Henry Brandon has been elected as USA Triathlon’s Board of Directors Chair, replacing Joel Rosinbum and becoming the first African American to serve in the role. Rosinbum, the first paratriathlete to serve in the role, had served as Board Chair since 2021. Dylan Sorenson was elected Vice Chair.
“Congratulations to Henry Brandon on his election as Chair of the USA Triathlon Board of Directors and to Dylan Sorensen as Vice Chair. Both bring a wealth of leadership, experience, and passion for our sport, and I am excited to work alongside them as we continue to grow and strengthen triathlon in the U.S.,” said Victoria Brumfield, USA Triathlon CEO. “Their dedication to our mission will undoubtedly help us expand opportunities for athletes of all backgrounds and skill levels. I also want to extend my gratitude to Joel Rosinbum for his leadership and service — his impact on our organization has been truly inspiring.”
Brandon’s background in non-profits is extensive. He either currently serves or has served in the following roles: the Advocates Foundation and the APGA Tour, where he served as founding vice president as well as a founding board member; National Advisory Board Haas Center for Public Service; The Fulfillment Fund; The Riordan Programs; Sound Body Sound Mind; The Friends of Expo Center; World Golf Foundation Diversity Task Force; Arthur Ashe Safe Passage; and the Inglewood Baseball Fund.
Brandon has been on USA Triathlon’s Board of Directors since 2019. In a statement, he said, “I am forever grateful to have been elected as Chairman of the USA Triathlon Board of Directors. I am passionate about the sport of triathlon and feel very privileged to be in the position to meaningfully contribute to its mission and future success, particularly as we look to the 2028 Games in LA. Being Chair of this program has never been about one person, and it never will be. I look forward to working with our talented team and our racing community as we better understand how we can be successful on this journey, it’s going to take a united effort, and we’re going to have to do this as a team. That’s why doing it at the USAT is so special.
In addition to the changes on the Board of Directors, USA Triathlon’s Chief Sport Development Officer Tim Yount has a new role. He has been appointed to World Triathlon’s Age-Group Commission, which provides support for age-group athlete needs and their national federations, all in the interest of improving athlete experience.
The post here left out what I think is the more important part than his extensive non-profit experience. He’s the COO of an asset management investment firm. Hopefully, he can make the right moves to improve the finances in USAT.
I’m not personally familiar with the litany of foundations and associations he’s been a part of, but I hope that list doesn’t mean he just likes to go to parties and have influence… but I confess that seems like an important role to pull in other wealthy donors who’d like to have access and look important in LA 2028.
I would be curious to read an interview with some of these individuals where more than just boilerplate PR is given, but what are the challenges they see, areas where the organization dropped the ball in the past, how it’s moving forward, opportunities it’s pursuing and so on.
I wondered the same thing and didn’t see him listed in any standings.
At least the Vice Chair does. It’s not necessarily a huge strike against him, but it’s not like a triathlon is so impossible that the guy couldn’t muddle through one to get a feel for the experience. Interesting at the head of Ironman and now the Chair of the Board of USAT appear to have virtually no triathlon experience before taking over.
Interesting to see Dylan Sorenson still in triathlon. I did some work with him when he first came into the sport through the CRP pathway. And then he went into ncaa run coaching and even was a head coach of a P5 D1 program before leaving. Ha I showed him all the fun run trails around the Raleigh area when he was the UNC head coach (he came from Stanford asst. coaching job). He’s the best, just nicest guy and really loved his time in triathlon, that’s a good fit for both.
Unofficially NCAA TRI has met 40 school requirement to then go in front of NCAA and have it vetted in more detail to be officially accepted as championship sport. The vetting should be pretty straight forward, and we have a lot of good things going in right direction (each year more athletes racing, this year 40 schools met ncaa sport sponsorship requirements, etc).
It should pass. It just takes about 12-18 months of vetting, so the likely year it becomes full ncaa championship sport is 2026. So then the issue is that yes we’ve made it w/ 40 schools but if we lose any schools between now and then, we go back to square one if you fall below the 40 school threshold. (Currently there are 42 schools, 1 school is seeking a waiver from the Hurricane as they basically had to close campus rest of semester in NC…said school did have 2 races of ncaa compliance before hurricane destroyed their campus, so they have a strong case to showcase they would have gotten it). So the margins are pretty razor thin, but other school(s) are coming on board in the very near future.
So we are in holding pattern, and right now NCAA has a ton of bigger fish to fry which is going to change college athletics with revenue sharing, roster limits, etc. But we should know spring of 2026 for it to then be fall '26 championship sport.
