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VOICES ON TRACK
In Conversation with

Carrie Tollefson

INTERVIEW BY RUSSELL DINKINS
ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREW THOMSON

Carrie Tollefson is a 2004 Olympian and three time US national champion. Hailing from Minnesota, Tollefson found success from prep to the pros, as she was a 13-time state champion and 5x NCAA champion while at Villanova. In recent years, Tollefson has served as a commentator for professional track meets and marathons including Boston and New York City and the marathon at the 2024 US Trials. She will also be providing commentary for the 2024 Summer Games.

In this conversation, Russell Dinkins, the Executive Director of the Tracksmith Foundation, engages Tollefson on a range of topics, from the state of youth track in the US to what we can do as a track community to better the sport.

Russell Dinkins

We are asking some prominent people in the track and field space what their thoughts are on different aspects of the sport, particularly as it pertains to the youth side, but you're not necessarily bound to that. 

So my first question is kind of a broad one. In focusing on the youth side of the sport, from your point of view, particularly as a parent, what are some of the things that are holding the sport back potentially at a youth level? 

Carrie Tollefson

Well, that is a loaded question, because I am old school. You know, it's been a long time since I started this sport. I started when I was 13 years old and I'm 47.

The sport’s changing, and I think for the good, but I also think there are things that we did back in the day that athletes and kids don't do now. For instance, I have a daughter who just turned 14. She’s not doing two-a-days, but people talk about doing two-a-days and training and… “How many miles a week are you running?”. I just had this conversation today on a run where I noted that as a kid I played all the sports, and while running was my main thing, when we came home at night, we put running away and we would go outside and play night games. 

We didn't do a second run, we would do night games, or we would go ice skating or we would do something different than training but we probably were training in a sense, even if we didn't know we were. The sport’s changed… I think that kids today have more access to seeing what the pros and collegiate athletes do and are replicating some of it, which I think can be a little detrimental to the kids that are running, especially distance and that's what I know – distance. 

There’s so much more information out there, so much more specific training you can do, but at the same time, I think what we all did back in the day worked as well and that was just being a kid; but a very active kid. And I see even in my children, they are active but we could certainly be more active. I wish they would be outside playing two, three hours a night like we did.

Russell Dinkins

That’s a great observation and touches on some issues that I'm sure you're aware of: sports specialization at the youth level and the entire professionalized youth sport ecosystem. Both of those things work in tandem to create this situation where you have kids who, instead of playing night games, as you said, are being shuttled to specialized training facilities.

From your purview, as someone in the media and also someone who's a parent, how do you think youth track and field is a little different than some of the other youth sports with regard to this professionalized, sport specialization model that other sports seem to be following.

Do you see track and field trying to move more in the direction of youth soccer, lacrosse, and other youth sports or do you see track still maintaining some of its grassroots origins and ethos?

Carrie Tollefson

I see that the sport is progressing like every other sport. We have how many national championships now in high school?... You can see the top notch kids racing all over the country every weekend, maybe even twice a year. They could be in Seattle on a Wednesday and then back out east on a Saturday. 

I mean, it’s really cool that they have these opportunities. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I just think that we have to be careful. You can look at a sport like gymnastics or swimming where they start very young, but don't maybe go as long as runners and so for me, as a lifelong runner, I've held my daughter back probably more so than a lot of the parents do, even compared to other athletes on her team… Because of how I did it, I want to replicate my experience for my daughter, and let her be a kid and let her grow into the sport and not be so specialized. 

But at the same time, I sometimes wonder if I'm holding her back in a way that she isn't going to progress like everyone else. And it's ironic; I talk to a lot of athletes that are now maybe done with their professional careers or they've moved on and now they are parenting and so many of those athletes hoped to be parents like their parents. Their parents didn't raise an Olympian to be an Olympian. They just loved on them and supported them. They got them to the places they needed to be, and their kids were still kids. So I'm just more on the side of nurturing while also not pushing and not being too accommodating to fly them all over the world. 

