3Sport, as a former TNT participant, I see both sides of your gripe.
First, the part which i agree with you. The tit cult, which is in one word, gitty. I raced last year at the Tri-America WDW, and it seemed the “purple shirts” did not know of competition. Most seemed to stick to themselves, and stay away from the other athletes. I feel this was mainly because most were first time athletes.
Now, for the part which I disagree. The concept of a free vacation, and free airfair which you speak of s a misconception. I could have much easier worked for 2 solid weeks, nonstop, and have had enough money to race in Florida (i live in NEPA), including airfare. The time and effort i put into raising money is unbelievable. To say anything was free is false. TNT stated for raising $3800 (i raised $4465), I would recieve a wetsuit, coaching, and my airfare/accomodations, in addition to my entry. All I recieved was entry/airfare/accomadations. Not to knock TNT, maybe I was just in a poor chapter, but I was not impressed. That said, I am glad I did it because it was a great experience, and I am glad I raised the money, but it is not a program for serious athletes, IMO. I fully agree that there should be seperate events, which may or may not be USAT sanctioned, for TNT members only. In their ads, state it is not competitive, because I went to compete, and felt out of place.
TNT is a great was to raise funds, but should be seperate from serious races, without a doubt. But, let me assure you, nobody is doing it to get something for free. Just my $.02
That’s my biggest problem with TNT…I don’t want a portion of my charitable donation to be paying for wetsuits, air fare, accomodations and coaching. I have a fundamental problem with their process. I’d much rather donate to organizations where the fund raising costs are much lower and a larger percentage of the money go directly to the cause.
I worked with a TNT coach last summer (as an unpaid volunteer), I loved the athletes and their willingness to become involved in the sport, just didn’t approve of the program.
Very sad story Larry, but it does nothing to address the, as you put it “gripe-fest” being discussed here. It actually furthers the argument of the people who experienced the rude, arrogant behavior at Wildflower last year. NO ONE in this string has said “Don’t raise money for cancer”. The complaints are about the displays of attitude of the members of TNT, and the exclusivity of slots for them. There are TNT slots now in most major races, and NO OTHER group, special interest or not has that privilege. I think everyone here applauds the money raised by TNT, but really what’s next? Does TNT expect to get Kona slots? Maybe a TNT team in the Tour de France? Have your race. Or sign up like everyone else, and then have the TNT organization provide the training and travel and whatever else to the folks that are in. These special items for TNT along with the displayed poor behavior are what have given them a bad name. Answering this with a very sad story or yelling “Hey Jackass wer’re raising money for cancer” as quoted in AmericanTri are only going to hurt TNT’s valiant efforts to do good for people who need it. No one says you can’t join in, just don’t think you are “more equal” than the rest of us.
I’m pleased this thread has provoked an invigorating discussion. I would, however, not characterize it as a gripe fest. And the assertion that expressing what in the grand scheme of things is admittedly a minor annoyance with the TIT Purple Horde somehow also means I am against cancer research and fundraising for cancer research is simply not true.
It’s the “holier than thou” attitude and exclusionary practices of some members that prompted this thread. Most of us do things in life that are altruistic donations of our time. There are also other moments where we, as human beings like to participate in activities that benefit ourselves. However, just because some of us choose to keep those activities separate is no reason to assume that we are somehow “against finding a cure for cancer.” (The quoted words are an almost verbatim phrase I got from a TIT coach while climbing with a purple pack up Torrey Pines Road last year.)
It’s funny how expressing concerns about a group like TIT causes some people to think this way. A lot like how speaking out against the war nowdays is somehow synonymous with being unpatriotic.
Just took a survey with the club. It seems that the bigger the TIT the more the guys like it. Some said they just like to stand and watch , some prefered to be surounded by them, and everyone would like to see new ones
The most important question is how much of the money is actually going to cancer research and which forms of cancer? Often times certain organizations take a good chunk of the money for “administative costs” and to perpetuate and expand the organization. If they are just acting as a middle man for other organizations than you would be better off donating directly to a reputable organization that will get as much of your dollar as close as possible to where you want it. i.e. a specific cancer, support for families,ect. Unfortunately I do not have enough exposure to TITs or the type of hands on contact with TITs to satisfy my curiousity. I am open minded and always willing to hear more about TITs.
I’ll ever so slightly answer a couple of issues that I’ve seen… I’ve been a coach with TNT for 3 yrs, got involved after my son was diagnosed with leukemia…
Administrative costs— the Leukemia lymphoma society mandates a 75% / 25% split… 75% of donations go DIRECTLY TO cause. 25% is everything else. NC Chapter I worked with maintained an 80/20 split.
US vs THEM – We (the coaches) are typically active triathletes and or marathoners above and beyond TNT races and indevour to ensure your trainees have a good event and also don’t ruin experience for anyone else. Yes, I read all of the WF threads last year as did many other TNT coaches. I hope that it was an isolated incident. I tell all my athletes to leave the purple hair, purple balloons and all other purple extremes at home. If you’ve ever run San Diego marathon you know what I’m talking about. Also that they are not the sole focus of race director, but small cog and a big machine so don’t expect any speacial treatment
Race slots - TNT national office coordinates with RD for slots directly. slots provided to TNT athletes are usually above and beyond what everybody is trying to get. If you didn’t get into a race it was because you waited to long to sign up not because a TNT’r took “your slot…” that’s just sour grapes.
