Stereotypes In Track And Field

“Success isn’t given. It is earned. On the track, on the field, in the gym. With blood, sweat, and the occasional tear”. Track and Field is one of the oldest sports invented. Track involved athletes competing in numerous events against one another to see who’s the best. With track and field comes misconceptions of the sport, which leads to people making stereotypes for the track athletes. A stereotype is a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. A misconception is a view or opinion that is incorrect because it is based on faulty thinking or understanding. Many people have misconceptions of track and field, because many don’t see it as a sport, or believe it is just running. Once someone brings up

track and field, people only hear the word track, so they assume it’s mainly running and say out loud, “That’s too much running”. Sure running is involved, but one can’t just say running is all there is too it if they never even tried out the sport themselves because they don’t even know the many other events are in track and field.

With all these misconceptions and stereotypes towards the track athletes it can be hurtful at times for them because they’re being told blind assumptions which can lead to anger. Though some of the track athletes fit the different stereotypes, they shouldn’t be given these labels for doing what they love because they work and train hard everyday all for the passion of the sport track and field.

Track and field-style events are among the oldest of all sporting competitions, as running, jumping and throwing are natural and universal forms of human physical expression. The first recorded examples of organized track and field events at a sports festival are the Ancient Olympic Games. At the first Games in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, and only one event was contested which was the stadion footrace. We have track athletes to distinguish who is the best athlete for the event in which they are competing in and the athletes can be distinguished from high school, college, and even countries. All tracks athletes come in different shape and sizes, but one thing they

