Why was distance running so popular in the 70s (or 80s)? Was it more popular than football?

As others mentioned, running marathons had the novelty bump. Mountain biking (which many people do instead today) hadn't really started yet. Greg LeMond hadn't won the TdF yet, which created a cycling boom (later eclipsed by the Lance effect). There was no triathlon craze yet, and no sappy NBC coverage of the Ironman. And at that point, marathons were seen like ultras because they seemed so extreme. Basically, in the 70s and 80s, running marathons was the rage and it's unlikely it will ever be that way again.

Compare to gymnastics and swimming. Neither sport is "popular" in the way that football or basketball is, but both are certainly more popular than running in terms of media profile. Come Olympics time, they're on air constanly and people like Nastia Liukin and Michael Phelps and Aaron Piersol and Shawn Johnson become celebrities. This happens because Americans compete legitimately with the rest of the world, and American viewers and consumers like to see that and cheer them on. In the 70s, American distance runners competed with the rest of the world. No matter what the sport, people like the idea of becoming famous. So when runners were getting famous, legions of younger runners tried their damnedest to be like them. Now gymnasts and swimmers are getting famous, so more kids go to gymnastics camp and join swimming clubs than put in miles on the 'crete and assorted other surfaces.

HRE wrote:

A lot of people, though certainly not all of them, were running for performance rather than for health.

This is a good summation of what happened. In the mid 70's we were all running 75 + mpw (even our JV guys) in HS. We all assumed, like the general populace that running a lot wasn't necessarily good for you, it was what you did to get faster.

Nobody had a computer or connectivity, Pong wasn’t enough to create an addiction, we didn't have a girls team (not sure if this makes you slower), or a soccer team, the aerobics craze was a decade away, jogging had yet to catch on, Athletic Attic was the only real running store, shorts were still short, coaches could cuss you out and publicly humiliate you without fear of losing their job...these, and more, all conspired to create a more conducive environment for fast times.

The other thing that helped was that running was so far outside the mainstream that it took a "special" type of person to become obsessed with running. That specialness has been diluted and probably lost to video games.

The generation where distance racing (as opposed to running) was a popular activity was the Baby Boomers. Not before and not since, except maybe the last 5 or so years. Of this I am certain.

As for why I have no idea. I do agree with Tom Derderian that distance racing's popularity began to grow just after 1960 but it took a whole decade for it to grow enough that anyone noticed.

Baby boomers were raised by an extremely tough generation, one that got through the Depression and WWII, but the baby boomers didn't have much to use that toughness for besides avoiding getting killed in Vietnam. They were also a highly individualistic generation as far as I can tell. The economy was good enough that you didn't have to get serious about a real job right away. Track was on TV more than it is now and was a bigger deal in the sports press.

a big reason among others wrote:

Ever heard of a guy called "Pre"? Steve Prefontaine. You had to 'be there' to understand it all. (oh, and I know how pissed off that makes alot of you young guys who are not happy that you missed out on this era, so you lash out).

Looks like the only one lashing out is you at youth.

other factors wrote:

As others mentioned, running marathons had the novelty bump. Mountain biking (which many people do instead today) hadn't really started yet. Greg LeMond hadn't won the TdF yet, which created a cycling boom (later eclipsed by the Lance effect). There was no triathlon craze yet, and no sappy NBC coverage of the Ironman. And at that point, marathons were seen like ultras because they seemed so extreme. Basically, in the 70s and 80s, running marathons was the rage and it's unlikely it will ever be that way again.

I echo someone else in that the old Soviet Union helped to make track and field popular. Beating the Commies hooked people and I suspect they then developed interest in specific athletes (Americans were competitive from the 100m to the marathon remember) which led to interest in other events.

I would say that running marathons these days is pretty popular. I venture to guess that there are 1) more marathons organized in 2008 than in any year in either the 70s or 80s (how about any 2 years) and 2) there are more people running marathons than in any year during that era.

However, little to none of that seems to cross over into people being fans of track and field.

We tend to look at the past more romantically...68. Remember 68? Man, the music, the excitement, Chicago..

black panthers, the ambassador hotel...

Great times huh? No.

Distance running is getting more and more popular with each year, decade...

It's much more popular now than it was in the 70's.

Don't you guys remember the crap that got thrown at us on the sidewalks and highways back in the 70's?

What do you mean by Gen X and Gen Y? Because I've heard born in 1964-81 or so for the former, and 1982-1998 for the latter. Seems to me Gen X was responsible for the crappy '90s when running an 8:59 3200 was enough to lead the nation many years, and Gen Y is responsible for the platinum age of high school running happening now. You may want to rethink your theory.

luv2run wrote:

I echo someone else in that the old Soviet Union helped to make track and field popular. Beating the Commies hooked people and I suspect they then developed interest in specific athletes (Americans were competitive from the 100m to the marathon remember) which led to interest in other events.

The Olympics were definitely more intense in the 70s and 80s because nations like the US and USSR were such rivals. It may have increased viewership of the Olympics and thereby exposure to T&F and marathoning, but I'm not sure that was the motivation for people to run marathons (ie, to beat the commies). I don't think there was a huge surge in ice hockey interest after the Miracle on Ice (1980), but maybe I'm wrong.

luv2run wrote:

I would say that running marathons these days is pretty popular. I venture to guess that there are 1) more marathons organized in 2008 than in any year in either the 70s or 80s (how about any 2 years) and 2) there are more people running marathons than in any year during that era.

However, little to none of that seems to cross over into people being fans of track and field.

I can't help but wonder if the surge in the number of marathons is simply due to it being a money-making business. I don't know the financial bottom line for marathons, but it seems like many of them should be doing quite well with such high entrance fees and big numbers.

