What Nike Fears

Adidas? No. A shutdown of the NFL? No. It's this.

The Hilarity, The Hilarity

This is too precious. Sarah Palin did a Turkey Trot 5k yesterday in Kennewick WA. The Tri-City Herald reports:

Palin had announced on Twitter that she would be running the 5k race organized by the Benton-Franklin Chapter of the Red Cross. She didn't finish the race, opting to leave the course early to avoid more crowds at the end.

(emphasis added)

Wow. Somebody has a complete lack of self-awareness.

It Had To Happen

Some yahoo at CNBC.com named Darren Rovell, who writes their Sports Biz blog, put up a short post titled "Marathon’s headline win is empty". Noting that Meb was not born in the USA,

Keflezighi’s country of origin is Eritrea, a small country in Africa. He is an American citizen thanks to taking a test and living in our country.

Nothing against Keflezighi, but he’s like a ringer who you hire to work a couple hours at your office so that you can win the executive softball league.

As someone at Let's Run pointed out, this is jingoistic, not racist. It's also ill-informed. Track fans know that Meb emigrated at the age of 12, hardly a ringer, and had all the "benefits" of US society.

I'm willing to bet the house that Rovell didn't know the previous American (male) NYC champ, Alberto Salazar, was also not born in the USA and is a naturalized citizen. Heck, for that matter the last American male Olympic marathon medalist before Meb, Frank Shorter, wasn't born in the USA.

And the American medalist prior to Shorter? Johnny Hayes in 1908. Born in New York City...to Irish immigrants. Dirty foreigners!

Senator & Beer Mile

I've always like Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) better than most if not all Republicans in the Senate. He's no William Proxmire, but then again no one is.

Lugar is generally not a Dick. No surprise, then, that he'd play along...
Senator Lugar an Accidental Grand Marshal of 'Chug-and-Run'
...The rules are simple: Chug one beer before each of the four laps, and eat a hot dog between laps two and three. "The idea is to do something relatively short, relatively painless, and increase the likelihood that somebody would throw up"...

Leftist Political Columnist? ESPN?

Apparently it is so.

I saw Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story last night and found it...feh. And I really like his stuff, but not this stuff. I agree with his basic idea, that lawlessness (economic or otherwise) allows the powerful to abuse the weak, and I didn't think it took 120 minutes to explain that one idea.

In one column, ESPN's Jeff MacGregor did a much better job of explaining how rich people have, through the power of their wealth, the capacity to be real assholes. A common man's leftist screed.

Ohio HS XC Meet In Flux?

Two newspaper articles about Ohio governor Ted Strickland's new budget which calls for slot mahines at the state's horse tracks (via Let's Run):

Slotted for trouble? State high school officials ponder status of cross-country meet at Scioto Downs due to slot machines' arrival

The Ohio High School Athletic Association is exploring whether a proposal to install electronic slot machines at Scioto Downs would impact the state cross country meet held there each autumn, the group said Monday.
...
The meet has been held at Scioto Downs since 1985 and typically draws more than 10,000 spectators. It is not a money-maker for the OHSAA. Last year, it drew 10,051 fans and lost $5,934, according to OHSAA figures.

Some coaches said they are worried what would happen to the meet if it leaves Scioto Downs, because there are no obvious alternate sites that can handle the athletes, crowds and parking.

HS Athletic Association monitoring Ohio slots plan

In a story on the OHSAA's Web site, state cross country meet manager Terry Oehrtman says, "Scioto Downs has, in fact, become synonymous with the OHSAA state meet. When you talk to coaches, they don't refer to the state meet as the state meet. "They don't say, 'We hope to make it to state.' They say, 'Our goal is to make it to Scioto Downs."'

The state meet includes three boys and three girls championship races involving 96 teams and more than 950 runners.

The articles discuss a lack of an alternative site. Rubbish--there are always alternatives. Ken Jarvis of Galion HS has led a group trying to get the meet at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, and Robert Gary (Ohio State head coach) has reportedly been thinking about the possibility of OSU building a site similar to Indiana State's permanent XC course that hosts the NCAA (admittedly without any action on the issue).

Nevertheless, the guv is playing with fire. High school sports are HUGE in rural Ohio, even minor sports like cross country. Rural areas are swing districts for Dems. Don't mess with farmers--they have long memories.

Old Guard versus New Guard

A while back I wrote about how Track & Field News' staff is a bit set in their ways, generally not wishing to rock the boat by, you know, actually writing about important stuff. This was when The Final Sprint and its later founder Adam Jacobs went out and beat the bush for info about the people running for USATF president, which was necessary because little of it about the winner was complimentary.

