Fall of the AAU and American Distance running

no

I was involved in both the competitve aspect and administrative aspect of the transition from the AAU to TAC.

The running boom ruined distance running in this country, not the AAU or TAC. (Although USATF is doing a good job of trying to destroy it now). It took many years for us to get over the negative effects of the running boom. I guess one can say that Shorter did more to ruin distance running in this country than he did to help it

ray wrote:

(Although USATF is doing a good job of trying to destroy it now).

How exactly are they "trying to destroy it now"? I see them organizing competitions, championships, promoting them, centralizing a course certification database, etc etc. Is this "destroying" it?

Where to start?

How about a better idea.....do a search of USATF on this site and see the negatives vs. the positives. A good area to start might be the Men's trials in New York.

ray wrote:

Where to start?

How about a better idea.....do a search of USATF on this site and see the negatives vs. the positives. A good area to start might be the Men's trials in New York.

In other words, a whole lot of armchair quarterbacks don't like the way USATF is doing things. You people live under the fantasy that they can somehow magically market track and field into the NFL and when they fail to achieve that, they are trying to "destroy the sport".

Huh? How did the running boom destroy distance running? It encouraged more people to become involved in the sport. Certainly, many of them could be said not to be involved in the sport with any serious level of intensity, but every sport has its casual fans and participants, which of course, are better than none at all.

I think the biggest driver of demise is that it is often difficult to get young people to be dedicated to a pursuit that takes a lot of discipline. We live now in a short attention span and immediate gratification culture, with lots of fast food, video games, and the like. These cultural changes are real, if not always precisely measurable. And for those inclined to be structured, disciplined and talented enough to devote lots of time to running, there's a host of other distractions - some not at all negative either - such as increasing pressure to specialize in academic fields early on and make that a primary focus. Throw in the growth of other sports such as soccer, and heck, there's a multiplicity of factors that just have not proven helpful to gaining success in distance running. It is simply a different environment now.

My own high school is a perfect anecdotal example. Thirty years ago we were multiple state champions, with 4 runners under 4:12 for the mile in a two year period and a 5th man on our cross country team clocking in at 9:25. It was academically one of the best high schools in the state, and still is - except that it has only improved academically from where it was when I attended. A good thing. The reality, however, is that they might get a runner under 10 minutes for two miles today, but not often. And there's little chance today that a serious program would be built there - quite bluntly - the parents and the kids themselves are too caught up in the chase to get into business or engineering school (or whatever) and view the kind of commitment that running takes as a frivolous use of time.

I think that the point is that the running boom caused the focus of distance running to shift to the weekend fitness runner, not the elites of the sport. Thus Runner's World starts churning out stories geared toward 30 mile per week runners, and that makes it's way into the development of young runners. Too many high school runners in the 80s and 90s were told that they didn't need to run more than 40 miles per week, because that's what the 'experts' in Runner's World said.

I think I know where you're going with this and I sort of semi-partly-half-agree. But I disagree when you say Shorter's win ruined distance running.

In the months after Munich, a LOT of guys who'd been decent high school or college runners but had given the sport away were inspired by Shorter's race in Munich to have a serious go at seeing how good they could be. And we aren't talking about "just finishing" a marathon. I knew several people who'd run between 2:15-2:30 who were inspired by Shorter's race.

Somewhere, much further down the road, the sport eveolved into what it is today. I suppose you can assign some responsibility for what it's become to the forces that followed Shorter's race, but something else had to have happened to change it from what it was in the years immediately after Munich to its current form.

It's a bit simplistic to say Shorter caused the demise of distance running in the US. Shorter, Cooper and Bowerman have been given credit for the Running Boom. But, even before the pedestrian "Runner's World Mentality" came along, there were suddenly multiple races every weekend rather than that relative few that you pointed to each year. A whole new mentality developed. Runner's thought they could make a living out of hitting a couple of races each weekend and there was little long term development. No focus. Still others became satisfied with being big fish in those little ponds. After a huge push for sponsored athletes, that resource quickly dried up. Standard of living, instant gratification, and numerous other factors also worked their way in.

