February 26th, 2008

Runnerville Weekly #6

by Matt Taylor in Runnerville Weekly
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 Runnerville Weekly #6 [16:53m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this week’s episode:

    Jeremy Mosher goes into great detail.
    Lauren Fleshman on soapbox, asks professional runners of the world to unite.
    Matt Taylor on soapbox, asks everyone else in the world to call them professional.
    Amby Burfoot gets smoked by Shalane. Talk about pedigree.
    Toni Reavis is a proud papa (no, not in that way).
    Chris Lear solicits help for his new gig as College Editor at Running Times.
    Jay Johnson gives some shout-outs.

We’d love to hear from you. Call the comment line at 206.888.0346 or drop us line below.

[Music is “Sunflower” by one of my favorite new artists, Machelli. I love it when young artists embrace new media.]

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4 Responses to “Runnerville Weekly #6”

  1. Jeremy Mosher says:
    February 28th, 2008 at 10:16 pm |

    Uh-oh. Toni already broke Matt’s edict. Should have said “Professional Racing TV.”

    I do think your point is well-taken, Matt, especially when you call out agents and race directors. But what, then, of the Galen Rupp’s who compete at a professional level but are still amateurs? OK, bad example.

    But you get what I’m saying: do we sacrifice accuracy for the sake of getting respect for our pros? As Lauren pointed out, we’re still fighting the civilian perception that amateur status means something at the Olympics - wouldn’t it confuse laymen more when someone like a Josh McDougal makes a Worlds team as a collegian? OK, an average Joe hearing about an IAAF Cross Country Championship… another bad example.

    I’m quitting before I dig myself deeper, but my question is not…

  2. Bart says:
    March 1st, 2008 at 4:19 pm |

    Good remark Jeremy, what if a athlete has a ninetofive-job and qualifies for a WC-team ?

  3. Jeremy Mosher says:
    March 2nd, 2008 at 5:57 pm |

    Such as Brian Sell. The way I hear it, he’s as blue collar as they come, because he makes more from his job at Home Depot than he does as a runner. At least that’s what I hear.

  4. Alison says:
    March 6th, 2008 at 1:00 pm |

    I think the elite vs. professional argument has been overdone on Runnerville, but that also might be because I disagree with you.

    I will start calling it a professional field when everyone in that field is able to make a decent living through the sport. Until more athletes are paid what they deserve, it’s only accurate to group them as “elites.” Deena Kastor is a professional runner, but there are plenty of athletes who get special treatment at races who are not.

    I run a web site called eliterunning.com and I chose that domain 7-8 years ago because I knew that I wanted to cover top-level high school and collegiate athletes as well, who are most certainly not professionals. Additionally, I wanted to cover post-collegiate runners who are on their way up, including those who don’t even have a shoe contract.

    In my opinion, it’s just a matter of semantics. Calling people who are not making a living through running professional isn’t going to change the sport. Their income needs to change, and then we can alter what we call them…and there are far bigger things wrong with the sport than what we call them.

    Feel free to keep arguing this point, but I am far from convinced.

    For the record, not every sport calls their very best “professionals.” Gymnastics comes to mind, though I’m pretty sure that’s not a sport we want to be emulating.

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