I also think that's why so many marathons nowadays offer races of so many distances (often 5K, half, and full) on the same day because they can make more money using the same road permits with more people out there.

But the net effect, at least as I see it, is that all these new marathons are vastly watering down the competition level in the older ones.

LDR will never, has never and is not more popular than football.

Say it with me: Football is king in mainstream U.S. It is what we skinny guys hoped to play. It is what we too-slow runners hoped to play. It is what we dream of, when we dream of getting a decent or even half-decent looking girl.

We runners. We chosen few. We band of brothers who sheds their blood with me shall be my brother throughout eternity.

Or something like that.

ger wrote:

We tend to look at the past more romantically...68. Remember 68? Man, the music, the excitement, Chicago..

black panthers, the ambassador hotel...

Great times huh? No.

Distance running is getting more and more popular with each year, decade...

It's much more popular now than it was in the 70's.

Don't you guys remember the crap that got thrown at us on the sidewalks and highways back in the 70's?

Agreed, running is much more universally accepted now, and has many more participants. Obviously, in the 70s the percentage of those who ran competitively was much higher. I'm glad more people participate, but I do wish they were a little more hardcore.

A lot of good points have been made, but as a person who started in the sport in the early 70s and is still involved today...I\'ve witnessed the evolution. The 3 big factors are:

Our bodies have changed, a lot of girls people today call skinny, look like a typical female when I was young. Our diet and sedentary lifestyle is not conducive to endurance sports. When I first took the Presidential Physical Fitness test, most of the kids passed it, in talking to PE teachers in the mid-90s, only a hand full of students meet the standard. In fact, a lot of runners where discovered from that test. I don\'t think kids take that test anymore, which tells you a lot.

Although T&F in general was more popular a couple of decades ago, it was still the Olympics which created the icons/sports heroes. The 1980 Olympic boycott did an immeasurable amount of damage. That 1980 team would have been a powerful team and would have produced lot of stars…kids are most impressionable in terms of sports at about age 12-16; 4-years means we lost a generation. This combined with the African dominance starting in the late 80s caused the 90s dark ages.

Rise in the popularity of soccer, lacrosse and competitive cheerleading, etc., siphoned off some of our best athletes.

Interesting - Re: "bodies have changed" We hear so much talk about "real women" blah, blah blah - apparently, our grandmothers weren't "real women". I seem to recall, and it could simply be brain rot, but I recall there only being 1 or 2 fat kids in a class of 25 students - when I drive by schools these days, it seems to me that the majority of kids are fat. Boys and girls in the 9 - 11 range with bellies and boobs.

I concur that that F.Shorter made running popular. He was the first name I associate with early 70's running.Then There was Runnersworld and T&F News.They did indepth articles on Shorter,Salazar, Rodgers and Mary Decker and really played up the Kenyan/US distance rivalry,namely Oregon vs UTEP and WSU. There were only about 6 sports offered by most highschool then.Soccer was not popular in the 70-80's And I have to agree that this sport has probably taken our best runners, on the otherhand USA Soccer has started to be much more competitive on the world scene.

Don't forget that the high school aged population was much higher in the 70s than in the late 80s and 90s. It just reached the early 70s peak a year or two ago. Sort of corresponding to the recent "improvement" in distance running.

Highschool and college distance running is the fastest it's ever been right now.

Butter butt wrote:

a decent or even half-decent looking girl.

We runners. We chosen few. We band of brothers who sheds their blood with me shall be my brother throughout eternity.

Or something like that.

Dude, St. Crispin's Day was in October...

Butter butt wrote:

LDR will never, has never and is not more popular than football.

Say it with me: Football is king in mainstream U.S. It is what we skinny guys hoped to play. It is what we too-slow runners hoped to play. It is what we dream of, when we dream of getting a decent or even half-decent looking girl.

We runners. We chosen few. We band of brothers who sheds their blood with me shall be my brother throughout eternity.

Or something like that.

You're wrong. You're talking about men, but they're only half the story.

Have I missed something--and I did indeed skim all the posts fairly quickly--or has nobody mentioned the L'Eggs Mini Marathon?

That 10K race in Central Park was huge. It coincided with the post-radical-feminism expansion of feminism into a semi-mainstream thing: women being sisters in each other's presence in a mass way. 5,000 women, or somesuch, with no men except as spectactors, cheering 'em on.

I daresay that running is STILL more popular among American women than football, and I live with a woman who loves her some Dallas Cowboys.

Seriously: Frank Shorter's Olympic win was what helped things explode, but the Me Generation turn away from politics and towards what Maslow called "peak experiences" and self-actualization was a part of what made running a big thing back then, too. Hard to describe. I started running in 1972 thanks to Shorter; the day after his Olympic win, I said, "hey dad, we're putting on some sneakers and going for a run down at Rockland Lake." I mean we wore SNEAKERS. Flap flap flap. But it was running, and Shorter on TV got us there.

I didn't really get serious until 77-78, and that was a great time. RW seemed to have a great cover story about one road race or another every single month. Shorter, Waitz. Grete Waitz was, of course, the hero of the L'eggs Mini Marathon--the NYC Marathon heroine who came back to run and/or MC. (I'm old; memory fails.)

I was there for several of those early L'eggs Races because I dated a woman who was a member of the very first Princeton women's track team. Serious sister-power on the 6 mile loop, my brothers. Lots of....perspiration.

And Salazar: I watched him run by. My GF's folks lived on 93rd & Fifth and we walked out and watch Salazar motor by. Exciting stuff. He excited people. Shorter, Rodgers, Waitz, Salazar, Pre. And L'eggs. That's your answer, right there.