Track and field — going nowhere fast in the United States
A friend and I were sitting outside at a great little restaurant in Eugene, Oregon, on Friday when some dude with his shirt off, two feathers pasted to the back of his head, went riding by on a bicycle, smoke billowing around him. The feathers were black and red. Each was at least two feet long.
Not sure what kind of smoke it was but many fine people in Eugene are often, you know, mellow.
Watching the dude go by, I thought, everything seemed pretty much normal in Eugene, which bills itself as Track Town USA.
It’s a lovely thought, Eugene as Track Town USA, except — really — it’s not. There’s no place that’s Track Town USA. It’s a big problem. After this weekend’s Prefontaine Classic, before the meet this weekend in New York, before the nationals back in Eugene later this month — it’s time for everyone connected to the sport to recognize that it’s time for a thorough re-think.
Track and field is going nowhere fast in the United States.
It can, and must, do better — especially because USATF, track and field’s governing body, is getting $4.4 million annually in grant money from the U.S. Olympic Committee, the most any governing body is getting, and with that kind of cash comes heavy responsibility.
USA Swimming, for comparison, is doing all kinds of clever stuff. At its Olympic Trials, they’re plunking down a temporary pool inside a basketball arena. They shoot off fireworks and they play cool music and they have hard bodies and, frankly, it rocks.
Track and field needs to do the same kind of out-of-the-box thinking.
For instance:
What about holding the track Trials at, say, Cowboys Stadium? Make the event an — event. If Cowboys Stadium is good enough for the Super Bowl, it’s good enough for the Trials. Okay, the 2012 Trials are set for Eugene. Beyond?
In the meantime: Why isn’t there a reality-TV show where, for example, a bunch of sprinters are all living in the same house and vying for a shot at the Olympics? Surely some cable network would buy that concept.
At meets, why aren’t camera crews on the infield, up close and personal, listening to the athletes grunting and breathing hard and talking smack with each other? Why not at the Trials? The cameras are right there on the floor on the basketball floor during NBA games; they’re practically in the huddles during time-outs.
Track needs more personality and it needs to develop strong personalities; it needs sweat and drama dripping in high-def TV.
Frankly, the sport needs a lot more TV and, at the same time, a lot less TV. That is, it needs to be on the air a lot more but in shorter blocks. It needs to be on regularly but for, like, an hour. That’s all. An hour. It can be done. You don’t need to watch every prelim, every throw, every everything.
Track needs this kind of stuff to move past its doping-soaked past, and the sooner the better. When I got home from Eugene, I asked my youngest daughter, who’s 12 — our three kids are not big sports fans — to name some basketball players. Shaq and Kobe and other names came right out. Football players? Tom Brady and some others. Track? “Usain Bolt and that Marion lady who went to prison.”
That’s what track must confront.
And this:
Eugene has a dedicated and knowledgeable group of track enthusiasts. Yes, Hayward Field is soaked in history and the University of Oregon program is traditionally one of the best.
So what?
That’s a subculture even in Eugene.
You don’t think so?
Check out the website of the Eugene Register-Guard, purported protector of the faith. Now click through to the sports section. Read the line at the very top of the page, where the newspaper gets to promote how it sees itself. Does it say even the first word about track and field? Nope.
It says, “Oregon Football, breaking sports updates, NCAA and Pac-12 news, prep sports.”
Now let’s get really real.
I am truly fond of Eugene. I saw it for the first time when I was 17, just three days after I was graduated from high school in southwestern Ohio. It looked like nothing I had ever seen before; it was love at first sight. During college at Northwestern, I came back to Oregon, to do a three-month internship at the newspaper in Bend, the Bulletin. After graduation, I tried to get a job with one of the Oregon newspapers but couldn’t get any takers. My loss.
Oregon is a long way from everywhere. Eugene is farther still.
All the things that can make it charming can sometimes make it seem a lot less so when we’re talking about the kind of logistics and production values associated with the major-league sports that track is competing against.
