Award-winning former Philly-area T&F/XC beat writer
named National Editor of MileSplit.us
MileSplit CEO and founder Jason Byrne has named Fran McLaughlin of Glenside, PA as National Editor of MileSplit.US, the U.S. portal of the MileSplit Network.
A freelance journalist for PennTrackXC, a MileSplit.us affiliate, since May, 2008; McLaughlin comes to MileSplit.us with more than a quarter century of experience in the sport as a runner, coach, journalist and race director.
He is currently the boys and girls cross country and track & field coach at Archbishop Wood High School in suburban Philadelphia, where he began his running career in 1982. He also spent two seasons as the Head Coach at NCAA Division III Gwynedd-Mercy College.
As a runner and a coach at Archbishop Wood High School, he has captured four Philadelphia Catholic League Championships.
From 1993-2000, McLaughlin was an award-winning track & field and cross country beat writer for Montgomery Newspapers, a 17-newspaper chain in suburban Philadelphia, covering more than 40 area schools. During that time, he won state and national sportswriting awards, and also served as the beat writer for national prep football power Central Bucks West High School, chronicling the Bucks’ 45-game winning streak and three consecutive Pennsylvania large school championships. Additionally, McLaughlin wrote a weekly running column for The Reporter, a Gannett Newspaper.
Other freelance assignments included the Penn Relays Carnival for the Associated Press, Villanova University basketball and the Philadelphia Phillies. Some of the top track and field athletes McLaughlin covered as prep stars included Olympians Gabe Jennings, Alan Webb and Erin Donahue.
McLaughlin has served as the Meet Director for the Viking XC Invitational since 2002. For more than a decade, he has been active in local race management, helping to run the finish line for the Broad Street Run, Philadelphia Distance Run, Philadelphia Marathon and Race for the Cure; as well as providing timing services for several smaller road races.
“We are thrilled to have Fran join our team of more than 30 state webmasters in providing the deepest, most comprehensive coverage of our sport,” says MileSplit CEO and Founder Jason Byrne. “He brings a strong journalistic background to the position – one that we believe is absolutely necessary to establishing our national site as a primary source for prep news.
About MileSplit, Inc.
MileSplit US is the nation's premier network for high school track & field and cross country. It was founded in 2000 by then-college sophomore Jason Byrne on the belief that the heart of the sport is on a local, grassroots level. By facilitating the publishing and business process for 30+ state webmasters through powerful publishing tools, the network is able to provide in depth, state-by-state, coast-to-coast coverage of the sport. At the same time, these state portals feed content into a national database, enabling an unprecedented depth of coverage on the U.S. level as well.
The proprietary database software unites all of the important aspects of covering the sport--results, rankings, articles, videos, photos, podcasts, statistics, and more; making the MileSplit Network the only online publisher in the sport with the tools to provide a high level of timely and comprehensive nationwide coverage.
MileSplit has a partnership with Universal Sports (formerly WCSN), which serves as its sales team for its national advertising inventory.
MileSplit, Inc. is a privately held Florida corporation. Its primary offices and datacenter are located in Greater Orlando, Florida. Additional servers are located just outside of New York City. MileSplit has a team of staff and affiliates located around the country.