Why is American distance running a sport for the wealthy?

Because there's no money in it.

It is a "sport" which requires very little athletic abiiity and which yields very low financial rewards (if any at all). As a result, there is no competition from poor folks (no incentive) and no competition from real athletes; ergo - the wimpy white kid's dream sport!

Track and field and CC are sometimes, maybe often, used as after school care while working mommy and daddy commute home.

They are mass participation, throw away sports, providing some opportunity for physical fitness in unionized school districts like the one where I live, where the average teacher makes 100K but the three middle schools are combined into ONE track team of nearly 300 kids and most other sports provide no opportunity for participation. The girls' soccer program, which is the most popular girls sport has no frosh or JV teams and only 35 kids on the varsity roster in a school with over 3000 students in the top four grades.

No one seems to want to talk about it but over 80% of the budget goes to teacher salaries and benefits and there is not much left over for extra-curricular activities.

The few extra thousand bucks a year that used to lure coaches cannot interest someone making 100K for 8 months work per year.

Oh, and you must pony up a few hundred bucks for every season your kid wants to participate in he giant rosters with inadequate coaching.

Worst of all, there are cuts made to the track and CC rosters because 290 team members is fine but 294 would be just crazy.

There is also no intramural program in many large districts in my state like the one described above.

John Utah wrote:

A real American wrote:

I can guarantee you that most poor people have a much stronger work ethic than the pampered children of the upper middle class and above.

I guarantee you this is not true at all. Go spend some time at multiple lower class high schools and do the same for upper level schools. The differences in intensity, preparation and work output is night and day.

Later in life the poor people will be slaving away for sure, but they aren't making much money for their efforts. It's a harsh world.

Been to both and you are correct. Upper class kids party way more intensely than lower class kids.

President Trump's son Baron plans to run xc and track probably starting a National craze for running not seen since Bo Derek was running on the beach in the movie 10.

Well blacks have a lock on the sprints, so that leaves distance running for the rest.

I think the posters who said more affluent high schools tend to have better coaches is right on.

Another thing is running is a sort that is better done is a suburban enviroment than inner city which tends to lead to more upper middle class and above participants. I wouldn't say running is a sport for the wealthy but it is skewed away from the poor. Also if you want to run your run of the mill fun run its usually going to set you back about $40 and halfs can start at $90. That is a frivilous expense if you're trying to make ends meet.

You live in hell and most places are not as bad as that.

before 1970, running was dominated by working-class people.

Economics. Football, basketball and baseball create the possibility of enormous riches, no matter how unlikely that may be. In distance running you can go to the Olympics and make nothing.

It is hard for a poor child or Their non-college parents to make the connection between D1 caliber runner = D1 degree = better life and high paid job.

You could claim the same phenomena in music or the arts: how many poor kids play the cello?

Red Pill Giver wrote:

Curiosito wrote:

For distance running all you need is a pair of shoes.

And a safe neighborhood, and work ethic.

Poor people do not have these.

Poor people lack work ethic? You clearly have not been around many poor people. Maybe fewer red pills and a little more life experience would be good for you.

As others have said, it's culture and sometimes culture perpetuates itself without much in the way of reason. While some of it is economic, I don't think poor kids are making their sporting decisions based off ruthless economic analysis, otherwise they'd all be trying to play baseball, which pays better than the NFL, has guaranteed contracts and international leagues if you can't make MLB, rather than football. Football can also cripple you for life, an added "bonus" that tends to impact long-term economic well-being.

Kids do what is culturally reinforced. I'm black. My dad was a sprinter; all the sprinters at my school were black. I wanted to be a sprinter. I also played on the basketball team. All the white kids played baseball, swam, ran X-C. When I proved too slow for the sprints, they put me in the 800. If I had had to go up any higher, I might've just quit track altogether. The high school brain works in pretty predictable and silly ways.

wealthier people are attracted to distance running as a lifestyle to stay fit. they encourage their kids to run. and they don't encourage them very much to go into revenue sports because they don't need the money that much.

There's a lot to this genetics thing you know. Healthy thin people tend to produce two healthy thin slow-twitch fiber offspring.

The 'prospects' tend to be identified by the 7th grade and if talented generally have some success in age-group 'races.'

They enter HS expecting to continue having a sense of recognition due to their running and continue training because it's a 'habit' that grownups tell them is important.

White people from small families listen to their parents. They want and need affirmation.