Please share your “data”. The data still has to be vetted by the NCAA and of course they can go through it if they find any irregularities within your competition, they can squash it.
But it’s a lot like when you have to defend your thesis. Your presentation is basically presented knowing what they’ll ask and how they’ll ask. IE your advisor usually does a good job of “preparing” you for the defense. USAT (Tim Yount) has done a damn good job with a ton of work to get it to the finish line w/ 40 schools. You only had to do it once within the 10 year window, so ncaa triathlon gets the green check box for achieving that.
NCAA would never pull a female sport from opportunity, the only real issue is your sport drops below 40 schools during any part of the vetting, you have to go back to square one. Rugby is a ncaa emerging sport going on nearly 20 years, they basically are stuck in the ~20 schools and so they’ll never make it to full status. But it still is an opportunity to check off the title ix (or enrollment) if that is what a school needs.
I would be very bearish on any non-revenue NCAA sports right now, and certainly one that isn’t already a sponsored sport. We’re worried about swimming becoming a glorified club sport. Triathlon isn’t going (or coming) anywhere.
Eta… this makes me sad, but i think it’s the reality staring at us.
With all this new legislation that is on NCAA’s plate, it was important to hit sport sponsorship within 10 year window. Which tri did by the skin of our teeth, so it could be potentially “fast tracked” through or it could be extremely vetted. The chance of NCAA cutting all the emerging sports is low, but that could be on the table. But again it being a women’s sport helps in that capacity cus currently schools can still use women’s emerging sports for title ix compliance so the actual change they truly cut women’s sports is very likely low.
But we have already seen some universities solution to the new legislation. A large non-power 4 mid major team just announced 30 “club” sports that is being sponsored by the athletic dept. It will be non-scholarship but fully funded which for those fringe athletes who want the “D1 experience” but can’t make the now tigher ncaa sport rosters- that is going to be your universities solution. So there is going to likely be a ton of schools going the “club sports” route to keep up enrollment.
The reality is that almost all non-revenue sports are going to turn more “clubish” than full rosters of scholarship athletes even though that is the now the allowed reality if the new legislation goes through. Very few sports are actually going to increase scholarship allotments, most especially as revenue sharing is going to occur and so therefore football /basketball will get 99% of the money (of course they are the teams that generate the revenue so that’s only fair0. A sport like swimming is going to have to be filled with more dual event athletes because the roster limits are sorta small (30). Tri rosters max will be 14, and I don’t know how many teams are at that max. One sticking point about tri is that it has such small competition limits- 7 total for the year (fall + spring), that you can have athletes that race 1 to 2 times at the most. With regionals and ncaa counting as events, you have a 5 season regular season and 4 if you save a spring race for development time.
What your actually going to see is scholarship funds from sport Y be used to fund other sports now (football / basketball). One famous Power 4 school announced that and within 5 days they got private donations to fully fund the entire athletic dept scholarship needs. But most schools don’t have the deep of donor pockets especially at the lower level mid majors (that make up most of D1).
The athletes who will most suffer now is going to be high school seniors. The portal will become even more important to get athletes from as rosters are trimmed down.
NCAA ultimately has to figure out college football and then when that is done, get the conferences back to “regional” based conferences like they were for 100 years prior to all this conference expansion. West coast schools being in east coast conferences is never going to work out long term.
Now of course with the new legislation basically meaning every student athlete basically is eligible to be paid/revenue sharing, if your sport isn’t inside championship status, yes you are potentially teetering on “your sport can get cut”. Women’s rugby / women’s triathlon could certainly be left on the outside looking in. But again now that we are sorta in the “processing” part by the skin of our teeth, most sport administrators think it’ll stay within ncaa sport parameters, again especially with being a women’s sport. If it fails the vetting process, the chances of it ever coming back up for full status will be very low imo as I think several schools will pull the plug (both big time school and the smaller schools that are struggling to field rosters).
This is the key here, decouple football from the athletics umbrella. If they can do that, and I don’t know how, because you most likely still have to abide Title IX unless the football players can simply become true employees. So if, big IF, they can somehow do that, the door would be open to return to the regional conference structure. That cat may be well out of the bag, but the insanity of waiting til 11pm to watch an “ACC” basketball game has already worn thin.