Parking around Hayward Field is difficult to begin with (by the way, thank you to Jeff Oliver for helping me out with a pass to the Pre meet — much appreciated). It was more complicated this past weekend because it was move-out weekend at the university dorms across the street.
Those of us who have had the privilege of covering the Super Bowl had to laugh when the note went out that it would be helpful to bring our own ethernet cable to Hayward Field so as to ensure internet access. Do you really think the writers and broadcasters in Dallas this week covering the NBA Finals are being asked to bring their own cables so they can access the internet?
The New York Times was not in Eugene this weekend. Neither was the Los Angeles Times. These were just some of the other outlets not there, either: the Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Sports Illustrated.
But then, why would an editor at any of those publications authorize the expenditure of roughly $1500 to go to Eugene?
Sports depend on stars.
Bolt wasn’t in Eugene. In fact, unless something changes, he’s not due to run anywhere in the United States in 2011.
Tyson Gay wasn’t in Eugene. (Instead, he was in Clermont, Florida, where he ran a 9.79 100 meters in a heat in something called the NTC Sprint Series, according to Reuters. He did not compete in the final, according to official results. A YouTube video shows that he ran before a crowd of dozens.)
Tirunesh Dibaba, the distance queen from Ethiopia, appeared in Eugene. But that’s all she did. She appeared. She didn’t actually run, citing injury.
South Africa’s Caster Semenya, the women’s 800 meter world champion, made her first American appearance in Eugene, and ran. She finished second in the 800. But she inexplicably didn’t show at a pre-meet news conference. After the race, she had to be tracked down to talk to reporters for two minutes and three seconds.
Galen Rupp, the American distance standout, didn’t run in the 10k Friday night. He and his coach, Alberto Salazar, cited concerns about allergies — along with the worry, further spelled out on the USATF Facebook page, that if Rupp ran and had an allergy fit he wouldn’t be ready for the nationals.
That decision underscores a major part of the problem.
There are really only two meets this year that matter — the nationals, June 23-26, and the worlds, Aug. 27-Sept. 4.
The rest has devolved, regrettably, to varying degrees of noise, and everyone knows it.
Why should fans care if the athletes, coaches, shoe companies and other sponsors — everyone else who has a meaningful stake in the game — make it plain that an event such as the Pre, allegedly one of the nation’s top meets, is something you can skip without any real consequence because you’re way more worried about the nationals?
This disconnect has manifested itself at the top leadership levels of the sport. USATF’s chief executive’s job has now gone unfilled for months amid the departure of Doug Logan. Now there is talk, as reported by my colleague Philip Hersh in his Chicago Tribune blog, that the USATF board wants to pluck the president and chairwoman of that board, Stephanie Hightower, and put her in the CEO job.
For real?
That didn’t work for the USOC — see the example of Stephanie Streeter — and it’s going to draw special scrutiny if that’s the decision at USATF.
For those who would say, oh, it did work at other, smaller national governing bodies — track and field is not archery or fencing. Again, USATF gets $4.4 million a year from the USOC. It is the bellwether NGB. The situation is different.
It boggles the mind that USATF seemingly can’t get anyone in the entire United States to take this job. Why, a reasonable observer might ask, might that be?
For starters, all the reasons detailed above. Plus, USATF is based in Indianapolis, which on the excitement scale beats out Milwaukee because Indianapolis has the Colts and the Packers play in Green Bay but maybe doesn’t out-do New York; the factions within track and field can be notoriously partisan; there are the road runners and there is USATF and it’s not clear where the two communities converge, even though it seems incredibly obvious that they should; the federation holds no realistic chance of staging a world championships in the United States in the foreseeable future; and on and on.
Oh, and the other reason USATF seemingly can’t get anyone in the United States to take the job is because, after the Logan experience, USATF doesn’t seem to be looking too far outside the existing track community.
When it’s precisely outside-the-box thinking that’s needed.
It all makes you sometimes just want to think to yourself — what, exactly, is the USOC getting in return for that $4.4 million? Relay teams that keep dropping the baton at the Olympics and world championships and — what else?
