An Interview with Olympic Gold Medalist Frank Shorter
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The Birth of the Fitness Boom: An Interview with Olympic Gold Medalist Frank Shorter By: B. Naughton American in the 20th Century Frank Shorter Instructor: Mr. Whitman February 19, 2009 Table of Contents Release Forms 2 Statement of Purpose 4 Biology 5 Contextualization 7 (Using the Fitness Boom of the 1970’s to Look at the Relationship between Sports and Society) Interview Transcription 19 Time Indexing Log 55 Historical Analysis 57 Appendix 65 Works Consulted 67 STATEMENT OF PURPOSE The purpose of this sports-based oral history interview is to examine a neglected piece of American history. Understanding the birth of the fitness boom contributes to understanding 20th century cultural history. Examining the fitness boom that was spurred by Frank Shorter’s Olympic Marathon victory allows the historian to explore the relationship between sports and society. The fitness boom touches on topics such as the corporatization of sports, the history and understanding of physical fitness in America and the collision of sports and history at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The purpose of the interview with Frank Shorter is to gain knowledge from a man who was at the center of the fitness revolution. Biography Frank Shorter was born on October 31st, 1947. He grew up in the small town of Middletown, New York. He attended Mount Herman Prep School 1in Massachusetts. He ran both cross-country and track there starting his junior year. As a senior he won the New England cross-country championship. He then made the decision to attended and run cross-country and track at Yale University. In 1969, he won the men’s 10,000 meters title in track and field. Then, in 1970, he won the U.S. national title in both in 5,000 meters, and the 10,000 meters. After these victories Shorter set his eyes on the Munich Olympics in 1972. In 1971 he won the Fukuoka Marathon, which was essentially was the 1 Mount Herman Prep School merged with Northfield, which was an all girls’ school. It is now called Northfield Mount Herman. world championship. Shorter qualified for the USA 1972 Olympic team in at the USA Olympic track trial in both the 10,000 meters and the marathon. At the 1972 Olympics, which were haunted by the Black September terrorist group, Shorter finished fifth in the 10,000 meters. But the moment that will be remembered about Shorter the most is his gold medal victory in the marathon. He won the marathon in a convincing time of: 2:10:30. He then again qualified for the Olympics again in 1976. He finished second in the marathon winning the silver medal, loosing to an East German by the name of Waldemar Cierpinski, though it is now widely known that the East German of the 70’s where doping using steroids. Shorter continued to race. After Shorter retired from athletics he started his own athletic clothing company. He was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1989. In 2000, he was name chairman of USADA (The United States Anti-Doping Agency). He was chairman until 2003. Shorter still continues to run today while living in Boulder, Colorado. Using the Fitness Boom of the 1970’s to Look at the Relationship between Sports and Society The impact of sports and fitness is an overlooked component of U.S. history. As historian David McCullough has said, the study of history has centered around politics and military events. Americans understand the historical significance of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball in 1947 or the athletic opportunities given to women by Title IX, passed by Congress in 1972. But other major athletic events and trends have influenced U.S. history as well and Americans, including historians, have failed to give them enough attention. Frank Shorter’s gold medal in the 1972 Olympic marathon was the beginning of a nationwide trend: The fitness and running boom of the ‘70s and ‘80s. However, in order to understand Shorter’s importance, it is essential to understand the context of the times and the social trends influencing sports. Before the fitness boom of the 1970s, exercise in America was a very different activity. Few people belonged to sports clubs. Only professional athletes trained beyond the “pain barrier.”2 Athletic products were bought to achieve a purpose, not just to follow the fashion trends. At different times in history, sports and fitness mean different things to people. At the turn of the 19th century, President Theodore Roosevelt challenged the United States. He urged Americans to take part in strenuous activity, as he did regularly. Roosevelt was a big game hunter and a boxer, went on long, brisk walks, and spoke frequently about the importance of the strenuous life. In a speech to the Hamilton Club in Chicago on