Ladies:
There are some typos in that article to which you refer. They remain, because I did not want to be accused of changing a thing in that article. I stand precisely by every word I wrote, in exactly the way I wrote it, and I hope you'll let me go even further as I continue below.
In that article I wrote that we're making a mistake in our sport, and by "we" mostly I mean our race director community. "We" have decided that the problem with the lack of Millennial participation rests with "them". They are lazy (according to what I hear). They are obsessed with indoor games. They are not tough minded; they are uncompetitive. I hear this all the time. I think that's a false narrative; a false reading; and blaming the customer is dangerous to the future of any business.
I've seen this before. I saw it when I was young. We said the very same things about women.
When I was in high school I ran on the boys cross country team. If you were a girl, you had no such option. Nor could girls run track. When girls were finally allowed to compete in track, they were limited to the half-mile. That was the longest race a girl could run because, of course, it was dangerous to have them run longer. That was the prevailing opinion (men made the rules; it was men who decided the prevailing opinion).
Now, please, you can get mad at me if you want. But I was 14 years old. Yes, we had Francie Larrieu and Mary Decker, but "we" (I guess) considered them outliers. "We" grudgingly gave girls the mile. It took us quite awhile to give you the 2 mile. While most of us (even I, as a teenager) knew that was silly, that is what my father's generation decided, and it's the world I grew up in. Today "we" still shortchange entire swathes of people who we make excuses for (including but not limited to Millennials).
I answered one of you who PMd me, writing that the Ironman took place in February back when I first went to Kona, in 1981, and I came home and produced my first race in August of that year. I don't remember how I got a race up and going that fast, but I did. I was not unique by any means. I suspect that probably 1 in 10 of all Ironman participants between 1978 and 1981 became race directors. Maybe more.
When I produced that first race, we had women in that race. A fair number. They did the same race as the men. Of course! And this is one thing that made triathlon great: That from the beginning we treated women absolutely equally, in every way, and we were pretty harsh on anyone in our community who did otherwise.
This gender-blind treatment pushed women forward, and held them back: The benefit of that equal treatment speaks for itself. But we also became a very technical sport, a harsh and demanding sport, so women were suddenly faced with a pretty brutal physical and technical and mechanical test less than a decade after (in many states, including California) not being allowed to run at all.
But if you truly decide you want to spread this gospel of triathlon, well, Danskin did it, and women overcame their disenfranchisement very quickly. At the peak, four of the largest six races in the world were women-only races.
So, can I double down? When I wrote about "we" and "us" in my article, I included myself because I was alive and running back when "we" disenfranchised an entire gender. Now, today, not only am I "we" and "us", but you are too, regardless of your gender. None of us get a pass. So, if you or I think that women, or Millenials, or people of color, or people from a particular country, aren't sufficiently represented in triathlon, whose job is it to fix that?
When I returned from the Ironman in 1981 I was 23 years old, without a pot to piss in, barely making rent. I promise you I was dumber than any one of you reading this (and, because I know a lot of you, I'm still dumber that many of you reading this). The reason I'm bullish about 2018 is because I know what you might not: That there are a number of new race directors right now who are NOT money motivated, who are thinking well outside the confines of how we've limited ourselves in terms of price, course, distances, ratios, bike surfaces, rules, waves, bike types, and general product offerings. There are some folks ready to make a product that is much more palatable than the typical, historic triathlon.
These, the products, creative new products, will appeal to both newbies and vets alike, will appeal to a swathe of Millenials and the women who haven't found triathlon sufficiently compelling, and to those who have not grown up doing sports that their cohorts and cultures typically participate in.
In 2013 the combined participation of girls in cross country and track surpassed boys. So, problem solved. We're there. Danskin showed that if you make the right product, women will flock in numbers that way outstrip men's participation. Therefore, I don't think at all about how to get more women into triathlon. I think about building the right product, because women are perfectly equipped to race once they see a product they want to buy. Likewise Millenials. Which is what I think I wrote in my article; it's what I think about every day; it's what I think about as I plan the upcoming TBI conference in 2 weeks; and there is an announcement I will be making at that conference specific to this very point.
And, because I know many of you, I know that you (specifically you, who are reading this) are givers. Net producers, not net consumers. What I hope is that you'll either see compelling products you want to become involved in, or you'll see what's going on and conceive of your own new products. My exhortation to you is to not hold yourself back. You and I have counted the cost enough. At some point we need to stop counting and just step out.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
There are some typos in that article to which you refer. They remain, because I did not want to be accused of changing a thing in that article. I stand precisely by every word I wrote, in exactly the way I wrote it, and I hope you'll let me go even further as I continue below.
