013. MAKE ADULTS COMPETITIVE AGAIN

or “MAKE ATHLETICS GREAT AGAIN”

On an autumn morning in lower Manhattan, I look up from my phone as a group of late twenty-somethings crowd near the entrance of the coffee shop I’m sitting outside of. Most are dressed head to toe in matching running gear, all the latest, sleekest, premium stuff – Tracksmith, District Vision, Bandit, Soar, Nike Running, Oakley glasses, etc. Top to bottom, some of the ensembles probably amount to half a month’s rent in Fort Greene. Most have hardly broken a sweat.

When the group walks in my direction, I can damn near feel their post-run endorphins as they log their runs onto Strava. They compare stats and ensure everyone is tagged in the run together. One member of the group talks about how ready he feels for his upcoming race, another Google Maps their route to brunch, another corrals a subset of the group for a selfie.

I’m forced to look away and can’t help but think that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong with sports in America. 

The Great Athletic Softening

The collective obsession with community-building, self-care,  social validation, and a growing quest to make everyone happy all the time is ruining sports. 

Over the last few years adults have increasingly turned sports and athletics into a participation parade. We've created a bizarre parallel universe where everyone's an athlete, but nobody's competing. Every week, more grown-ass adults are playing dress-up in expensive compression gear. Take a look at New York’s West  Side Highway or San Francisco’s Crissy Field Beach on any given evening and you’ll see 500 pairs of $250 running shoes that will never taste real competition.

Too many adults have forgotten what makes sports special in the first place. In our rush to make athletics accessible to everyone, to sand down every rough edge and celebrate everyone for showing up, we've created a culture that actively runs from the very thing that gives sports their power.

Sports are competitive games. Games have scores and stakes. Most sports are zero-sum. A winner necessitates losers, and excellence requires comparison. It’s an unforgiving, beautifully simple dynamic. 

Conversely, the culture fostered by most modern run clubs or amateur adult sports collectives is the grown-up version of participation trophy culture. Some are serious, some are great at inspiring people, some are great for simply helping people enjoy running, tennis, soccer, etc. with like minded others – but you know the ones I’m talking about. The ones I’m referring to make everyone feel like an athlete without having to confront the reality of competition. They are creating safe spaces for mediocrity and neutering the very essence of sports. 

This isn't about gatekeeping or an argument against recreational activities or inclusive fitness communities – they have their place and value, and I am thrilled to see people building healthy behaviors around movement and exercise. It’s about preserving the distinct nature of competitive sports. The democratization of athletics over the decades is a positive development for society; the recent over-domestication of competitive sports is not. We are doing a massive disservice to athletics, not in making it too inclusive, but in pretending that participation and competition are the same thing.

This critique is specifically about sports but also suggests a broader cultural shift away from the mechanism that has historically driven human achievement and progress: competition. There’s a real danger in the domestication of competitive sports percolating beyond the realm of sports and into other components of life – academia, business, professional titles – some would argue it already has. 

The rawness of competition – the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat – is not a barrier to entry; it’s the whole point. And while we may have more people than ever "participating" in sports, society has never been further from understanding what it truly means to compete. 

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I’m sure lots of folks reading this will cry, “We just want to have fun! Not everything has to be a competition!” I will agree. Not everything is competitive – don’t go putting a podium in your yoga studio – but there are some things that should be reserved for those who compete. Whether it’s status, elite apparel, media, or the corners of the internet where serious amateur athletes congregate, we need spaces and signifiers that celebrate the legitimacy of athletic competition without apology. Otherwise, the only real winners will be the brands selling $250 running shoes to people whose biggest race is to brunch.