Why can't we all be friends?

Athlete - association relationships

One of the notable features of the recent ructions within the athletics community has been the exposure of the fraught and brittle relationships between athletes and the national body.  Percy thought he’d have a quick look at this and offer some thoughts.

The federal structure of athletics and it’s consequences

Athletics is organised in a federal structure with state bodies affiliated to AA.  The vast majority of athletics in Australia is organised at a state level or below.  State bodies are small and in regular contact with their members.  Adam Bishop, Athletics SA’s CEO ran a 32 min 10km recently and Nick Honey, Athletics Vic’s CEO could be spotted behind one of the video cameras at the Big V 10.  State bodies manage myriad events and this unceasing contact with athletes, coaches and officials at the grassroots level fundamentally informs how they view the sport.

State bodies can suffer when the focus on concrete organisational success at a competition level can lead to the neglect of strategic issues and concerns.  This is especially true when the budget is tight and staff time is limited.

AA, as the peak body, has contact with athletes as they progress from state level competition to national and international competition.  Of its nature, this can be sporadic.  Athletes may slip in and out of national level competition and international teams.   There are relative few opportunities to build relationships with athletes.  AA is often seen in adversarial terms as athletes vie for selection on national teams and this may provoke a defensive response in return.  The distance to athletes is a long standing structural problem for AA.

Building and maintaining athlete relationships has not been a forte of the current HPM.

Rob Fildes’ bold declaration that Australia would aim to win six medals in London and Hollingsworth’s laserlike focus on the athletes who could deliver these medals seems to have exacerbated these problems. Tamsyn Manou is one of the highest profile athletes in Australia and her relationship with AA formed the basis of lengthy blog post that provoked much discussion.

She’s the National Champion, Trials winner and has the IAAF B standard, but the current nomination philosophy and six medal focus has put her on the outside.  She’s been Australia’s best 800m runner for more than a decade and yet her relationship isn’t a positive or fruitful one.  Percy isn’t suggesting Dallas and Tamsyn should be meeting up for coffee on St Kilda Rd all the time.  Nonetheless building and maintaining elite athlete relationships is strategically important for AA and a review of the last month (LaCaze, Tamsyn, 4X400m selection) suggests that this isn’t one of AA’s current strengths.

Damage done by poor relationships

Athletes are a diverse and quirky bunch: compare John Steffensen’s ‘In John we Trust’ to the almost Trappist attitude of Dani Samuels, Benn Harradine’s #popflipsthebird to Ryan Gregson’s outre wooing of Gen LaCaze on twitter. Those in and aspiring to be part of the Flame are the public face of our sport and the ideal that young athletes model themselves on.  A failure to maintain good relations with our primary public and media assets hurts the promotion of the sport.  Percy isn’t suggesting athletes need to be pampered.  Yet every time an athlete is griping to the press it is a opportunity wasted to promote the sport.  In a sporting media environment dominated by the football codes this is waste athletics cannot afford.  

The perceived lack of support and disfunction damages the sport's ability to retain the next generation.  The lack of support and the question marks surrounding team selection and nomination philosophy make the choice to pursue athletics significantly less attractive.  This damage is slow to reveal itself and cannot be undone overnight.

On their own this would be sufficient to warrant a renewed focus on maintaing good relationships with athletes but they are secondary to what should be a primary focus of the sport and it’s administrators:  “Athletics is about athletes.” Tim McGrath’s headline encapsulates an existential truth of our sport.  Athletics is about going faster, higher and further and we should be working to give athletes at all levels of the sport every opportunity to achieve these goals.  A decision that curtails the chances for athletes to compete at the Olympics, the pinnacle of our sport, pushes against this philosophy and should only be considered if the benefits are clear, demonstrable and outweigh the possible damage, and after broad discussion amongst the athletic community.  Percy hasn't seen many benefits.  Such a step changes the nature of the athlete-association relationship and the significance of the change should not be underestimated.  lf the association cannot be relied on to chose an outcome that benefits an athlete over a neutral outcome, then distrust is inevitable. 

As an aside the contrast between AA and the USATF nomination policy  ‘The philosophy of USATF is to send the maximum number of athletes allowed by IAAF rules. The maximum team size is 141 athletes.’ couldn’t be greater.

Solutions

The telos of the sport is quite simple: ‘faster, higher, further’.  We should adopt an ethos of the sport should focus on allowing all athletes to pursue their personal goals.  We should be wary of a utilitarian philosophy that would achieve larger goals through the detriment of some individuals. Percy thinks that this is a a false choice.  For example the size of our Olympic team will make little difference to whether Sally Pearson wins gold.  She’ll win gold if the Flame has 10, 54 or 100 members.  Let’s support everyone, not just a few.

A renewed focus on building relationships is important and it can range across all facets of athletes lives.  As an example social media is exploding and there are opportunities and pitfalls for elite and emerging athletes, which AA could help them embrace and avoid as necessary.  

I’ll leave the final word to Sam Culbert.

When working at AA in the 90s, the CEO had ATHLETE written on the back of his office door to ensure correct focus when making hard decisions