Stoppit Smith wrote:
Because of the questionable coaching, it seems difficult for people to come around on Rupp.
I like Rupp, but I also understand the backlash.
I have a serious issue as to why people don't see Ryan Hall as the standard bearer of excellence for American distance running.
It took an incredible race by Zersenay Tadese to beat him.
Michael Jordan played from 84-98 with a break in between
your "stars
Wayne Gretzky played from the late 70s into the 90s.
They are still viewed as the top of their sport.
Gladwell should have noticed this because whlle True is a steady athlete, he has not made a move to challenge the skill norms that befits those whom a sport is built around.
I think that trying to "build" athletics around any particular athlete is not going to have much success. You mention Jordan and Gretzky. If you watched games they played, 48 and 60 minutes long, you'd see these guys playing for probably 75% of the game. In a 90 to120 minute track meet the absolute most time you'll watch athletes of that caliber perform is a half hour in the very unlikely event that there is a 10,000 in the meet and your big star runs it. Mostly the stars are sprinters and will compete for less than a minute in that meet. Even individual sports like tennis and golf have their stars competing for hours in tournaments.
And Jordan and Gretzky became who they were because they got their teams to wins and championships. If no scores were kept, if all you kept track of in a basketball game was points, rebounds, assists, etc. you would have far less interest in the sport. It would become a niche sport if it survived at all.
No, you don't build a sport around Ben True, around Galen Rupp, or really anyone else if you're trying to build it to the level of "big time" sports. Perhaps athletics can regain some of the interest it had forty plus years ago. But if it is ever going to become more than a niche sport it needs an entirely different format.