Runnerville

2008 is Yankee Stadium’s curtain call.

After 84 years of tireless service to the New York faithful, the “House that Ruth Built” will give way to a brand-spankin’-new stadium, set to begin its tenure in 2009. Most people don’t know that the old Yankee Stadium, as it will soon be called, was intended to be a multi-sport stadium. The field was initially surrounded by a quarter-mile running track, which effectively also served as a warning track for outfielders, a feature now standard on all major league fields. The left and right field bleacher sections were laid out at right angles to each other and to the third base stands, to be properly positioned for both track and field events and football.

That’s right, the men who built Yankee Stadium anticipated the venue playing host to rousing athletics exhibitions.

Why couldn’t it be this way again? I mean, who better than the City of New York to promote and carry out a huge outdoor invitational track and field meet in Yankee Stadium? You could get the who’s-who of the City that Never Sleeps to attend, big-name musical acts to perform during down times, “main event” head-to-head competitions between the world’s best in each event, and even the “Pros vs. Joes” exhibitions discussed so much on this site. Shoot, lots of folks would come just to sit inside the Stadium. They’ll definitely leave having had a good time, and who knows — maybe they leave a track fan forever.

This would never happen, of course. Steinbrenner and the Yankees organization are too single-focused to think outside of baseball. They’d have the logistical issues of playing host to a world-class track meet during baseball season (easily solved — do it during a road series). Plus, as we’ve all observed and fumed about, running just isn’t the automatic moneymaker or crowd-attracter it could be. And “potential” doesn’t sell real well at Yankee Stadium.

So I guess that’s why we’re all here … to begin the conversation about how running can re-emerge as a good fit for the big stadiums — like Yankee Stadium — again.

We have often suggested the PGA TOUR as the model for professional running, but here’s a model that USATF or Running USA should consider for banding together the millions of runners who race across the USA.

What a difference one day makes. Before Sunday’s men’s 800m dash, the rivalry between Nick Symmonds and Khadevis Robinson was nearly not existent. While a few knowledgeable individuals may have labeled the duo a quality tandem that could really make an impact on the world stage, few were pitting the two against each other.

Now, in less than four news cycles, Symmonds and Robinson are being touted as the greatest rivalry in our sport. Whether or not you agree with these two being matched up, I completely agree with the idea of creating rivalry in our sport. Any type of sport, anywhere in the world, thrives off of rivalry. Duke v. North Carolina in basketball, Boston v. New York in baseball, Chicago v. Green Bay in football. Match ups between rivals get the most media exposure each time they face off because of the great battles between these groups in the past and what fans hope to see the next time they face off. Read more…

…on Nintendo.

And I’m not impressed.

Konami recently announced a reincarnation of its wildly famous track and field game from the original Nintendo system. The game — called  New International Track and Field* — will be released in North America this summer for the Nintendo DS system, and will feature 15 classic Nintendo characters competing in over 20 standard track events.

I have a couple questions:

1. Will there be a Power Pad?  C’mon … the Pad was Wii 20 years before its time — a workout and entertainment all rolled into one. Nintendo Track & Field without the Power Pad is like Bonnie without Clyde … Bush without Cheney … Bershawn Jackson without headband…

2. Why not use actual track & field athletes? As much as I want to see Frogger break a world record in the javelin throw…  Why weren’t the IAAF or USATF banging down Konami’s door to get its athletes plastered all over this new game?  What if millions of kids could pick up a game with Powell or Wariner’s mugs on the cover in the same way they can with Manning or Wade?  Imagine what that would do for face recognition and new fan creation within the sport of track & field.  Seems like no-brainer marketing to me.

I’m not a video game nut, and I’m sorry, but New International Track & Field for Nintendo DS is certainly not going to make me a convert.

*is this name the best Konami could do?

According to French scientists, no one will ever again set a world record. According to me, that’s great for the sport. Okay, so French scientists didn’t say it quite like that and I don’t mean exactly what I said, but I needed to get your attention. This is extremely important.