Anyway, Garry Hill was particularly short when it came to discussing the issue, writing "If you don't like our style, don't read us. It's that simple."

Writing for the Center for American Progress, blogger Eric Alterman discussed the same issues in DC political reporting in an article titled Think Again: The Strange Politics of Collusion (and “Dickishness”). It's not really about politics, its about how the established media keeps its place by being established rather than necessarily good, and the nastiness that can occur when upstarts actually compete with them on a level playing field.

Recently, I've noticed that the home page for Let's Run -- the center of all that is obnoxious, uneducated, self-centered, and (little-a) amateur in the sport -- is more organized and more readable than that of Track & Field News, and is a better daily read due to decent self-produced previews and a more selective use of news links. It's so shocking, it's like discovering that Fox News Channel has surpassed CBS in professionalism. Or that The Daily Show asks tougher questions than the White House press corps. (Well, I guess the second one isn't so shocking.)

You could argue that the Johnson brothers can put together a daily page because they're not busy putting together a magazine. True, but Garry Hill finds time to average 21.35 posts per day at the T&FN message boards, while the Johnson might pop up two or three times a week on their own board.

That's beside the point. The web presence of T&FN is weak and hard to use and parts haven't been updated in eight years. Literally every other news source on the planet now understands that their web content is life or death. If T&FN can't spare one employee's morning to put together a good daily home page, then they'd better find out how to get in on that GM bailout money.

The Final Nail in the Coffin

For the past several years, I've been of two minds when it came time to renewing my Runner's World subscription. On one hand, it's a 95% worthless rag. On the other hand, there's usually one article worth reading, and it's only a measly $1 per month, so why not. But I've finally decided not to re-up it.

And today I was sure I made the right choice. RW's back page is a feature called "I'm a Runner", which has minor celebrities such as astronauts, generals, entertainers and so forth. People like Ed Hochuli and Kai Ryssdal.

This month? Sara Palin. I took a Sharpie and wrote over "I'm a Runner" with "I'm an Idiot". RW has not only jumped the shark, it's entered the being eaten by a crocodile contest.

Late Update: This was apparently part of a day-long media presser. Every comedian in the country will be ecstatic.

Later update: Looks like she hadn't planned to resign until after the mag was in the mail...which is an example of the kind of erratic behavior that is making every comedian in the country ecstatic.

RadioLab on Race & Races

My favorite podcast in the world is WNYC's RadioLab. It's a regularly broadcast show available on many public radio stations, but it probably works even better as a podcast. If you've never heard it (and you probably haven't), try it. It kicks This American Life's ass. But you absolutely must listen to it carefully and uninterrupted. It's great long-run fodder.

Two weeks ago their program dealt with race and its scientific aspects (or rather lack thereof). We as track fans get more than our share of race crap, what with various Let's Run idiots and Jon Entine's Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We Are Afraid to Talk About It (which, incidentally, is wrong in both parts of the statement) and endless other stuff. It's been done to death and we'd be loathe to discuss it even if it weren't the touchiest of subjects in modern polite American discourse. This is where RadioLab comes in.

After discussing the idea of race as a provable biological falsehood (but geographic area of ancestry, in the broadest terms, as a measurable genetic truth) hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich talk to Malcolm Gladwell. If that name seems familiar, it should. He's the author of such deep-thought books as The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers, all of which discuss how relatively mundane things can make huge differences in the lives of individuals and societies.

What you may not know about Gladwell is that he was one of the best age-group milers in Canada in his early teen years, at times beating future two-time national champ Dave Reid. Being of Jamaican origin, he knows a thing or two about race as it applies to athletics. His view? Typically, both mundane and profound. No spoilers here, you'll have to listen yourself.

Obama & Track

Have you heard? There was an election the other day.

Sportswriters are already considering how an Obama presidency might affect their world; Phil Hersh and Lester Munson give the deepest thoughts on the issue. Two points have direct impact on track & field.

First and most obvious is a big boost to Chicago's bid for the 2009 Olympics. As an ardent supporter of his adopted hometown, Obama was involved in the bid long before anyone thought he had a reasonable chance of winning the Presidency. He will almost certainly make the final presentation in Copenhagen next year, and his plans for a national infrastructure rebuilding project won't disappoint the IOC either. Here, he's an obvious plus.

