is confusing about Diamond, Platinum and Gold, when compared to 1, 2, and 3, or Gold, Silver and Bronze, or First, Second and Third, but just in case I may be over-simplifying a complex situation, I would like to make this offer to you.......

Please feel free to conduct the research neccessary to verify that the awarding of contestant trophys, wherein the top award is termed Gold, the next place down is termed Silver and the next place down is termed Bronze is not a usage infringement on a trademark (or intellectual property) of the IOC.

With appropriate certification of non-infringement I would be very willing to re-designate the award levels to what you feel are the less confusing designations of Gold, Silver and Bronze, and dumping the confusing designations of Diamond, Platinum and Gold.

Since I have done some of the research already,
let me pass along some pertinent information. This outfit (U.S. Olympic Entertainment Properties) is responsible protecting various copyright and trademarks of the IOC, the USOC and the SLOC (Salt Lake). They have already issued 1,000's of infringement letters for even simple things like using the words Olympics and Olympiad.

They currently monitor 25,000 Internet sites which have been identified as using those words, or other IOC trademarks/copyrights.

My point here is that the IOC is very serious about protecting their rights, and we, as a Club (and as an incorporated concern) are aware of certain rights and are responsible to "check it out" before acting.

So by all means Chuck, please check it out. I will be very interested to know what they say.

Tell me, do you have any favorites for TOTY and/or SSOTY? I'm being to think that only O'Shea's issued any Silver Strikes in 2001.

Respectfully,

Jim Follis