Women’s flag football is going to be added to NCAA emerging sports per women’s committee NCAA meeting yesturday. NFL will probaly going to pump a shit ton of money into that movement; a hell of a lot more than what any governing body can do for a sport on a college campus (usat has supported ~4.4mi for triathlon over 10 years, and I believe that includes a $1mi “donation” from a private donor last year that was ear marked specifically for ncaa tri)
3 current emerging sports:
stunt
triathlon
rugby
stunt has something like 60+ schools accomplishing ncaa sports sponsorship, so they should easily roll into championship status. Rugby is stick with less than 20 ncaa varsity programs, so they’ll be stuck in the emerging sport status. Tri is now up for review, so we’ll see what happens.
On the flag football side of things on the HS level a HS out here started a flag football team, had something like 50 girls come out for it. Every fall sport on the girls side was down including xc, cheer, swimming, volleyball
So flag football is likely going to be the 3rd highest paid sport on college campuses only behind football and basketball because the NFL is going to pump a ton of money into it. And then you think, the roster size is probaly going to be 20-25, and suddenly you realize what that can replace on college campuses…and yes it’s scared the shit out of us ncaa tri coaches to get into championship status before flag football comes in (it’s been in the coaching scuttlebutt for over a year now, just waiting for it to officially happen). Title ix isn’t really a number of sports on your campus thing, it’s more total equality among “opportunity” and total numbers. So you can kinda see the writing on the wall if your a small roster size sport on a college campus, it ain’t good…
NCAA Tri’s best attritube is that it’s’ probaly the cheapest ncaa sport because it has such low competition numbers. # of competitons (IE how many times do you have to pay for hotel rooms) is the biggest budget killer for any sport. Tri has a max of 7 and a min of 4. Go look at how many schools race the min numbers. Then compare that to the soccer team that is on the road every other game and you suddenly see…triathlon basically is a steal for a university EXCEPT there is zero recruits to pull from…and there in lies the rub. It’'s a super affordable sport for a college admin yet it’s not really an enrollment driver cus most schools struggle like crazy to fill rosters. Wonk wonk wonk
Do we care more about girls or care about our sport? If more girls want football, and more boys want triathlon, what a messed up situation USAT has gambled on to bet a huge part of the future seed crop on a minority variation of our sport to a minority group of participants, who aren’t all that interested in even participating in it.
It boggles the mind that so many years and investment is made in something where we struggle to fill rosters, where at the same time there’s a much easier to access segment that would gobble it right up. Ya ya I get it, schools and NCAA want the womens.
But it sounds like we tried to give the schools what they want and the NCAA what they want and the women don’t really want it, reasonably likely the NCAA won’t want it either.
That being said, I’d love to be wrong and have it take off.
When you say the NCAA “won’t want it either”, that’s pretty much not how it works. There is no “opinion” here to accept a sport to championship status or not. They don’t all get in a room and say oh we like this sport but don’t like that sport so thus only the sports we like get accepted.
There is strict guidelines sports must follow in order to obtain full ncaa championship status. They look at many factors, but the biggest being, did your sport have 40 schools obtain ncaa sport sponsorship.
Now, you are not going to be able to do do 4 races of 1 min swim, 1 min bike, 1 min run and count that as a competition. You can’t “game” it in that way.
Again at this point in the game, this biggest hurdle isn’t the data that the NCAA is analyzing. The biggest hurdle is keeping 40 schools compliant during the vetting process. That’s the bigger concern because if that happens, you get kicked back to level 1 and it’s faily understood that some schools will easily drop it if it gets kicked back to that stage.
So the process isn’t really as you describe it. There is no real “opionion” on liking or not liking your sport or the ncaa secretly wants X sport but not Y sport. It’s more in the data analysis of “yes this data checks out” and thus we can green light it. Again this isn’t Tim Yount’s rules, this isn’t women’s triathlon rules, this isn’t Brooks Doughtie’s opinion on it. You follow NCAA guidelines and if you do that and obtain certain standards, you move forward to obtain championship status. It’s all right there in front of us, the protocols, no one is making up stuff to make it look better. We made the initial finish line of NCAA’s own guidelines…That is not an automatic green light, but it’s damn near unless again your sport falls below 40 school status during the vetting process.
The min competition time for any event that counted as ~18 mins and the max was the sprint distance were some ahtletes took ~2 hours. So in that aspect no school has tried to “game” the data so to speak. You can do 2 sport events and have them count. Swimming does that, they have meets that have min number of events and they have meets that have max number of events, allowing both setups to count. NCAA allows 5k men races to count, even though postseason is 8k and 10km, etc.