Office emails - I agree blind mailing the entire global addressbook trolling for donations is crass and annoying.
If you really want to know about financials, they’re all available on the web. I looked it up. 2001 for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Revenue 178M$, Patient Services and Research 113M$ (63%), the remaining 65M$ was split between admin costs and fundraising. Only 36M$ of the 113M$ went to research, the rest went to patient support and advocacy. The 75/25 split is possible because the payments to TnT folks is written as negative revenue not expenses in the annual report. For comparison the American Cancer Society had revenue of 769M$ and spent 73% on patients and research. 27% went to fund raising and admin costs. So if you want your money to go farther and do something truly altruistic, give it directly to the Society and skip TnT and if you want it to go directly to research you can specify that too.
I dunno, maybe I’m just one of those simple rural folk. We all agree raising money for charitable causes is good. So, why not just have a box on race entry forms that an athlete can check that says something to the effect “Check here if you would like to donate $________ to XYZ charity.” Then, the athlete can add a few bucks on top of the entry fee and said donation is then forwarded by the RD to the organization. There are tons of races, tons of athletes and tons of causes out there. Heck, while we’re at it, how about a box for canned food donations at every race. The off-road vehicle racing organization I once belonged to used to do the above and we were the largest contributors to the local community we used to race in. Racers are good people, regardless of type of racing and I think if the donation process was simple and easy a fat chuck of change could be raised.
Again I saw this having been a coach for 3yrs. On the marathon side I trained people from zero expeience level (i.e. 40 yr old Doc who ran 2 miles on his treadmill twice a week) to very experienced runners (i.e. qualified for Boston). Obviously one of those categories could as you say just donate to a charity and just sign up for a race. The other group truely need the help of an experienced coach who can teach and train them to finish a marathon successfully and safely. Most of the triathletes I saw come into TNT weren’t absolute beginners to endurance sports, some were but not all, and all of them with out fall I’ve seen at subsequent races.
Plus who do you know that can simply make a 1000 to 3000 dollar donation as part of a race app. My group of marathoners (14) last winter raised almost $50K, in 5 months.
I am a TNT participant, and for me it has been a way to enter a world that I wondered about, but knew nothing of. I can tell you that I am hooked, and although my target race is still 2 months away, I’ve already participated in organized 2 biathlons. The fact that the above quoted experiences have occurred is truly unfortunate, and the TNT participants (at least in NYC) have been counselled as to proper race etiquette. I don’t think anyone who really want to improve themselves in a competitive sport actually wants to offend the other participants - just ignorance, which must be corrected. To that end this discussion is useful. On the other hand, there are a number of TNT folks who become long term participants / competitors, so the process benefits the sport as well. BTW, this is a terrific site for beginners!
Thanks, those were the numbers I was hoping someone would post (I am too lazy to look for them myself, though I had almost given up on the thread). Sems to answer the question as to best way to assist the cause.
I was directly involved in the Wildflower altercation last year. The “jackass” comment was directed at my good friend Paul who had innocently staked out our campsite in an area that turned out to be TNT “property” at the event, although it clearly wasn’t marked that way. Believe me, it was not the only nasty comments we recieved. One woman was quite emotional with her outrage at our presence in their hallowed ground. I gladly funded 3 TNT athletes last year. My sister in law died of Luekemia 20 years ago. However, due to fundraising concerns and the crappy way we were treated we now donate directly to ACA, bypassing the L&L Society. Not all TNTrs are “moonies” and there are of course many nice people associated with the organization. However they have an insular society and really pissed us off with their inflexible attitude and the fact that they went out of there way to kick us out of our campground over 24 hours after our team’s arrival. We were looked down on, and treated poorly by participants and TNT management. We appealed to Terry’s crew at Tri Cal but they folded like a cheap tent. Terry is quite tied in with TNT so of course this is no suprise. I am winding down my participation in TriCal events. While the rest of us were on the web site at MIDNIGHT on 11/15 to pay big fees (and camping that is marked up from usual $11 to $30 per car) Terry takes 500 entries off the top for TNT. I am back at Wildflower for the 4th year (2nd doing the 1/2) for my swan song. This will be my last year there…doing it for all of the “selfish” reasons… training for IM, and I want to compare my performance to last year for a benchmark. Also doing Escape from Alcatraz as I want to do this race at least once. However, after Escape I won’t be participating in Tri Cal events again. Too many other Bay Area events without the sign up hassles, cost gouging (Car and Camping in particular), or TNT headaches. Terry won’t care though…too many others waiting in line to take my place.
boobs are good. Team in Training is good too. It’s brought a lot of new people into the sport. Like anything else- pluses and minuses. From my perspective the pluses of Team in Training far outweigh whatever drawbacks there may be.