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Amen. Thanks for telling it like it is. Now, if only people will listen and get on board with moving our sport forward.
Wow,
I can’t agree with you more. But firstly I have to say that the entire meet, both Friday and Saturday was very, very good even without some of the marquee names. I watched the events on Friday night and I was surprised at how exciting the 10k run was. I was a sprinter, but there I was, transfixed for nearly 30 minutes watching these great distance runners.
I like all of your ideas. But think of what happens when a top 20 track athlete gets hurt which can happen very easily. If you can’t run, your visibility is all but eliminated and you don’t get paid the appearance fees.
One of the problems that I see is that T&F is mostly an individual discipline. But this can be made into plus. If there were some sort of guaranteed purse at every event, perhaps some sort of match race structure, which it pretty much already is, these highly tuned athletes may feel more comfortable laying it all on the line.
I sure hope that someone in a position to make a change has read your article.
Thanks.
Thanks for being upfront regarding USATF..
The reason no one wants the CEO… is they would have to work with the Dysfunctional Queen… Stephanie Hightower. She is not even qualified to be the President of USATF much less be the CEO.. It’s only going to get worse…. since it’s been planned from the very beginning for her to be the CEO… The USATF board is also dysfunctional… To think they would allow Stephanie to be even considered as the CEO is a JOKE….
It’s so sad….
USATF is dead… They need to clean house and start all over…
Good one, but the house seems like it is one of those on the show “Hoarders” so that will take some time right? :)
I agree with most of your points, but I’m not sure the few you start out with are that applicable. Swimming may be doing some exciting stuff, but it doesn’t seem like they have raised their profile much outside of the Olympics. It helps that Phelps is an America (while Bolt is not), but it still goes by almost unnoticed by the general public between the Games. Also, the main reason the Trials won’t take place at the Cowboys stadiums (or most football stadiums) is because they are not big enough for a track. I actually think people would have tried that idea if the US still had a few stadiums with tracks.
“Track needs more personality and it needs to develop strong personalities; it needs sweat and drama dripping in high-def TV.”
A key point.
And a high proportion of those personalities need to be home-grown.
A “track-uneducated” tv audience cannot relate to a showcase mile where the first seven finishers are runners they have never heard of from Kenya and Ethiopia.
We just had a similar situation here for the Bolder Boulder 10k, where tv coverage also bomnbed: first four in the men’s race – unknown Kenyans and Ethiopians; first three in the women’s race – “unknown” Kenyan and two Ethiopians.
The Africans are great runners and a joy for aficionados to watch; but they tend to fly in to the big prize money races and then disappear. It must be incredibly frustrating for elite US runners. Track (and road race) promoters are besotted with Kenyan and Ethiopian runners because they figure they are more likely to break records – which guarantees a minimum of media coverage. Very short-sighted. The promoters are killing off US runners.
The Dutch have recognised the problem. The Utrecht marathon in April actively discouraged Africans from entering and boosted home runners with a prize structure that put up €100 for a Kenyan national winning the event, while a Dutch winner was guaranteed €10,000.
Let’s see track meets follow this example and see a US crowd screaming for a US athlete in with a real chance of (say) $100,000 – that will get the tv and national media there in force.
Same is playing out in Oz. We need to put in place rewards for home runners etc. I admire the Kenyan and Ethiopians, it is a complex situation to resolve amicably for the future.
I agree with this article 99%. the only thing i do not agree with is the TV coverage. Yes it does only need to be 1 hour. However is what they do not need to show is every lap of a 5k or whatever dumb distance race that is going on. show the first lap, skip to field events and show updates of best throws/jumps. People are intrigued by the field events just not educated because our announcers suck.(no names). then flash back to the final lap of the race!
america’s track and field glory days might be over.
Alan, I agree that great changes need to be made. Let me go over some of your ideas and list some of mine:
“What about holding the track Trials at, say, Cowboys Stadium?” Empty seats look bad, really bad, it is not possible even with the greatest fireworks ever to fill that thing for track and field.
