#26 - Not Dead Yet! Plus NILs & Kessler/Fisher

Inside This Issue

• Not dead yet!

• NILs Are Here

• Kessler The World Champion

• Fisher Leaves Bowerman

• XC Lists Revisited

• What Happened In The Jungle?

• Little Things

OK, Admit It…

You hadn’t seen a Michtrack Newsletter in several weeks, and you thought I was dead. That’s fair. Full explanation below, but right now, we need to focus on the big news…

NIL Is Coming

I wrote about this in early September, and it’s coming true. The Michigan House has now approved an NIL plan for the state’s high schoolers, 66-43. Now it heads to the Senate, and if it passes there (it will) to the governor (who will sign it). Why I am so confident of its passage? The bill was written in consultation with the MHSAA, and ostensibly has the organization’s seal of approval. While there may be individual politicians who don’t like the coming changes (at least 43 of them), with the MHSAA on board, there will be no substantial opposition.

For those new to the term, NIL stands for Name-Image-Likeness and means that prep athletes will be allowed to give endorsements for products and businesses, just like the college kids have been able to do since the Supreme Court gave its blessing. In other words, high school athletes who sign NIL deals will be pros by our old definition. There are some limitations in the bill: no pooling of NIL money by boosters or alumni groups to draw athletes to certain schools (good luck enforcing that one!), no deals that require athletes to wear sponsor garb during team activities, and no endorsements of booze or porn. All deals will need to be submitted to the MHSAA so that they can keep track of them.

The MHSAA told legislators that it estimates only 25 of the 180,000 student-athletes in Michigan will get deals. Personally, I think that it will be a lot more, and I’m only thinking about track/XC (as usual). More than a few local businesses will throw some change at local hero athletes just to be supportive—look at the number that advertise in meet programs and in the back of yearbooks. Don’t forget that plenty of track/XC parents own businesses and may see an upside to all of it. Look also to the kind of businesses that are thrilled to sponsor teams at the Michigan XC Meet of Champions. Some of them will definitely hire Joe & Jill Trackstar to boost the biz on social media. And Uncle Phil who owns the carwash? I wouldn’t be surprised if he throws some cash his nephew’s way just so the kid can call himself a professional athlete in high school.

I can see the coming changes creating various problems along the way for coaches and teams, but this is a steamroller and there’s no stopping it. My biggest misgiving is that the money will not be doled out on a merit basis. As we have seen with college TF/XC, an athlete’s looks (and resulting social media follows) will play a disappointingly huge role.

Kessler The World Champion - Revisited

This is old news by now, but it sure was cool to be hiking in the mountains of Costa Rica and get this news. What does it all mean for the young man, as well as the sport itself?

For Kessler, it’s certainly a boost in prestige that might open up a few more opportunities to get into big meets (and certainly road miles, but I’m not sure he wants to become known as a road specialist at this point in his career). Plus, the $50K will certainly find a welcoming home.

Being the FIRST world champion in a category is truly cool, though I can certify that that coolness fades if World Athletics cuts the event in coming years. The organization is experimenting in its efforts to better market the sport. Sometimes the experiments catch on and sometimes they don’t and are cancelled (quick, who was the first world cross country short course champion?). Hopefully the road mile turns out to be a keeper… and will be the first of many major titles for Kessler.

Fisher Leaves Bowerman

Big news hit last week that America’s best distance runner on the track, Grand Blanc alum Grant Fisher, has left the Nike Bowerman TC and will have someone else coach him through the Olympic year.

But who? I’ve heard lots of interesting speculation as well as pretty good rumors. Sadly, I’m one of those principled journalists who will not share those rumors.

Yet I look back to the talk I had with him a month ago—when the wheels on this change were probably already turning—and I can think back to things he said that might be seen as foreshadowing.

He talked about the disappointment he felt in not making the Worlds team:
“Emotionally that was terrible. Missing out on a team, sitting on a couch, watching people do what I wanted to do and not even have a chance to even try.”

He mentioned the chances he took coming back after his stress reaction for a very successful 2-week tour at the end of the season: “There were inherent risks that I knew were there and that people around me knew were there.” He made the decision to run, even though very possibly some around him were telling him no.

Finally, it’s well known that Bowerman coach Jerry Schumacher (now the Oregon coach as well), doesn’t believe in a lot of racing. And Grant made it clear that he misses racing more. “The end of season, I just wanted to race at that point. I'd done the long grinding cross training and a whole year of training to get to a point where I didn't know if I was gonna race for the rest of the year. So I was kind of taking every opportunity I could to compete.”

One thing’s clear: Grant Fisher is exceptionally intelligent and analytical, and he’s reached a point of maturity where he knows what’s best for him and he’s willing to stand by those decisions. While a few fans are screaming that he’s made a horrible mistake changing programs going into the Olympic year, I am in the opposite camp: not worried at all, and excited about the next chapter for the 26-year-old star.

Read the article that came from the interview noted above.

