American Distance Running Needs More Diversity

Pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:

Hank Hill wrote:

I agree about swimming. That's why Bolt is infinitely more impressive than Phelps.

LOL what's impressive about a 30-something doper hotter than Satan's housecat with times of an athlete a decade younger?

It reality TV.

Interesting you assume Bolt is a doper and Phelps is not. I wonder why?

Luv2Run wrote:

Baseball is attempting to address its dearth of American blacks.

Sorry about that. I came up with it at a Mets game about 2005 where all the players were black and all the spectators white. I didn't thnk it was going to spread.

Actually, minorities were over represented in the last Olympics. Example: blacks make up 12.6% of the population but they won 9 of the 17 (52.9%) distance spots on the 2016 team. So they are doing just fine.

If you aren't good enough to make the Olympic team, then you aren't making any money in T&F. If you run, but can't support yourself by running that makes you a hobby jogger. There is no need to worry about diversity in mere hobbies.

Make a lot more safe places to run--trails/parks--in urban areas and high diversity non-urban areas and that would be a big start. Then you do stuff like NYRR does to encourage youth running. One of the best programs I have witnessed is the Morning Mile, which hundreds or thousands of schools do every day. At the place I helped out, a Title I elementary school that was 8--90% black, the kids were out running for up to a half hour every morning before school (a free breakfast was available for all as well), some walked but many were doing the equivalent of wind sprints on every lap and I can't wait to see the results at higher divisions. The kids loved racing me, they needed some positive adult male attention that they were missing at home, and they were developing excellent speed with some endurance already. Any of us could presumably take on this responsibility at a different school and encourage the kids to run. There are plenty of talents out there.

Morning Mile seems to be mostly a Florida thing but there are a lot of programs in Tennessee and a number in other states.

Very easy to start. You just have a loop on your school campus and some parent volunteers to hand out tickets for each lap. Then the kids turn in their tickets for some prize or for a count in a chart and at various milestones they get something during the course of the school year.

http://morningmile.com/morning-mile-schools/

American distance running is more diverse than perhaps any other country. Why does it need even more?