Speak for yourself.

theorizer wrote:

In contrast, distance running appeals to the WASPy types--the New England and coastal whites.

Also, aren't most people in America somewhere in the middle class???

Well, it sure wasn't always this way, and I doubt it's the case now.

A lot of people here are talking about how the wealthy live in areas more conducive to running and the poor live in the inner cities. That's a gross generalization. But, they forget that many poor and middle class families live in rural areas with access to good running surfaces, little danger etc.

Pre and Lindgren did not come from wealthy backgrounds at all. I seem to recall Ryun was middle class. They all came from fairly rural/suburban areas though. Yeah Spokane (where lindgren was from) is a city but it's still pretty park like with plenty of places to run.

My state is ranked pretty high in distance running. Even higher when controlling for population size. A few years ago we had something like 7 out of the top 10 HS milers. The major metropolitan area here has quite a few wealthy upper class peeps and the housing costs are high. But most of the elite runners that have come from this state and continue to are from outlying areas. They are not wealthy at all. Lower middle class service jobs, farming jobs, forestry jobs, predominate in those areas.

I love your blatant, yet subtle, classism; you fliptard. I know just as many affluent people with poor work ethic, as poor people. Too bad you just a flippin jacka**.

I'm a senior at a large, racially and economically diverse public school in the suburbs of Chicago, like many of the surrounding schools. Here's my two cents. Can I preface by saying that, for the sake of convenience, "upper-middle class" will be included with "upper-class" in this.

Why XC/Distance attracts (white) upper-class: There are a few main reasons. For one, most people on my team and other teams are tall and lean/lanky. These qualities are undeniably more common in white people than in other large minority groups in the area. We're not all horribly unathletic/uncoordinated/"no-hands", but most of our childhoods were spent doing swimming, soccer, or even basketball for some, but at the park district rec-leauge level one doesn't need a lot of pure athleticism to have fun. Corny, I know. Either way, we grew up doing more cardio or fitness-based activities, if any at all. By the time middle school sports come, people like us stay away from hard contact sports like football and basketball, or are weeded out after a few years. The people that excel at them, usually minorities, have been playing for much longer with their friends without helicopter-parents everywhere so they're already stronger and arguably tougher. They also leaned toward sprinting in track because pure speed is essential for their other sports. Coincidence or not, a lot these kids were also on the free lunch plan and came from poorer backgrounds, so the food they ate gave them bigger bodies, unlike our parents who have been pushing fruits n veggies since before we could remember. Not a stereotype, this is a real statistic. The physical differences could also be attributed to genetics. Upper-class white kids whose parents have had them swimming/similar sports will generally excel at cross country almost immediately because of their own backgrounds and support from their parents who can afford to leave work early to watch their kid race or get them into a USATF-type running club in the area with more experienced coaches. As middle school sports are underway, kids will go towards the sports where they see people like them doing well. This is where the bigger divide comes, as most varsity football positions (exceptions: QB and linemen) are black, so it's more attractive for other black and minority kids to join instead of the cross country team that is almost all-white, who are also wearing much more exposing clothes by this time. I think the short-shorts/running tights dilemma is another socioeconomic problem in itself. It discourages a lot of people, usually minorities, who live in rougher neighborhoods and will catch a lot more crap for jogging down the street in booty shorts than a white kid in a rich neighborhood would while wearing the same thing. Wealthier communities also have better infrastructure for running: well-maintained trails, riverwalks, clubs, and running community in general.

Once everyone is in high school or even after a year or 2, the racial and class divide in sports becomes self-fulfilling without needing any "real" reason to explain it.

One more thought: lower or middle class people are more likely work physically demanding jobs, have more kids that they need to provide for and dedicate more time to, so a sport that derives its pleasure in how hard one can push his or herself would be much less appealing than something like basketball or football where you can play around without breaking a sweat and get more out of it from a 15 or 20 minute period than going out for a run in the same time window. Upper class people can definitely have stressful, mentally-taxing jobs, but physically they probably have more energy and less kids to take care of, or if they do have kids than their spouse or nanny can keep on eye on them for an hour or two, which is a more realistic time for a worthwhile run.

Obviously there are exceptions, and I tried to explain this in the most impartial way possible but apologize if anything came off as insensitive. That was not my intent.

Other note: realized how long this post is, wrote it after taking my Adderall so it really didn't seem that long at the time. Oh well.

Bingo.

Attention.

New Ivy League White Man World Record for the INDOOR Marathon:

2:21:47

ha ha ha

What a joke.