Week 6

Monday, October 22

Rise and Fall

As the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Men’s Marathon in New York City draws closer, hopes are high that whoever makes this team will contend for medals in Beijing next summer. Not since the 1970s, when Frank Shorter, Kenny Moore, and Jack Bacheler finished first, fourth, and ninth at the 1972 Munich Olympics; and when Shorter and Don Kardong placed second and fourth at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, can we remember a similar possibility.

Throughout the 1990s, true fans searched the horizon for signs of a wind that would sweep the U.S. back into world competition. Today, that new breeze is upon us, as the stars and stripes have been lifted by zephyrs coming out of Mammoth Lakes, CA; Rochester Hills, MI; Madison, WI; Boulder, CO; and elsewhere. 

Certainly Meb Keflezighi’s marathon silver medal and Deena Kastor’s marathon bronze in Athens 2004 recharged the American running community. But it has been a long road back, and the journey isn’t over. And though we may never relive the glory years from 1970 to 1984, when an American man or woman was ranked number one in the world in the marathon 11 times, we have reason to be hopeful.

To understand how we returned to the front ranks of distance running nations, it is instructive to look back at what took us off course and how we righted the ship in 2004. 

Worlds-a-Parting

From our distant perspective we can now see how the greater forces of history allowed the U.S. smooth sailing in the post-war years. As the rest of the world dug out of the ruins of World War II, and the great East African birthing nations of today’s distance-running dominance were still yoked to colonial rule, British Commonwealth and American running centered around a system of clubs where athletes would train, race, and socialize. This group dynamic formed a base from which emerged the great Olympic performances of Shorter, Moore, Kardong, and others. It was focused in places like Eugene, OR; Gainesville, FL; and then Boulder, CO, and later in Boston, where Rodgers and the men of the Greater Boston Track Club came to full flower.

A combination of forces shifted the currents of world distance running away from Britain and America and into the developing world. First, the independence movements of the 1960s released African nations to their own rule, and they soon began entering international competitions for the first time. Lifted by the triumphs of Abebe Bikila and Mamo Wolde of Ethiopia—whose combined efforts won the three Olympic Marathons of the 1960s—and then Kip Keino of Kenya, who beat American Jim Ryun in the 1968 Mexico City 1500-meter final, East African runners ascended to a new heights.
 
As East Africa began building juggernauts, the institution of Title IX legislation in the mid-70s in America, designed to encourage equality for women in collegiate athletics, also carried a separate, unintended consequence. 

“Men’s Olympic sports just got killed,” says Bob Larsen, who spent 21 years coaching track at UCLA, 15 as head coach. “In the 1960s to the mid-70s we had unlimited track scholarships. We had separate freshman teams on full scholarships, too. You could have a world record at a USC vs. UCLA dual meet.”

Soon, 35 scholarships for track and field were reduced to 24, then 14, and finally 12. With 21 track and field events at the NCAA level, schools had no choice but to cut back.

“It dried up track meets,” says Larsen, who now coaches Keflezighi. “Schools like Arkansas and Stanford focused on just one or two events because it was easier to win conference titles that way. But it hurt track and field in general because it didn’t make for appealing track meets. And not all schools supported distance running or cross country.  As a consequence we lost our fan base as the talent began to cluster into just a few dominant programs. And that type of system does not develop talent long term.”

All In

Concurrent with these forces, running as a social phenomenon took off when New York City Marathon co-founder Fred Lebow discovered the power of the big-city marathon and took his 26.2-mile race to the five boroughs of New York City in 1976. Soon running as a vibrant lifestyle began to play out. Burgeoning new shoe companies signed running stars to endorsement deals, and the top post-collegiate runners no longer moved to the old running centers to be part of the club system that had built the framework for the American success in the first place. Rather than 15-20 men meeting for Tuesday evening track sessions or Sunday morning long runs, the numbers were divided into ones, twos, and threes as shoe company affiliation, rather than club loyalty, became the paramount association. Over the next decade as the group dynamic dissipated, the results began to lag as well. With the collegiate-feeder system drying up, competition from the seemingly invincible East African juggernaut surged ahead.

As the first generation of western professional runners retired, American road race fields became laden with talent-rich Kenyan runners who came over in waves to seize the opportunity to build better lives for themselves and their families. As the sport’s champions became less recognizable to the American general public, the shoe companies soon moved on to major league sports and to the newly invented X Games.

The club system never reconstituted, the college system lay dormant, and post-collegiate Americans were left to their own devices as event directors focused more and more on the number of entrants rather than the quality of competition. 

The low point came at the 2000 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Men’s Marathon in Pittsburgh when a combination of hot, humid weather and a hilly course prevented even the top finisher from achieving the sub-2:15 Olympic qualifying standard. This precluded the United States from sending a full three-man squad to the Sydney Olympic Marathon. Only because every nation was allowed one representative did Wisconsin’s Rod DeHaven go to Sydney as champion of the Olympic Trials.

The debacle in Pittsburgh became a symbol of America’s impotence in a sport from which it once drew glory. How would America return to distance running prominence?