The Missing Editor Explained, and the Future of this Newsletter

You probably already picked up on the fact that I recently spent some good time in the tropics. It wasn’t the sort of tropical vacation that most of you envision, with all-inclusive resorts, mai-tais on the beach, buffets and lots of people better looking than me in swimsuits.

Not even close. My kind of tropical vacation involved 16 days of tramping through the jungle, up and down mountains and through flooded rice paddies starting before the crack of dawn every day, all in a quest to see birds: very, very cool birds. I spent quality time with local birders down there, got past all kinds of language barriers, and drove 700M+ on some of the worst roads I’ve ever seen. (When I turned in the rental, the guy pointed at the dent on the roof and then looked at me quizzically. “Rough roads,” I shrugged.)

I had intended to keep up with the newsletter while I was down there—occasionally I had Internet access—but most nights I was too exhausted after the day’s adventures and then with keeping up with my real job.

The trip wasn’t intended to help me sort out what I am doing with this sport; it was scheduled because that was the week my wife had for vacation (I added on another week+ since I was already down there). Yet toward the end it hit me like a speeding Costa Rican bus in the wrong lane—I definitely needed to rethink my Michtrack game, because it has buried me completely.

Here’s the situation: this year I achieved a long-held dream of turning Michtrack into an IRS-recognized nonprofit, with an eye toward giving my historical efforts on the sport’s behalf a big boost. I guess I nurtured the faint hope that some track millionaire would send a generous donation and I could focus on our sport in Michigan and its amazing history full-time. Well, I haven’t found that track sugar daddy yet.

However, some very welcome small donations started coming in, and they definitely have helped cover the various costs associated with Michtrack. (Full disclosure—nothing has gone to me personally yet. Maybe someday in the distant future, but for now, everything has gone to fees, subscriptions and equipment.) Those donors are hugely appreciated. The newsletter itself came about because, one, it’s fun, and two, people appreciate it. I should add, three, it helps drive donations.

Doing a quality newsletter on a weekly basis takes time, a lot more time than I bargained for. If I could do Michtrack full-time, it wouldn’t be a problem. But I have to keep my job, a very important and demanding one in my eyes. And like all of you, family comes first. I’d rather be known as a fantastic grandfather than a fantastic track historian or writer.

I found that all of the time that the newsletter takes comes out of my historical research time. Not a surprise to some of you, but I LOVE researching this sport. I have a zillion unfinished projects, and when I want to waste time, I don’t watch TV, I don’t play video games. What I do is fire up the newspaper database and start working on the Detroit City Championships results from 1965, part of long-term project of mine. Or if I’m in the mood for real retro stuff, I’m trying to build a top 10 list for the state in 1911.

The irony that hit me in the rice paddy—while wondering if any local poisonous snakes could swim—was that I created an organization to boost historical research on Michigan track and because of that I now have no time at all to do that research!!

So the Michtrack Newsletter, which has been weekly for almost half a year, is going to be every-other-week. Or maybe it will just be occasional. I can see it coming more frequently during track season, but we’ll see. For Michtrack to be what I want it to be, I have to have time to do the background research!

If you’ve made it this far and you are one of our regular donors, I understand if you decide to stop giving because you expected a weekly newsletter. That’s fair. However, I’m going to make a pledge that any of the historical books that I publish will go to the regular donors for free (plus anyone who’s given $100 or more total).

Once More For Those In The Back

Quick: who’s the current NCAA leader in cross country for 8K? Don’t know? Go to tfrrs.org, the online repository for collegiate results and lists, all divisions. There you can pull down the performance list tab and… wait a second—indoor and outdoor track lists, but no cross country? What gives?

New question: what’s the national collegiate record for XC? Same deal. Good luck with that one.

No one keeps track of those stats because they’re basically meaningless. Literally no one in the NCAA XC world gives a damn who has the fastest time of the year, or the fastest time ever.

Recently, Rachel Forsyth of Pioneer has produced probably the three fastest times in state history, 16:37, 16:19 and 16:28. Newspapers and fans will hale these as state records. But they’re not. There is no state record for XC, just like there are no collegiate, American or World Records for it.

The other day I heard about a kid telling his teacher he is #6 in the state [changing all the numbers here to conceal identity]. But the kid is not the sixth-best runner in the state; that will become clear to him at MIS. He’s just a victim of list obsession, a raging epidemic on the high school scene nationally.

Coaches/fans/athletes — try to remember that a yearly performance list in cross country is simply a collection of times from fast courses on good days. And if these lists were a good idea, you’d think the NCAA coaches would have picked up on that by now.

Little Things

Now that’s community support! Nice to see Allen Park’s state champion thrower Abigail Russell on the cover of a publication that goes to every house in town!

Day job reads:

Myla Greene - the nation’s top prep hurdler is now at Tennessee

Athing Mu - a look back on her transformative season

Isaiah Taylor - son of a gold medalist out to do big things

Yared Nuguse - a great article by my editor

Obligatory non-profit message: You can become a regular donor though Zeffy. It’s safe and easy. Donate here.