“Why isn’t there a reality-TV show where, for example, a bunch of sprinters are all living in the same house and vying for a shot at the Olympics?” Please, please no!!!!!!!!!! Ugh!
“Track needs more personality and it needs to develop strong personalities; it needs sweat and drama dripping in high-def TV.” I do not like drama. What it needs is better presentation. It needs to be more simple. Examples:
It needs to get done in a shorter period of time. A meet needs to be all finals, done in an hour and half.
How? Fewer events. This would create lots of controversy but here goes:
100, 400, 1500, 10,000, Steeple, HH, LH, 4×1, 4×4, sp, dt, hj, pv
Now if you want to go off and have your 200, 800, 5000, hammer, triple jump meet, you can.
“Tyson Gay wasn’t in Eugene…. A YouTube video shows that he ran before a crowd of dozens.)”
“There are really only two meets this year that matter — the nationals, June 23-26, and the worlds, Aug. 27-Sept. 4.”
Similar problems. Meets don’t mean much. Oddly you have the phenomenon of not having the Olympics OR World Champs every four years: 2006, 2010, 2014. Why is that? Folks need to actually qualify for these meets in a much more strict way. Create a short menu of meets that you can run in to qualify for nationals. Meets can bid for this privilege. No wild cards.
If runners want to opt out for the European circuit, fine, but then they may not run in Worlds or Olympics.
I could write a whole article about this but time does not permit. I would say the most important things that can be done for TnF in this country is simplify and shorten.
I agree too. I am a college d1 runner and a huge fan of track, but it was hard to watch the d1 regionals live. The problem was there are too many delays, why is there a 3 minute delay between 400 heats? I don’t want to see that.
You could just go with the non-live coverage, but by then, real fans already know the results, which takes all the fun out. They should have well organized, small meets with 5 events each or so, they can be different events each time. this way they could have it within an hour – 1.5 hour segment on tv.
I also thought it would be cool to have a league, with different teams in different cities, but I don’t see that ever working. Or at least have some events where countries compete against eachother (besides world championships) as a team, just like a college meet. Like US vs Kenya or like 6 countries. They would score points and come down to an event where it’d be close at the end like the 4×4 for an exciting finish.
They could do it like soccer’s continental cup, and the winner of each continent comes for a team world championship. Obviously they could make money involved.
Make them compete for something to move on to the next level more than once per year. everybody loves the competition at state meets and college league meets, why not do something like that on the international level?
I’m sorry, but not racing at the Prefontaine Classic was an excellent decision on Galen Rupp’s part. I don’t know if you have ever had an allergy attack, but it lasts more than just one day no matter what kind of treatment you get. At this point, everyday counts or US distance runners in their training, and if he were to race at Prefontaine, he would end up getting 8-10th place and have and allergy attack that would set his training back and put his worlds bid on the line. By not racing Pre, Rupp is preotecting his training, worlds eligibility, and psyche. Even if you have never had an allergy attack, a true track fan knows that it sucks for Galen not to run, but he doesn’t have to throw himself under the bus at Pre for the “greater good of the sport” in the US.
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USATF is very insular and listens to no one – and they can’t afford to pay what is needed to get someone as CEO who can actually get the job done. Furthermore, what national sports association with any credibility attempts to manage an organization with four divisions: elite, masters, open, and youth across five sports: cross country, mountain-ultra-trail, race walking, road running, and track & field – it’s hubris and hard-headed people. Each division has its own agenda and drains the organization of resources and energy. A partial answer is to cut loose youth to AAU and masters to Senior Games – in both cases, they already have redundant and/or overlapping championships. Sadly, it will never happen because USATF is beholden to membership fees. Imagine if the NFL, NBA, or MLB relied on memberships to develop their sports. Track & field is currently down there with bowling and badminton having already slipped below tennis and golf – we can’t go much lower. Though we can go to Eugene once a year to celebrate and share memories of a time long past that will likely never return.
