Ever since getting into triathlon a few years ago and helping to found the triathlon team at my university (UCLA), USAT's support of collegiate triathlon has been a sore spot with me. After my first triathlon I realized I really sucked at cycling, so I joined the UCLA Cycling team with hopes to improve. Having now participated in collegiate cycling for several years, I've come to notice that the contrast between USA Cycling's support of collegiate cycling and USA Triathlon's support of collegiate triathlon is huge.
(I post this after reading this thread: http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=557227)
Collegiate Cycling, at least here on the west coast is very well organized (see the 'constitution' here: http://soda.csua.berkeley.edu/...-04WCCC_rulebook.pdf). There is a conference director (current Alden Tanaka) who attends every race, organizes training camps with pro cyclists, etc. There is a standard team & individual point scoring system. A number of current top pro cyclists came through the collegiate ranks. Tyler Hamilton is perhaps the biggest name. But others just from my own conference include the Jacques-Maynes, Bernard Van Ulden, Marc Collard, Lucas Euser, Ben Haldeman, and many more. And many of these people specifically chose to focus on collegiate cycling even while riding for a pro team. I think this is demonstrative of how effective collegiate athletics can be, especially when well organized. (Not to mention the entire NCAA system).
Now, lets take a 180 and take a look at Collegiate Triathlon. I've only come to the sport fairly recently so my experience is limited, but this is what I see. There is no involement whatsoever by USAT, aside from the Collegiate National Championships. A few examples:
1) No effort to encourage or help schools start a triathlon team. It's taken me and a few friends four years to get the team at UCLA from zero to a legitimate self-sustaining organization. And now I periodically get e-mails from students across the country asking how they can get their team off the ground. Shouldn't USAT be the one answering these questions? As a student I don't have time to write the manual on "How to start a Collegiate Triathlon Team." I assume a lot of other established teams get similar e-mails.
2) No effort in developing competition regions or conferences. The schools here in California have been forced to band together to create our own conference. We've called it the West Coast Collegiate Triathlon Conference (WCCTC, currently composed of Cal, UCLA, UCSB, UC Davis, Sac State, UCSD, Cal Poly, Reno, Stanford, Long Beach, SDSU). Even the effort to get all the schools communicating has been tough. Not to mention developing our own individual and team points-based scoring system. This year CalPoly will even be hosting our own self-labeled WCCTC Championships (as opposed to the 'collegiate championships' you see without any real sanction from the schools themselves - e.g. Wildflower).
3) No effort to help schools host their own race. The schools of the WCCTC may be an exception, since just about every single school listed above puts on their own race. Helping schools host their own race would go a long way to establishing a conference race calendar and fostering the supportive atmosphere I've enjoyed in collegiate cycling. The very fact that you compete against the same people from the same schools every few weeks goes a long way to making this sport (or any sport) more enjoyable.
4) No communication with teams. Just as an example: Last year I got an e-mail advertising a USAT Regional Collegiate Triathlon Championships, which was to be held on the same date as a race one of our conference schools was hosting...and this only a few weeks out from Collegiate Nationals. Why have a regional championships a few weeks out from a national championships...especially when all the schools will be attending another race anyway. My team has never been directly contacted by USAT regarding collegiate issues, aside from those related to the National Championship race.
5) U23 vs. Collegiate Triathlon. USAT seems pretty comitted to developing U23 athletes. But none of that has transferred over to collegiate triathlon. Most students come to college when they are ~18 and graduate around 23. The entire collegiate infrastructure has existed in the country for years and years. Why not tap into it?! It's your targete age group! Develop the sport at a level where people are going to be encouraged and supported by people their own age. It is much more enjoyable to travel to a race with 25 of your college buddies than the one other guy in your town who is part of some USAT U23 program. Collegiate triathlon can support both the growth of the sport (by introducing people to it) and the development of elite athletes. When I look at the olympics it strikes me that many of our nation's top athletes are currently competing in college (Jeremy Wariner @ Baylor before he turned pro, for example) and ask why it eventually can't be the same for triathlon.