In that article I wrote that we're making a mistake in our sport, and by "we" mostly I mean our race director community. "We" have decided that the problem with the lack of Millennial participation rests with "them". They are lazy (according to what I hear). They are obsessed with indoor games. They are not tough minded; they are uncompetitive. I hear this all the time. I think that's a false narrative; a false reading; and blaming the customer is dangerous to the future of any business.
I've seen this before. I saw it when I was young. We said the very same things about women.
When I was in high school I ran on the boys cross country team. If you were a girl, you had no such option. Nor could girls run track. When girls were finally allowed to compete in track, they were limited to the half-mile. That was the longest race a girl could run because, of course, it was dangerous to have them run longer. That was the prevailing opinion (men made the rules; it was men who decided the prevailing opinion).
Now, please, you can get mad at me if you want. But I was 14 years old. Yes, we had Francie Larrieu and Mary Decker, but "we" (I guess) considered them outliers. "We" grudgingly gave girls the mile. It took us quite awhile to give you the 2 mile. While most of us (even I, as a teenager) knew that was silly, that is what my father's generation decided, and it's the world I grew up in. Today "we" still shortchange entire swathes of people who we make excuses for (including but not limited to Millennials).
I answered one of you who PMd me, writing that the Ironman took place in February back when I first went to Kona, in 1981, and I came home and produced my first race in August of that year. I don't remember how I got a race up and going that fast, but I did. I was not unique by any means. I suspect that probably 1 in 10 of all Ironman participants between 1978 and 1981 became race directors. Maybe more.
When I produced that first race, we had women in that race. A fair number. They did the same race as the men. Of course! And this is one thing that made triathlon great: That from the beginning we treated women absolutely equally, in every way, and we were pretty harsh on anyone in our community who did otherwise.
This gender-blind treatment pushed women forward, and held them back: The benefit of that equal treatment speaks for itself. But we also became a very technical sport, a harsh and demanding sport, so women were suddenly faced with a pretty brutal physical and technical and mechanical test less than a decade after (in many states, including California) not being allowed to run at all.
But if you truly decide you want to spread this gospel of triathlon, well, Danskin did it, and women overcame their disenfranchisement very quickly. At the peak, four of the largest six races in the world were women-only races.
So, can I double down? When I wrote about "we" and "us" in my article, I included myself because I was alive and running back when "we" disenfranchised an entire gender. Now, today, not only am I "we" and "us", but you are too, regardless of your gender. None of us get a pass. So, if you or I think that women, or Millenials, or people of color, or people from a particular country, aren't sufficiently represented in triathlon, whose job is it to fix that?
When I returned from the Ironman in 1981 I was 23 years old, without a pot to piss in, barely making rent. I promise you I was dumber than any one of you reading this (and, because I know a lot of you, I'm still dumber that many of you reading this). The reason I'm bullish about 2018 is because I know what you might not: That there are a number of new race directors right now who are NOT money motivated, who are thinking well outside the confines of how we've limited ourselves in terms of price, course, distances, ratios, bike surfaces, rules, waves, bike types, and general product offerings. There are some folks ready to make a product that is much more palatable than the typical, historic triathlon.
These, the products, creative new products, will appeal to both newbies and vets alike, will appeal to a swathe of Millenials and the women who haven't found triathlon sufficiently compelling, and to those who have not grown up doing sports that their cohorts and cultures typically participate in.
In 2013 the combined participation of girls in cross country and track surpassed boys. So, problem solved. We're there. Danskin showed that if you make the right product, women will flock in numbers that way outstrip men's participation. Therefore, I don't think at all about how to get more women into triathlon. I think about building the right product, because women are perfectly equipped to race once they see a product they want to buy. Likewise Millenials. Which is what I think I wrote in my article; it's what I think about every day; it's what I think about as I plan the upcoming TBI conference in 2 weeks; and there is an announcement I will be making at that conference specific to this very point.
And, because I know many of you, I know that you (specifically you, who are reading this) are givers. Net producers, not net consumers. What I hope is that you'll either see compelling products you want to become involved in, or you'll see what's going on and conceive of your own new products. My exhortation to you is to not hold yourself back. You and I have counted the cost enough. At some point we need to stop counting and just step out.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman