Andrew Poore: "If I'm not a pro athlete, I'm not going to waste my time trying to pretend like I'm something I'm not&

NASCAR Equivalents -

CHEVROLET = NIKE

TOYOTA = ADIDAS

FORD = NEW BALANCE?

Get out of your NCAA bubble.

4:07! 4:07! Alexa Efraimson is too fast for the NCAA NOW!

What can she possibly gain from becoming a scholarship athlete?

The professional athletics world operates on an entirely different calender to the NCAA she would be wasting 4 years of her athletic life.

Andrew Poore should do whatever makes him happy and nothing that follows is intended to criticize his decision as such. But it isn't really right for him to tell other people that they won't improve and/or should make the same decision he has made.

Poore missed a Worlds team by one second. He hasn't "retired" to go to medical school; he has retired to become an assistant track coach. That is not a job that would prevent him or anyone from continuing to train at a high level. He very well could have made a WC team next year and been a great example to his athletes.

Also, anyone with the ability to run a 13:33 5000m can make quite a bit more than $5000 a year running on the roads if the desire is there to apply that ability to longer distances.

Poore in so many words tells other runners in his position that they should quit too because they won't get any better. And then he takes a job as a track coach? Wrong line of work.

Ajee is a World Jr champion, ipso facto "rare talent" Her PR is 1:58-low, which puts her maybe a little over three seconds off the clean WR.

The top 50-100 NBA players are visible to the general public in lots of ways and have lots of name and face recognition. T&F athletes are largely unknown to the general public and only get broad exposure during the Olympics.

In that article, Paul Doyle says he thinks Ashton Eaton has less than 1% of the name recognition of Peyton Manning. If Ashton Eaton's agent thinks Eaton - who is one of the few T&F athletes to appear in mainstream TV advertising - has that little name recognition, the sport of T&F is an even more shrunken state as a commercial vehicle than I thought.

Read more:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=5873900&page=1#ixzz35a3eqaa1

It doesn't help that track athletes don't compete very often.

More so in distance races but you're seeing NFL, NBA, MLB on a daily to weekly basis competing.

If they wold compete more often, with a season where they're competing on a regular basis, there would be more name recognition.

Thank you. This is common sense but the brainwashing has been rather severe.

The truth is limiting major sponsorships to shoe companies has held the sport back. Giving Nike major stake is discouraging progress not assisting it, really only marginalizes the sport.

Reading CEO comments knowing he is already in Nike's pocket was especially painful.

I could not have said it better myself.

dsrunner wrote:

Thank you. This is common sense but the brainwashing has been rather severe.

The truth is limiting major sponsorships to shoe companies has held the sport back. Giving Nike major stake is discouraging progress not assisting it, really only marginalizes the sport.

Reading CEO comments knowing he is already in Nike's pocket was especially painful.

Again, there is nothing limiting sponsorship of athletes to shoe companies. No rule, no regulation, nothing.

There are rules for the display of logos on singlets at SOME events. Not all.

The main reason companies do not want to sponsor track/field/running athletes is this: the audience for the sport is so small that any investment would be wasted.

dkny64 wrote:

DD Debbie wrote:

How is Ajee a rare talent? Her PR is what-like 1:59? She is like 6 seconds off WR? That is like a male professional who can run 1:47. Not a rare talent.

Her PR is 1:58.21 and she ran it at age 19. Puts her less than 5 seconds off the WR of 1:53.28 and about 4 seconds off of Pamela Jelimo's 1:54.01, so I'd say it's roughly equivalent to a 19-yr-old guy running 1:45 flat, e.g. Robby Andrews. Seems about right to me.

Plus the world record, like pretty much all women's world records, was set by an athlete on PEDs. The clean world record is probably around 1:55.

Maybe I'm behind here but you say she will get about what Wilson gets but not Cain. . . How do you know what they signed for? And if so can you share? Thanks

ricky bobby got it right wrote:

The main reason companies do not want to sponsor track/field/running athletes is this: the audience for the sport is so small that any investment would be wasted.

That might be true for big companies, but most pro runners could attract small local businesses that are relevant to the scene. Like, the Picky Bar company or maybe a sock company like Feetures! might give an athlete $5k a year to advertise. If you get 4 or 5 of those, it can go a long way when you are trying to train.