The second point would give me pause if I hadn't studied Obama's style so closely. Munson:

Coaches, athletes and administrators in a number of so-called minor sports, such as wrestling, have long been wary that their sports will be eliminated to meet the equality of gender requirements of Title IX, and they cannot be happy about Obama's election.

With President Bush in the White House and Dennis Hastert, a former wrestling coach, serving as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, participants in those sports had some hope that Title IX requirements might be diluted.

Bush and his staff looked hard at Title IX and the possibility of enacting changes in the regulations of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that govern Title IX, but they backed away as opposition to any changes grew.

Obama, the father of two daughters, might not be sympathetic to those hoping to lessen the impact of Title IX.

Track coaches and fans could fit into this worried group, but I don't. Obama is not an idealogue, nor does he wish to govern divisively in an "I win, you lose" type of way. So to him, the whole "lessen the impact of Title IX" idea is a classic strawman argument. (Also, Munson might not know what he's talking about; Title IX is enforced by the Department of Education, not HHS, and it's been that way since they split off the DOE from HEW back in 1979.)

The big problem with current Title IX regulations is that institutions are allowed to show gender equity first and foremost by having equal numbers of male and female athletes, which in turn makes liabilities out of large but inexpensive men's sports such as track & field. This number-based approach is predicated on the wrong-headed assumption that all athletes place equal demands on the athletic department; an unrecruited walk-on (such as yours truly was) simply does not have much if any impact on the coach's time or the team's expenditures. This same numbers approach makes equal treatment of women's needs as athletes secondary to merely having them present in sufficient quantities. There has got to be a smarter way, one that benefits both men and women, and for the first time in decades I trust the chief executive to look for those kinds of solutions.

What Effect Will The Election Bring?

Election day is one week away. Well, sort of--there's enough early voting going on around the country that next Tuesday is only nominally election day. To stretch a metaphor, it's no longer the Super Bowl but the seventh game of the World Series.

While my political preferences are no secret (I'm a hard-core political leftist) the question to ponder here is how this election could affect track & field. Most have no affect whatsoever, but there's going to be so much upheaval going on next week that its coattails will even extend into the world of sports.

#1. An Obama Presidency Will Give Chicago A Leg Up on 2016
There are several issues here. First of all, Bush's popularity abroad is just somewhat better than that of Idi Amin's, and a clean break with his ilk can only help Chicago's effort. Generally the aristocrats who run the IOC don't give a damn about public opinion, but it sure can't hurt. There's also the fact that Obama is a Chicago resident; I don't know how much help it is.

But in the eyes of the IOC, Obama's biggest plus is that he's not McCain. Saint John got pretty uppity with the IOC in the wake of the '98 Salt Lake City bribery scandal. He chaired the Senate Commerce Committee's hearings on the affair and even summoned then-president Juan Antonio Samaranch (who, of course, didn't show). The IOC may well have deserved such a working-over, but that doesn't mean they liked it. These kinds of people tend to have long memories and hold grudges...otherwise they wouldn't have gotten themselves into positions of such unchecked power.

I still think Rio is damn near a lock to get the '16 Olympics.

#2. Ted Stevens Goes Down The (Series Of) Tubes
In case you missed it, Stevens was found guilty yesterday on seven counts of corruption, which makes his re-election unlikely. What the heck could this possibly have to do with track & field?

Stevens has been notoriously defensive about his pet projects, even by Senate standards. So if anyone wants to toy around with the Amateur Sports Act you'd have had to go through him..and he's prickly to say the least. The ASA was authored mostly by Stevens in 1978 and broke up the AAU's power. It was updated in 1998 and Stevens was at the helm of that project as well. It is the law to which USATF owes its very existence. As far as the details of the law and whether it needs changing or not, I have no idea. But I do know USATF is in dire need of fundamental change and appears incapable of doing that by itself. If you're going to attack the root of the problem--the very structures and mandates as handed down by the ASA--your #1 roadblock will soon be out of the way.

#3. Race-Baiting Won't Play In A Presidential Election
There's been plenty of this at certain campaign rallies, along with some other sleazy items that mostly sailed under the media radar. An Obama victory would indicate such strategy is less useful than it once was.

This fall we will have an important election for the new president of USATF. The presumed frontrunner, and a year ago considered a lock, is a Columbus resident named Stephanie Hightower. While not as openly using her race for self-advancement as co-clown Brooks Johnson, she is not shy about taking advantage of literally anything that will advance her own interests. She would not be a good president; the usually-sedate Michael Johnson has called her "a bitch on wheels".