Anyhow, I'd like to hear people's thoughts on the place of collegiate triathlon in our sport. Does it seem like a natural place for USAT to focus on? Why has so little been done and what will it take to change that?
Marcus George, President
UCLA Triathlon
http://www.triathlon.ucla.edu
(I post this after reading this thread: http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=557227)
Collegiate Cycling, at least here on the west coast is very well organized (see the 'constitution' here: http://soda.csua.berkeley.edu/...-04WCCC_rulebook.pdf). There is a conference director (current Alden Tanaka) who attends every race, organizes training camps with pro cyclists, etc. There is a standard team & individual point scoring system. A number of current top pro cyclists came through the collegiate ranks. Tyler Hamilton is perhaps the biggest name. But others just from my own conference include the Jacques-Maynes, Bernard Van Ulden, Marc Collard, Lucas Euser, Ben Haldeman, and many more. And many of these people specifically chose to focus on collegiate cycling even while riding for a pro team. I think this is demonstrative of how effective collegiate athletics can be, especially when well organized. (Not to mention the entire NCAA system).
Now, lets take a 180 and take a look at Collegiate Triathlon. I've only come to the sport fairly recently so my experience is limited, but this is what I see. There is no involement whatsoever by USAT, aside from the Collegiate National Championships. A few examples:
1) No effort to encourage or help schools start a triathlon team. It's taken me and a few friends four years to get the team at UCLA from zero to a legitimate self-sustaining organization. And now I periodically get e-mails from students across the country asking how they can get their team off the ground. Shouldn't USAT be the one answering these questions? As a student I don't have time to write the manual on "How to start a Collegiate Triathlon Team." I assume a lot of other established teams get similar e-mails.
2) No effort in developing competition regions or conferences. The schools here in California have been forced to band together to create our own conference. We've called it the West Coast Collegiate Triathlon Conference (WCCTC, currently composed of Cal, UCLA, UCSB, UC Davis, Sac State, UCSD, Cal Poly, Reno, Stanford, Long Beach, SDSU). Even the effort to get all the schools communicating has been tough. Not to mention developing our own individual and team points-based scoring system. This year CalPoly will even be hosting our own self-labeled WCCTC Championships (as opposed to the 'collegiate championships' you see without any real sanction from the schools themselves - e.g. Wildflower).
3) No effort to help schools host their own race. The schools of the WCCTC may be an exception, since just about every single school listed above puts on their own race. Helping schools host their own race would go a long way to establishing a conference race calendar and fostering the supportive atmosphere I've enjoyed in collegiate cycling. The very fact that you compete against the same people from the same schools every few weeks goes a long way to making this sport (or any sport) more enjoyable.
4) No communication with teams. Just as an example: Last year I got an e-mail advertising a USAT Regional Collegiate Triathlon Championships, which was to be held on the same date as a race one of our conference schools was hosting...and this only a few weeks out from Collegiate Nationals. Why have a regional championships a few weeks out from a national championships...especially when all the schools will be attending another race anyway. My team has never been directly contacted by USAT regarding collegiate issues, aside from those related to the National Championship race.
5) U23 vs. Collegiate Triathlon. USAT seems pretty comitted to developing U23 athletes. But none of that has transferred over to collegiate triathlon. Most students come to college when they are ~18 and graduate around 23. The entire collegiate infrastructure has existed in the country for years and years. Why not tap into it?! It's your targete age group! Develop the sport at a level where people are going to be encouraged and supported by people their own age. It is much more enjoyable to travel to a race with 25 of your college buddies than the one other guy in your town who is part of some USAT U23 program. Collegiate triathlon can support both the growth of the sport (by introducing people to it) and the development of elite athletes. When I look at the olympics it strikes me that many of our nation's top athletes are currently competing in college (Jeremy Wariner @ Baylor before he turned pro, for example) and ask why it eventually can't be the same for triathlon.
Anyhow, I'd like to hear people's thoughts on the place of collegiate triathlon in our sport. Does it seem like a natural place for USAT to focus on? Why has so little been done and what will it take to change that?
Marcus George, President
UCLA Triathlon
http://www.triathlon.ucla.edu