April 10, 1899, Roosevelt said, “In the last analysis a healthy state can exist 2 The point at which you are in pain but continue to train through. only when the men and women who make it up lead clean, vigorous, healthy lives; when the children are so trained that they shall endeavor, not to shirk difficulties, but to overcome them; not to seek ease, but to know how to wrest triumph from toil and risk” (Bartelby). The intent of exercise, Roosevelt thought, was to benefit society by producing stronger, healthier individuals. He wanted to fight effeminacy and weakness in society. Roosevelt also thought that having strong people would lead to a stronger country. However, Roosevelt was not talking about fitness and exercise as we think of them, but rather an active and engaged life in the community. He was not talking about running or going to the gym, because few people actually exercised and for the next seven decades organized athletes were only available to school children and the rare adult. Roosevelt had, as historian Benjamin Rader wrote, “hoped to rejuvenate his own social class, which he believed had become too soft. Once physically strengthened, the citizens could provide capable national leadership” (Rader 403). By the 1970s, fitness was thought to benefit the individual. Rader writes, “the focus of the new strenuosity has been upon the self, upon the individual rather than upon society or the community” (403). Before the boom, long distance running was not popular and people struggled to see the point or the reason to put him or herself through the pain. But by the mid ‘80s, long distance running and fitness in general had grown immensely. A Gallup poll from the mid ‘70s found that 47 percent of all Americans said they participated in some kind of physical activity, according to a report in Sports Illustrated on Dec. 25, 1978. That number was more than double the percentage in 1961, wrote Kenny Moore, a Sports Illustrated writer and long distance runner who finished fourth in the 1972 Olympic Marathon in Munich. The first New York Marathon was held in 1970. Only 127 runners paid the $1 fee to run the 26.2-mile race. (In 2008, 40,000 people ran the race.) Within a few years after the New York Marathon’s founding, running’s popularity had taken off. Marathons were starting up around the country, and according to Rader, in 1986 more than one million Americans participated in a marathon. This raises the question, why did running become so popular? The reasons are many. Many “baby boomers,” the 78 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964, desired to maintain a young physical appearance. Demographically speaking, there were so many Baby Boomers that whatever a lot of them did became an American phenomenon. As Time magazine reported in a story on baby boomers running marathons in its October 9th 2007 issue, “Folks in the 40-plus group are pretty much taking over the sport, accounting for a surprising 43% of all marathoners in the U.S. in 2004--up from 26% in 1980. The maturing baby-boom generation partly explains that growth. There are simply more folks over 40 out there.” Historians and journalists suggest the boom was also fueled by new discoveries in medicine. Scientists found through research that someone’s lifestyle clearly has effects on health. This led to more people beginning to run. Kenneth Cooper, a doctor, did research on aerobics. In 1987, New York Times reporter Robert Reinhold wrote: Dr. Cooper probably did more than anybody else to set off the fitness craze when he published ''Aerobics'' in 1968. Written while he was an Air Force physician, the best seller promoted the ''training effect,'' which entails improving the body's ability to use oxygen through exercises such as running, swimming, cycling and walking. Dr. Cooper advanced the notion that a slim waistline and bulging biceps were not necessarily signs of fitness and good health. Rather, he argued, the key lay in a strong heart, lungs and blood vessels. (Reinhold) Another reason for the rising popularity of running was that the atmosphere shifted towards a more self-involved3 lifestyle than during the period of the social activism around the Vietnam War (1965-1973). Writing in Sports Illustrated, Kenny Moore said, “As the ‘me decade’4 provided a fine excuse to soak in hot tubs, strut in discos and vote for Proposition 13, running became for many an exhilarating self- indulgence. Vigorous sport has always called to us from our genes, from our childhoods, but not, until recently, from our culture. When it finally did, an explosion was inevitable” (Moore). For any historical movement, it is impossible to pick one single starting point. But when people look back on the running boom, Frank Shorter’s marathon victory in the 1972 Munich Olympics is often seen as the spark that lighted the fire.