Underwear executive to help raise money for USATF
A USATF press release tells us: “Raphael Peck, the Vice President of Product Creation for Under Armour, has been named as a Director of the USA Track & Field Foundation Board, USATF Foundation Executive Director Tom Jackovic announced on Tuesday.” Great! A guy who markets sports bras will help support track in America. But I wouldn’t hold my breath (like a girl in a girdle) for masters T&F to see any of this loot. How much has the foundation steered our way since its founding in 2002? Right. Zippo. Zilch. Maybe Raphael can turn this around. We can only hope.
9 Responses
Under Armour is the hottest thing in spandex since spandex was invented. I don’t consider them a sports bra company, they only sell those as an afterthough. They are single handedly responsible for making it cool to wear spandex everything under your gear.
Whether or not masters ever sees any of this money is another issue, but having Under Armour on the side of Track and Field can only be a positive thing. Maybe they will start sponsoring athletes. That would be cool.
I don’t believe Under Amour makes sports bra’s, but is the hottest new company in the team sales (apparel and footwear) market. They have been very agressive in going after the football market by promoting heavily in the NFL and NCAA. They have also expanded into other sports such as baseball, soccer and tennis. At the recent tennis US Open many players were sporting Under Armour performance tops. I’m sure track and field is one of the areas they will also aggressively pursue. But unfortunately, you’re probably correct that Master’s T&F will see little or no support from the foundation.
I love competing in Master’s track and field, but the cold hard fact is that the number of participants is so small when compared to other age group sports, that we can’t attract national or regional support from companies that might sponsor us, or even getting help from our National governing body. In Massachusetts where I live, we get about 300 competitors to the NE Regional Master’s meet, while 20+ weeks a year there are over 3,000 master’s age soccer players active in the MASS Over the Hill League. I wish we had similar participation numbers in T&F but the demands of training properly for running/jumping/throwing are more than most people are willing to handle.
The key to tax money and sponsor money is to “do it for the children”. Every soccer field I play on was built for youth or school soccer and demanded and paid for by me and my teammates, their parents.
The same goes for tracks and, occasionally, fields.
Supporting youth and college athletics is what supports master’s athletics.
I have to agree with Becca and then some.
NIKE, adidas, and others will have to contend with Under Armour, probably sooner rather than later, and I’m sure they are already watching.
Under Armour is much more than a sports bra company, and I’m not sure calling this new director an underwear executive will help Masters Track & Field. I wear one of their sleeveless Ts as a singlet to race on the track, it is so light and comfortable. Indeed, if I saw the original post here, and I was Raphael Peck, I’d say more money for the youth.
I agree we need a sponsor, but perhaps a little research of what this company does before posting something like this would be prudent. Or, is this an east coast versus west coast attitude thing? (Under Armour is based in Baltimore).
Finally, Under Armour was one of the most successful IPOs last year, and its stock moves quite rapidly, both up and down. It is quite high profile in the market, lots of information is available on them.
Yup, sports bras is big item on UnderArmour’s Web site. See:
http://www.underarmour.com/ProductFullLine.cfm?site_id=2&dept_id=7&coll_id=206
But I certainly didn’t mean to slur the company. Also, keep in mind that USATF brings on partners every year that end up bolting after a couple of seasons.
Hope Raphael is good for the duration — as is his company.
Many of the track team kids I coach at an urban high school also play football. For football, UnderArmour is the only thing they want under their uniforms. During the cool weather beginning of the outdoor track season, they all want UnderArmour under their singlets. Since they don’t have speedsuits, they all wear UnderArmour compression shorts under their track shorts. I’d say UnderArmour and USATF is a great match and I’d be careful about cracking wise about the underwear exec. because UnderArmour is definately a hot property amongst the urban youth in my neck of the woods.
You got that Ken???? !!!!!!! NO more jokes about such sacred subjects as POSSIBLE help for Masters track and field..I hope you did not make us lose the $100,000 check thats “in the mail”.
If Masters track & field received a $1 million check in the mail, what would they spend it on?
Cool, there is actually some worthwhile points on here some of my subscribers will find this worthwhile, I must send them a link, thanks.
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