I can totally see why it wouldn't be allowed in the Olympics or any Team USA thing, but why not any other meet? Why should Nike limit a non-Nike athlete from wearing a Picky Bar logo on their singlet b/c the event is sponsored by Nike? That is stupid. That is like UNC forbidding NC State runners from wearing their uniform b/c UNC is hosting the meet.

retiredpro wrote:

Maybe this is not the right thread for this comment, but I can rarely see the business case for going pro rather than running in college. Certainly the combination of scholarship (which include room and board), coaching, travel, and athletic training/healthcare is worth close to 6-figures a year? Not to mention the value of a college degree. School work takes time away from training I guess...but taking 3 credits a semester is hardly a full time job. There are some fantastic college coaches out there and if you have the option to turn pro then you are choosing whichever college you want to anyway.

Your post is appreciated by me if no one else.

The college system isn't perfect but it can be good for development (my reference to Alan Webb). Going "pro" is risky, almost foolish for anyone in college or younger.

Sunseeker wrote:

Get out of your NCAA bubble.

4:07! 4:07! Alexa Efraimson is too fast for the NCAA NOW!

What can she possibly gain from becoming a scholarship athlete?

The professional athletics world operates on an entirely different calender to the NCAA she would be wasting 4 years of her athletic life.

4:07 is too slow for the pro life. What is she going to do at 4:07. Go to Europe and get smoked, finish 10th?

The pro scene is only fun if you are one of the top 5 people in the world. The NCAA is incredible at giving people great competitions that they can focus on and be very competitive in.

I dont know what her grades are like but I'd take my free scholarship to Stanford and run there. Stanford is probably $65k per year nowadays. So that's what at least $80,000 pre-tax.

So go to Stanford, experience college, be a star and make the equivalent of $400,000 over 5 years.

If things are going so amazing, her value will only be higher after 2015 heading into an Olympic year. If she bombs out, yes, she'll have left some money on the table, but not enoguh to retire on, and she'll have a Stanford degree to fall back on.

rojo wrote:

.. If she bombs out, yes, she'll have left some money on the table, but not enoguh to retire on, and she'll have a Stanford degree to fall back on.

You never have to fall back on a college degree - it enables you to enter the work force in a much stronger position than no degree and a Stanford degree, for example, is worth way more than it costs in terms of initial opportunity and upward mobility.

right, but in the woods article you link to on your front page, the story is told of a female sprinter who failed to sign a contract when she was hot...and then she wasn't so hot.

Efraimson is hot...hard to tell her to wait when this might be the most valuable she'll ever be.

This article -

- from a few weeks ago gave me the impression that Efraimson is significantly more focused on athletics than academics.

The term "pro" is actually a misnomer for the sport of track and field. There is very little in the sport that is pro. The governing body is mainly a volunteer organization. Certain athletes may approach their training professionally but anything else surrounding the sport ?

Fans ? One major Nascar event will host more fans than all of our big track meets combined. One televised big Nascar race has more viewers than all televised t & f meets combined. Running athletes value is rather diminished given the narrow audience.

What does Max mean by animosity towards the shoe companies ? You have a few ex Nike athletes pissed that they got dropped , thats just part of the biz. Most athletes that are paid are probably close to market value. Is it enough to live on , probably not. Could USATF devise a supplemental program to add money , sure they could.

I'd give Efraimson similar advice. Cain's the first shiny penny off this new mint of precocious, record-obliterating female mid-distance preps. Cain also has the prior connections to Nike ala Salazar. Both dramatically increase Cain's earning potential, internal support, and contract length.As good as Efraimson is, due to timing and circumstances, she lacks these VERY important variables. Unless the Salazar camp is in the process of recruiting Efraimson to join Cain in her assault on everything middle distance, I'm not seeing any potential situation that is going to trump a top-notch university scholarship.Maybe a few years of a big salary, but a fo' sho' contract to 2019? Not seeing it.

rojo wrote:

So go to Stanford, experience college, be a star and make the equivalent of $400,000 over 5 years.

That's a ridiculous point. Many brands and products are not offered internationally. Why would the rest of the world (and the sponsors) care about a product that is not offered in their country.