PS. I wouldn't think I qualify as an armchair quarterback

No armchair quarterback thinks they are an armchair quarterback. But whether you are or not, none of this has anything to do with USATF "trying to destroy the sport".

I am responding to the question of the running boom actually working against the sport. You apparently didn't use your search button as directed.

By the way, marketing wouldn't be at the top of my list of problems with usatf.

Is Boomer Esiason an armchair quarterback?

ray wrote:

I am responding to the question of the running boom actually working against the sport. You apparently didn't use your search button as directed.

By the way, marketing wouldn't be at the top of my list of problems with usatf.

You responded to my post which had nothing to do with the topic of the running boom working against the sport and everything to do with the remark that USATF was trying to destory it. You apparently didn't read the post you were responding to as directed.

Marketing would not be at the top of my list of problems with USATF either.

I really disagree that Runners World and its ilk caused the demise of distance running. Ok - now there lots of 30 miles a week types out there - a good thing, really, if not consistent with top level running.

But those 30 mile a week types have kids, and contrary to the assertion that they will stuff their kids (who by and large are coached by decent if not far better high school coaches) with 30 miles a week is ok, these parents will be far more likely to be supportive of serious runners than non-running parents. No, the problem is a cultural one in terms of derivation, and it is not susceptible to easy blame to be laid upon Runnner's World.

Really now, what percentage of the population has the talent for top level running? Witness the backgrounds of the lucky few males who get Division 1 track scholarships - by and large they ran in the range of a 4:30 mile (if not better) as 9th graders - on very little training with very little background - they have talent, simply put. But the problem is that we don't get the numbers of talented kids out like we should, and then when we do, they, because of the aforementioned cultural factors, don't put the time in and take the disciplined approach that it takes to succeed.

I think that the downfall had more to do with the rise of the African nations. Americans are only interested in sports that we dominate on the world stage. When we no longer were competitive the youth lost interest.

Just like baseball. Baseball used to be americas pastime, until it was taken over by latinos. Then the interest switch to basketball and now you see it's decline since the NBA is being filled with foreigners.

Even auto racing (not a sport), the indy 500 used to be big, until it was taken over by brizilians and europeans, then the racing fans switched to nascar, where there was still american drivers.

The sport certainly changed in the years, heck, in the months after Munich and Shorter's race had loads to do with that. But the fact that Shorter was in the marathon at all reflected a significant change in the sport. He was our best 10,000 man and one of our three best 5,000 runners. Historically, distance runners good enough to make an Olympic team on the track didn't run the marathon or ran it as a "back up" event as George Young did in 1968 and Billy Mills did in '64.

By Munich, there was already a road racing boom, relative to what road racing had been like before. And the years after Munich didn't show any sort of "fall" in American distance running, even on the track. 10-12 years after Shorter's win you still had guys like Paul Cummings, Mark Nenow, Bruce Bickford in T&FN's world rankings and Brian Deemer (Deamer?) winning an Olympic medal.

I don't know how much time needs to elapse between Event A and Event B before A gets off the hook for causing B, but there was a quite a bit of time between Munich and the "fall" of US distance running.

The only thing wrong with the Runner's World culture is that it hides information. I think that it's great that so many people jog 30 mpw. What isn't so great is the fact that many of these 30 mpw'ers don't really know that you don't have to be superhuman to run a 5k in under 18 minutes. I have a friend who volunteered some time with Team in Training. When, on his own training run, one of his colleagues saw him running around 7:15 pace, he was admonished that he was going to hurt himself and that he was training foolishly. What I want to know is how many potentially great runners are out there who won't get the chance to realize their potential because they aren't told what it takes to be great.

Fortunately, I think that Letsrun is turning the tide. The Runners World set is still out there, waddling away, but times at the top end of the sport have been improving dramatically, from the high school level to the pros. I believe that Letsrun has broken the stranglehold on the "secrets" of running fast. I just wish it had been around when I was in high school.

In all seriousness, I believe that, through creating and hosting this site, Wejo is the most influential American distance runner of all time.