And obviously, it's hard for me because you want to speak out of both sides of your mouth, right? Because there are kids that are excelling and doing really great things… But there's also kids that get burnt out and, in a sport like ours, don't want to continue on doing this forever. I really hope that my family at least, and the kids that I know, see the value in being a lifelong runner. I don't want to push too hard too early.

Russell Dinkins

So slightly controversial, but part of the reason why track and field has the highest participation rate of all high school sports in the US is because the sport as a whole, and in a bit at the collegiate level as well, functions as more of a participatory sport, as opposed to other sports that may have cuts or more limited access. 

With track and field, I recall my own experience in high school. I was taking the sport seriously, running hard; I was committed to it. But there were other kids on the team who would come to track practice and would lounge on the grass.

Do you think the participatory view of the sport and the sport’s broad access at the youth and perhaps even at the college level, serves as a detriment to the sport or do you think the sport’s openness and the ability for anybody to come and participate is one of the sport’s strengths?

Carrie Tollefson

I think being an individual is vulnerable.

In this sport, they're out there throwing by themselves, they're out there jumping by themselves, and while in a race you’re running with people, you’re on the track where everyone can see exactly how you're doing. 

I really love that our sport is willing to get the most out of an individual, and partly I think it's our coaches. I would say that the majority, not all, but the majority of our coaches see the good in everybody and see the power in a PR… There is something really cool about seeing an individual succeed. So I really hope that we don't get to the level where we're cutting people just because they aren't good at something. I mean, as I said, this sport teaches us all, whether we're good or not, about who we are. And I think that makes us very lucky. 

And sometimes I think we should change the narrative that our sport is just letting everybody in. No, we are letting every individual in to see how good they could be at something and we have a lot of events available for them to figure it out…

Russell Dinkins

If you had a magic wand and there were only two or three things that you could either change or enhance the sport to put it in a more favorable position moving forward, this could be at the youth level, at the college level, or at the pro level, what would those things be?

Carrie Tollefson

That's a good one. I always think of the pro level first, because I think that's where most of my work is. I feel for those athletes that, for lack of a better term, are the B squad kids that have the talent to make the A squad. There’s a lot of money up front, but there's not so much in the middle there.

I feel like there's got to be a way to keep some of these athletes in the middle a bit more. The prize money drops off so fast. And most of the people that are upfront get the big appearance fees, they make the big bucks up front while the money for places 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 always drop off so fast. Those are the athletes who are trying really hard to make it and to have those big breakthroughs. 

I think the collegiates are crushing it right now with NILs and everything that they got going on there. I think there's a lot of upside with that. 

At the high school level, I'm loving the fact that we are having way more awareness on mental health and body awareness and making sure we're preventing injuries. We didn’t quite have the kinds of support in these areas that the kids have now when we were growing up. There was some of it but there weren't a lot of trainers or counselors involved with the things that we dealt with. As athletes we dealt with the same stuff as the kids are dealing with now, it's just that we sort of either brushed it under the rug, we brought it to our parents, or we simply did the best with what we had. 

So I think our sport is definitely doing better. But I always think there's more that we can do. One big thing is we need more female coaches. There's a big push in our sport, and all sports, for more female coaches and it's nice to see that that’s happening but I think that if we can find a little bit more of that balance in life with that job specifically, we would be able to find more female coaches at the collegiate level. It’s hard to raise a family with young kids while balancing the demands of being a collegiate coach: you don’t want to miss out on everything.

Russell Dinkins

There are really strenuous demands that are on college track coaches in that you are tasked with coaching two or sometimes three seasons. You're always on whereas other college sports don't have those demands; they have one season of play, and then they're able to have a down period. They're still recruiting and training their athletes, but they don’t have the same requirements of traveling to meets every weekend, all year long.

In general, I believe the sport has been doing a great job of providing many with the opportunity to participate. The question lies in how we as a community can enhance the experience for all: athletes, coaches, parents, and the general public. If we can make track easier for people to enjoy as fans of the sport and as participants, if we can make the demands easier for coaches, if we can make it less time-intensive for parents, I believe our sport would be made all the better.

Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

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