all share is there stereotypes about them. “Wearing sweats or workout gear like they are ‘normal’ clothes”. (1) The following quote says that one can be labeled a track athlete based on what they wear. A misconception for track athletes is that they have to be fast. One doesn’t have to be fast to compete in track, because all they need is the heart to run. One well known stereotype for the sprinters in track and field is that they’re conceited. Some track athletes can fit the stereotype, but that doesn’t go for the rest. When people go to a track meet and get a look at the athletes there, many see how the athletes are confident in themselves and to the people sitting on the bleachers watching those athletes, and just see them as conceited athletes. To be conceited means to have excessive pride in oneself and confidence is a feeling or belief that one can succeed at something. There’s a difference between the two words and calling someone conceited means that one person is highly confident in themselves and can achieve anything. Though some athletes can be this way, it doesn’t apply to all track athletes because deep down many of the athletes are nervous and fear for the worst. I know this myself because I’ve been doing track and field for three years and before my event starts, I get a chance to talk to my competitors and every time do, at least 2 of them will say that they’re nervous or say “I don’t even like this race, why am I here,” as a joke to show they’re a bit afraid. With my experience in track and field, I know that not all athletes go into races full of confidence because sometimes we feel pressure with everybody watching us. The stereotype for track athletes being conceited is a blind assumption and the reason people see them that way is because they can’t tell the difference between conceited and confidence.
Adding on to the different stereotypes seen in track athletes is that they are very skinny and weak. This stereotype applies to the distance athlete runners of track and field. Yes many of the distance runners of track are skinny, but one doesn’t have to be skinny to be a distance runner. I got the chance to interview Jose Vasquez, a member from the Madera High track team and I asked him, how do you feel when you hear that distance runners are skinny and weak and he replied with, “When I that all distance runners are skinny and weak, I feel that people just assume, take me for example, I’m not skinny and I run distance and endure the same pain they do. Distance runners aren’t weak because they’re strong physically and mentally, which makes us stronger”. Jose’s quote states that anyone can become a distance runner for track, and all it takes is heart and dedication. Sure it will be tough in the beginning, but practice is key to achieving your goals. “Skinny that their bones are showing. Love running. Run everywhere and all the time”. (3) This quote states that the distance track athletes are so skinny that one can see their bones and just love to run.. The most exaggerated misconception for distance runners is that they run too much. When people say that distance track athletes do too much running many people many have second thoughts on joining track and field. Most of the people that say this misconception most likely don’t even know what practice is like for the athletes. Due to this misconcep, it gives track and field a bad rep. It makes others who were once interested in track and field just drop and find another sport to try out instead. As a result, the stereotype that all distance track athletes are skinny and weak is wrong and doesn’t apply to every athlete, so the stereotype should just be dropped.
Track-and-field athletics in the United States dates from the 1860s. As track and field developed as a modern sport, a major issue for all athletes was their status as amateurs. For many years track and field was considered a purely amateur sport and athletes could not accept training money or cash prizes. One misconception about track athletes is that some believe close enough is good enough. Training requires precision. For example, the difference between a good aerobic capacity workout and a non-productive one can be a few heartbeats and seconds. In order for adaptation to occur, the body has to have a new stress level placed on it. This means breaking new ground. If you apply the same level of stress, or less, you will not get faster. The nearer you are to your goal race, and as workout intensity goes up, the more important this becomes. Athletes are often surprised when I tell them their workout did not accomplish much because they were slightly below or even above where they should have been. They may have worked hard and were very fatigued, but did not have that last little push that to take them to the next level. Adding on to stereotypes for track athletes, this one applies to the throwers, which is all the throwers are fat and lazy. This is a huge assumption because even though an athlete is fat, that doesn’t make them automatically lazy. Not all throwers are fat too, for example Al Oerter a discus thrower in the olympics, was a very skinny person and because of this many of his competition saw him as weak and not built for this event. Al ended up winning a total of 4 gold medals in the olympics and holding the world record during his time. This proves that not all track throwers are fat, because Oerter made it to the olympics and won with his skinny physique. I know for a fact that not all track throwers are all fat and skinny, because doing 3 years of track and field like myself, I saw many different throwers from the other schools when I had meets and noticed how many of them were skinny and muscular. This stereotype is just an assumption because people are just giving the athletes a label based on what they do and how they look, which is wrong because one cannot judge a book by its cover. On January 30 , 1878, rower and runner William B. Curtis founded what became the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) in New York City. The name was formally adopted in 1887. The AAU governed the sport of track & field until 1979, when the first Amateur Sports Act decreed that the AAU could no longer hold international franchises for more than one sport. The Athletics Congress/USA (TAC/USA) became fully operational in late 1979 with its first annual meeting, conducted in Las Vegas in conjunction with that year's AAU Convention and a constitutional convention held in Dallas/Fort Worth in 1980. The first stand-alone annual meeting occurred in Atlanta, Georgia, in late fall of 1980. In 1992, the name was changed to USA Track & Field (USATF) to increase recognition for the organization and the sport in the United States. Track and Field is one of the oldest sports invented. Track and field-style events are among the oldest of all sporting competitions, as running, jumping and throwing are natural and universal forms of human physical expression. The first recorded examples of organized track and field events at a sports festival are the Ancient Olympic Games. At the first Games in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, and only one event was contested which was the stadion footrace. We have track athletes to distinguish who is the best athlete for the event in which they are competing in and the athletes can be distinguished from high school, college, and even countries.
Though some of the track athletes fit the different stereotypes, they shouldn’t be given these labels for doing what they love because they work and train hard everyday all for the passion of the sport track and field. Track involves athletes competing in numerous events against one another to see who’s the best. With track and field comes misconceptions of the sport, which leads to people making stereotypes for the track athletes. A stereotype is a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. A misconception is a view or opinion that is incorrect because it is based on faulty thinking or understanding. Many people have many misconceptions of track and field, because many don’t see it as a sport, or believe it is just running. Once someone brings up track and field, people only hear the word track, so they assume it’s mainly running and say out loud, “That’s too much running”. Sure running is involved, but one can’t just say running is all there is too it if they never even tried out the sport themselves because they don’t even know the many other events are in track and field. With all these misconceptions and stereotypes towards the track athletes it can be hurtful at times for them because they’re being told blind assumptions which can lead to anger. In the end people should ask about track and field to how it’s like and what are the athletes are like, so they can be told the truth instead of having a misunderstand of it. Also the track athletes shouldn’t be identified based on the events they participate in or by how they look because it makes them have second thoughts about the sport and ask themselves do people really see me this. In the end people should stop with the stereotypes they have given to the athletes and not make them feel down about themselves, so they should let the athletes continue doing what they enjoy and be happy for what they can make out of it for them in their futures.