Excellent post!
Nice post… like
tennis and golf have tons of money – tons
Track and field once did too – sold out LA Coliseum for a UCLA/USC dual meet – hard to believe but it shows what a lack of leadership can do to wreck a sport.
Why? I mean, why does track and field need to be bigger in the United States? Does everything have to be bigger? I love track and field. I know where to find it when I want to get it. Bigger bigger bigger bigger. Sure, let’s turn it into something indistinguishable from all that other crap out there. Music, fireworks — to what end? So some guy who writes about it can feel like he’s playing in the big leagues? So more people can make more money of it?
The only good point in this article is about the relay passing, which has been a disgrace – but it’s about prima donna athletes who can’t make the commitment to practise together. Pre was an awesome event, and one thing that struck me was how tight the schedule was – it could not have been run in a much smaller timeframe, especially given the logistics of TV cameras and cables snaking all over the track seconds before each gun went off. Drop events like the 200 and 800 ? That idea is repugnant to any track fan. Why should the sport cater to people who are not fans ? Having every superstar compete at every event is unrealistic. Seeing 20 of the world’s best in many events was much better than seeing Bolt and Gay. Dibaba ran last year, and I’m sure there was a good reason why she didn’t line up this year.
Usatf has become an organization very similar to non-profit outreach program. They’ll give a minimal amount of help just to keep wondering if more will potentially come, and it wont. Track and fields demise in the United states is partly due to lack of leadership as forementioned in this article, and the neglect of its athletes. The face of USATF shouldnt be left to a few faces. This has burned us in the past in the doping arena, which is why it seems like most athletes are doping in track. You have 3 athletes high-lighted, and one gets popped, well theres 33% of track athletes that are now dopers. No imagination to spread the faces of this sport abroad so that the personalities can bring an interest. The inability that USATF displays when it comes to caring for the athlete during their competitive years and after, doesnt give an initiative for them to encourage younger athletes to come into fold. Our usain bolts end up in the NBA, or NFL. I mention the athlete this way, because eventually that athlete will be the next generation fan, with the next generation idea, to broaden an old generation thinking. For the governing body to continue to sit back and collect a check, and say job well done. Those days were over since Atlanta ’96. These cries should be heard, but will fall on deaf ears, and greasy palms. So to the next generation of track fan, or athlete. Run for the love, and watch for show. Until the peope that think kissing on tv is still perverse are out. get used to the mundane.
I want to see more distance, in fact. A great number of Americans run distance as a hobby and want to see the whole 5K. keep it on a screen somewhere, don’t cut it
I’ve loved every time I’ve traveled up to Eugene from the San Francisco Bay Area to watch an NCAA Regional, Pac-10 Championship, or Olympic Trials . . . But let’s face it, logistically EUGENE is a nightmare to try and fly in and out of and the Hotel/Motel accomodations are skimpy at best. Rooms are not only expensive but sell out in a heartbeat and air travel often requires one or even two stops before getting into EUGENE. (most of your college teams will fly into Portland and then take a bus in and out of Hayward Field) If US Track & Field is to gain some general viewing audience appeal, it needs to move away from Eugene being the only site for major meets. USA Swimming has done a nice job with their sponsors and a schedule of Grand Prix meets across the country. USA Track & Field needs to do the same. We also need a CEO from outside of the Sport that can think “outside of the box” and who knows how to MARKET the Sport, like the new Pac-10 Commissioner has done, Larry Scott, who comes from a background of putting Women’s Tennis on the map with significant sponsors and coverage. He just negotiated the biggest Conference television package in the history of the NCAA for the upcoming Pac-12. There is nothing on the resume of Stephanie Hightower that says that she is even remotely in the same league as someone like Larry Scott. HIghtower and the USATF board of cronies is not the answer. Our beloved Sport of T&F is already on “life-support” as it is. It’s literally been in a coma since just after the LA Olympics in ’84.
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How about getting the World Championship at Cowboy’s Stadium