Doping – A Perspective from Tim Dwight
In today’s New York Times Sports Page Tom Dwight, former Big Ten 100 meter champion, now a wide receiver for the New York Jets and acknowledged as one of the fastest players in the NFL gets to the root cause of all of this: ”Its unfortunate that every year everybody wants people to run faster than someone else. Track and Field is not about world records. It’s about competition. It’s about eight people in a heat and who’s the best. That’s where track and field’s emphasis needs to get back to.” It is sad that because of media hype and pressure and big bucks sponsorship we have gotten away from the essence of it – competition.
posted by Vern Gambetta @ 8/01/2006 03:09:00 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Vern: this is so true. The loss of emphasis on competition has really taken a toll on the sport even at the lowest levels. I was brought up through high school and college in a dual meet tradition. Our first priority was how well our team did in dual meets. I was on a collegiate team that did not lose a dual meet in my 4 years -- that was fun. This tradition led to track teams that had good sprinters, jumpers, throwers, and mid-distance runners. We had to score in all areas to be successful as a team. You had a job every week to score for your team and beat the guys from the other team whether you were a 130 pound distance runner or a 250 pound shot putter. I think the average sports fan had a much better understanding of track and field when that was the case. Now teams seem to just focus on one or two event groups and the focus is entirely on end of the year championships. That is hard for kids and parents to understand. I know people criticize the dual meet tradition because they feel it leads to over-racing and kills our top talent. However, I see no evidence that our top US talent is doing any better then the top talent of the 50's 60's and early 70's when the dual meet was king.
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