Brooks Johnson has already "resigned" his USATF post after getting the message from new USATF CEO Doug Logan; several decent candidates have been emboldened and decided to run against Hightower (and effectively end their USATF careers should they lose). Let's just hope that if race-baiting can't stop Obama, it can't propel Hightower.

Stuczynski / Suhr controversy

I was blissfully unaware of a recent controversy surrounding a post-competition interview in Beijing with Jen Stuczysnki and her coach Rick Suhr. I missed it because 1) I mostly didn't watch US coverage and 2) talking heads bore me to death.

Thankfully, ESPN's Luke Cyphers breaks it down for us:

After Stuczynski missed her final attempt at 4.90 meters, the camera followed her to Suhr's spot in the stands. NBC captured the following remarks from a surly sounding Suhr, who was talking to her while text-messaging:

"(It's) the same old same old. You're losing take-off at the big heights. What are you gonna do. You gotta learn to keep take-off. You got9you got caught at that meat grinder. I did not—and I told 10 people—I did not want to be caught in a meat grinder between 65 and 80. You had to, though.

You weren't on, you know, your warm-up didn't go well, you were 55, you got caught up in that meat grinder. What are you gonna do. What are you gonna do. You didn't have the legs. Her legs are fresh. Hey, it's a silver medal.Not bad for someone who's been pole vaulting for four years."

As Stuczynski turned around, she had a hollow, downcast look, as if she'd been upbraided.

Back in America, people watched. People cringed. And then people sent angry, sometimes ugly e-mails to Suhr's web site. Or they chimed in on Internet message boards, urging Stuczynski to fire "that jerk of a coach." A lot of people. But Stuczynski says people got it all wrong. Terribly wrong.

What they didn't see, she said, was what prompted Suhr's monologue. "I went over and I asked, What did I do wrong?" Stuczynski said. "And he said what he said, and it's the truth. And I didn't have a mike, and they didn't hear it and they didn't play it."

Moreover, she says, Suhr was texting his 13-year-old son in the States to inform him of the silver medal.

I haven't heard any nasty stuff about Rick Suhr before this, but on the other hand I don't keep my ear to the ground for that kind of thing as it amounts to little more than gossip. So whether there's any there there is beyond me, and I'm ready to take these people's word at face value. Mostly, though, I just don't care.

But I do find the public's response to this interesting. Stuczynski is a grown woman, a professional athlete who in an instant could have another dozen coaches knocking on her door. Such a person, if mistreated, wouldn't take it for very long. I'm certain the public response would have been different if the athlete in question had been Christian Cantwell, or Wallace Spearmon, or Allen Iverson.

I think this dustup reveals much about a paternalism the mainstream public directs towards women (particularly white women), seeing them all as young girls unable to protect themselves regardless of their age or power. As for black women? Tell me, how often did you see Bobby Kersee be at least as rough on his own wife, with little if any PR fallout?

Enough About the Torch Relay

This is the last-ever post I'll make about the subject. I promise.

#1. I find it interesting that the Nazi invention of the torch relay is regularly referred to this year, but not once in the mainsteam media in either 1984 or 1996. Gee, I can't figure out why not.

#2. The Olympic Games may be losing relevancy, but not nearly as quickly as Frank DeFord is.

#3. Jacque Rogge says "the media is being manipulated by protesters". Hello? Isn't that the whole idea of a protest?

#4. Comedians usually get at the reality of a situation better than anyone else. Case in point:

Olympic Torch Relay

From Deadspin: Olympic Torch Relay Proceeding Smoothly So Far, is likened to a huge game of capture the flag. I do have to admit it's the only relay I can remember that isn't bland and boring.

And we're not even to San Francisco yet, with its huge East Asian population and reputation for left-wing activism.

On a more serious note, this is probably the best possible situation that could have come about. Given their record on a multitude of issues, China probably should not have been awarded the Olympics. Nothing has yet changed on those issues because of the attention China has received. On the other hand, it's quite doubtful that anything would have changed if they hadn't gotten the Olympics, either. The whole hubbub going on now is the worst possible publicity China could get--and ironically, little if any of this would be possible if the western democracies decided to boycott.

Even more ironic is that the Olympic torch relay was created for propaganda purposes by another totalitarian regime--the Nazis. This relay has turned into the destruction of propaganda, highlighting the worst of a nation instead of its best.

Autocrats, by definition, do not listen to others. If there's any way to get through to China, this might be it.

Athletics in Britain weighs in on the subject as well, with the best writing on the subject I've seen.

Colbert Report on Beijing

On Thursday night, Stephen Colbert took on the Olympics and the boycott talk.