I was recently browsing my website of choice – aljazeera.net – when I came across this article. It states:

Experts from France’s Institute for Biomedical and Epidemiological Research in Sport (IRMES) examined 3,263 world records in track and field, swimming, cycling, speed skating and weightlifting. The records spanned from 1896, when the modern Olympics was revived and accurate timekeeping began, through to 2007. From 1896 to 1968, excluding the two World Wars, when real international competition was impossible, world records were frequently and substantially smashed.

However after 1968, the pace of record-breaking slowed and, in some cases, stopped completely. As an example, Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 10.49 seconds for the women’s 100-metres, set in 1988, remains unchallenged to this day.

In other words, world records will continue to be broken, but by smaller and smaller increments. However, forty years from now, the paper suggests, we will hit a world record ceiling, a ceiling that will require us to change the way we measure times if we want to continue seeing world records.

“It means we can change the unit of measurement to take this into account, for instance using thousandths of a second for the 100m, hundredths of a second for the marathon, or grams for weightlifting, but then we might have to wait for half a century for the record to be broken,” the study’s author suggests.

Now here’s where it gets interesting. I hope you’ve been paying attention. Read more…

I believe that children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way…– Whitney Houston, Greatest Love of All

I work part-time at a youth center in my neighborhood. Today, I noticed one of our teens — Fabian, a Hollister-wearing, soccer-loving, girl-chasing teenage boy — looking up Olympics information on the Web. I asked him what he was up to, and he said his teacher had given him an assignment of some kind to gather and report information about various Olympic track & field events, from sprints to middle distance to the marathon. Athletes to watch, records, past results, etc. He didn’t remember all the details of the assignment because he’d forgotten his paper at school, but nevertheless –

I was beaming!

I want to kiss the teacher who gave her students this assignment. The Angel of Track, maybe? I pointed him away from the dead-end site he was looking at and told him to peruse the USATF site for information on the athletes, records, etc. I told him how excited I was that he was doing this project, because track is pretty much the greatest sport in the world. He asked me if I’d help him with his project when he brought his paper back tomorrow, and I answered way too quickly and eagerly. I was like a kid in a candy store.

A few minutes later, I looked over and Fabian was looking up track races on YouTube. I told him to punch in “Michael Johnson” and “1996″, and he was amazed that a human being could run under 10 seconds for the second 100 meters of a 200-meter race. He was hooked.

Whitney might have been right all along. Could it really be that easy?

If you haven’t checked out the feature story on Nike at Forbes.com, do so. Nike provides an interesting case study in choosing leaders who will allow companies and organizations to sell themselves to a broad and diverse audience. That’s exactly what the USATF must do in the wake of CEO Craig Masback’s departure for — who else? — Nike.

Nike decided they needed a “sports guy” (as opposed to a business guy) to take the helm and market to specific sports, not just paste the swoosh everywhere. I believe the USATF needs a “business guy” (or gal) who is not solely concerned about what’s best for the athletes, but wants to market the sport of running to the loads of potential fans out there. One person even suggested hiring the highest-ranking non-future-commissioner of the PGA Tour to come over to the USATF and reproduce its structure (amateur/pro tours) and national exposure. That’s so crazy, it might just work!

A note to the USATF: Please, for the sake of our sport, choose a leader who will think as much about the fans as he/she does about the athletes. Ideally, this would be primarily a business person. If they happen to lace up a pair of running shoes every once in a while, bonus.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to spreading the gospel of our sport will be the un-ghettoization of the running community. Basically, we’ve created little running ghettos that support a conversation meant only for insiders. If we want people “out there” to realize the beauty of our sport and tune in, we’ve got stop being so proud of the exclusivity of our sport and begin to speak to them about it in a language they can understand.

It’s true, if you think about it. Runners and fans of running tend to be so enthralled with their identification in an elite and secretive sub-culture, that they relegate their conversations to insider Web-based communities and running / track clubs only accessible to, well, insiders. Not to knock these communities at all … they serve a great purpose and are a source of inspiration to many. My point here is not to bash the existence of a running sub-culture or the ensuing conversation, but to encourage a broadening of that conversation in order to increase visibility.  (this phenomenon isn’t exclusive to the running community, of course. every specialized group struggles with this)

Questions: How does the conversation broaden? How does change realistically occur within the machine that is running, and what role does Runnerville play in that? How does Runnerville avoid the pitfall of being another insular venue for the running community to talk to itself?

Well?