Reaction to the decline in the number of decathletes

TerrorReign · Joined: 24 Apr 2007 Posts: 2 Location: Albany, NY

Well, I guess hamstrings injuries do give you a lot of time to crunch numbers and read articles. I told Joe Malone about your blog too and sent him a link. But the graphs and numbers are staggering. I can't help but to partially blame television for the decline in multis as well. I mean even for somebody who is involved in track & field in middle school, high school, college level, chances are the only time they'd even get to see and admire professional runners is every 4 years when the Olympics are televised. Maybe you'll catch a rerun telecast at like 2am on channel 1205 of your digital cable if you're lucky. I actually did catch some of the Indoor Millrose Games on TV but they were on at like 9am on a Sunday morning. Hence, I wasn't that shocked that during my coaching tenure (shot put, discus and jave) last year at Colonie High School, not one of my kids could name a world class thrower or even tell me what the world record was in their event. Track is just pushed out of the spotlight and not just to the NFL, NBA, and MLB but now arena football, beach volleyball, NASCAR, and the World Series of Poker get more air time on ESPN and ESPN2 etc.

But back to my point about the Olympics. Even when they're on, Decathlon and Heptathlon are never in the spotlight. If anything, they're almost like a side show. The 100 meters and the 4 x 100 relays are usually saved (the best) for last. I remember I actually saw a blip of the decathlon at the USA Olympic trials on television for the Athens games. I believe the trials were in Sacramento or Eugene that year, I forget. But anyway, they had on the 400 meters, ending the first day. The stadium was completely empty by then. Every other event had finish, the stands were virtually empty and it was so quiet, you could hear the runners grunting during the last 100 meters through the boom mics. It's just depressing that decath is almost like an after thought to the other events.

My experience last year at New York's Empire State Games was very similar. Our events kept getting bumped and/or delayed. We had an hour and 20 minute layover between the javelin and the 1500 for a reason that is still unknown to me. Also the throwing areas were up a road on the university about 1/2 mile from the track so the officials switched pole vaulting to the 6th event and discus to the 7th event so that they (the officials) wouldn't have to walk up and back from the throwing area twice in one day. Every athlete disapproved but they didn't care what we thought. We're the circus side show.

I miss the days back when Dan O'Brien and Dave Johnson were going to resurrect the decathlon back to the Bruce Jenner glory days. But we all know what happened to Dan in pole vault and Reebok and Pepsi lost a boat load of money on that ad campaign. But still, they gave well deserved hype to the event as "who will be crowned the world's greatest athlete?" I think that's a fair and just description. I mean, who would argue? Well, maybe Kip Janvrin because he can do all 20 and not just a measly 10. Donavon Bailey and Michael Johnson had a classic match-up to crown "the world's fastest man" back in '97, I think, in a 150 meter race. That fell flat much like Johnson's hammy about 40 meters into the race.

The event needs heroes like that again. American heroes to get kids interested in self accomplishment and not $8 million signing bonuses, shoe deal, and a music video with Timberland. I agree that it has to start at the ground-up. New York's Indoor High School State Meet does not have Pentathlon, But the National meet does. You can go if your school can afford the airfare to wherever Nationals are that year. Luckily in 1999, my senior year, they were in Boston (only 120 mile drive) and I finished 12th out of 34 people with a score of 3014 points. An okay score I guess, but more importantly they were 22 people that finished below me. So I'm saying that the quality of athletes just aren't there. The better quality athletes were more likely doing just the single event that they excel at most.

In summary, I think that the focus should be on promoting it as competing for the award of best athlete. Which is true in my opinion. Yeah there might be some hot shot hurdler claiming he's the best athlete on the team but what does it prove if you can run a 14.9 hurdle time but you can't throw a 16 pound ball any more then 20 feet? It proves you're a good hurdler, that's it. So let it be heard throughout every middle school, high school, college, state, national, and international event that the decathlon is looking for the person willing to work hard at every aspect of athletic skill to be crowned the Best Athlete in the World! That title will be held and respected more then any dollar amount or shoe deal you can ever put on paper.