Track and Field Blogs - Scott Bauhs

The following blog is in response to the comments by Johnny Maguire:

Your observations about elite runners are definitely accurate and I'm not going to try to defend myself or elite runners. I have only done two major road races in my life and at one of them I wandered around like an idiot for about a half hour after the race looking for my parents to take me home and the other time I spent about 20 minutes in the elite runner area and then left to go eat, long before the last of the runners had finished. So on that hand, I certainly shouldn't expect any attention from the other runners in the field. If, by chance anyone had recognized me I would have been polite, thanked them and been on my way. I certainly didn't win either of these races but I did do well. I am still very young and hopefully I will have a long career with lots of opportunities to change my ways.

I didn't write this blog to attack "casual runners" and I'm sorry if it came out that way. Looking back I'm sorry I ever even used the word "casual" because as long as you have a watch and are trying to improve your time or compete with the runners around you, you are beyond being a casual runner. I was simply trying to point out that it is odd to me that running has so many participants across the globe yet elite runners are so far behind in the elites of so many other sports. I used the example of tennis because it is an individual sport and the best of the best make ridiculous amounts of money. I don't know whether Federer volunteers at local tennis events in his spare time, I hope he does because he owes tennis more than he can possibly pay it back... but whether he is a good soul or not, he is still going to reap massive rewards from the sport. Much more than Haile or Hall will ever see.

Virtually all aspects of running are to blame for where running is as a sport. It is my personal opinion that if more day-to-day runners had more interest in elite runners that the sport would expand and so would the opportunities for the elite runners. You will have a hard time changing my mind about that. I do understand, however that it is hardly the day-to-day runners fault. There are many ways that this can be changed and hopefully within my career the ball gets rolling and I hope to be involved in that process. Last summer I went on the “Wednesday-night-run” at my local running store and I ran with a few of the runners that I am talking about. They loved all the same things I do, they were searching for the P.R.s and training their butts of the same way I was, they were simply on a different level. Another difference is that none of them had any idea who any of the good elite runners of the world are. I know there is a fair amount of people out there that care about elite running. The fact that you are perusing flotrack proves that you are one of them. I am delighted that there are and they are needed for the sport. I just wish there were more people like you.

That said, the way we can make more people like you as elite athletes is by doing the things you said. Staying around races and caring about the fans that we have. I am no Ryan Hall but I’m getting better and if I get to the point where people start recognizing me after races hopefully I can be inspire them in the way that big time runners have inspired me. I haven’t volunteered at a road race since I was a cub scout in second grade (while I have helped out at college and high school track meets from time to time) but it is definitely something that I, as well as other athletes should look into. Regardless of what level they are on.

Maybe someday we can get all of the major marathons slots on television, and more movies made about our sport. Maybe we can sell out track meets in places other than Eugene. To do this we need every aspect of our sport to get involved, from the slowest to the fastest and from the youngest to the oldest.