When corporate giant VISA came on board, American 10-event prospects took a decided leap upward”
U.S. Decathlon Fortunes Soar
FOR THE FIRST TIME in two decades an American owns Olympic gold and the World Record in the decathlon. Nobody really doubts this was Dan O’Brien’s destiny.
But nobody argues either that O’Brien wasn’t helped along the way by a most innovative marriage of event development and corporate marketing, the USA/VISA Team Decathlon
The team has been the cornerstone of U.S. decathlon development since two frustrated former decathletes turned coaches, Harry Marra and Fred Samara, cold-called the giant credit card corporation on the advice of Mexico City decathlon champion Bill Toomey 8 years ago.
“I think the strongest aspect of the USA/VISA Decathlon Team was always that you knew there were people out there who cared about this event as much as you did,” O’Brien says. “You didn’t feel like you were training by yourself.” In seven years, the USA/VISA team has accomplished much. As the ‘80s came to a close, America’s history in the decathlon was proud and glorious — inscribed with gold medal names like Jim Thorpe, Bob Mathias, Milt Campbell, Rafer Johnson, Toomey and Bruce Jenner — but it was getting… well… too historical.
In the ‘80s American decathletes claimed just 4 of the 100 World Rankings spots available. There were no U.S. World Records, no medals.
Since ‘82, Samara had been the national coordinator of USATF’s decathlon development committee. He says, “We started to get some pretty good athletes, but we could never really pull it off. We were floundering.”
Looking for help, Samara and Marra, a regional development coordinator, knocked on many corporate doors, encountering “dead ends, just dead ends,” Samara recalls, until “we struck it rich with VISA [in 1989], through a contact Bill Toomey had for us — John Bennett.”
Bennett, a senior executive vice president and director of worldwide marketing for VISA, says he “saw an opportunity to give a little something back to the Olympic movement. It had been so positive an experience for us. Even the first time around [as an overall Olympic sponsor in ‘88], we saw in our tracking studies that we run continuously throughout the year that we had a lift during the Olympics. The connection of VISA and the Olympic rings made people feel better about VISA and stimulated business.”
Beginning the push to Sydney, VISA’s sponsorship may evolve, but the results of its 6-year sponsorship effort speak for themselves. From 1990 through ‘95, Americans claimed 15 of 60 World Rankings spots-a 25% share compared to the puny 4% share for the ‘80 — and held the No. 1 spot every year.
O’Brien, furthermore, won every world championship plus the Atlanta Olympics, and an American has won at least once in every major championships and invitational event except the famed annual Götzis decathlon, which falls too close to the USATF nationals.
Through mid-September of this year, 23 U.S. decathletes on 123 occasions have scored over 8000 points in the ‘90s. Twelve did so in ‘95. This year, 13 have hit that level. The total of 24 U.S. 8000+ deca performances this year compares marvelously with the typical single-digit tallies of the ‘80s.
Showing how much the U.S. decathlete pool has deepened, the team of Kip Janvrin, Drew Fucci, Darwin Vande Hoef, Brad Swanson and Chris Wilcox totaled 40,670 points at the annual VISA Cup team competition against Germany to break a 19-year-old 5-man record that Jenner and Samara contributed to.
“Success is a puzzle,” Samara says. “And we had all the pieces.” The temptation with the decathlon is to think in 10s, but you can break down success many ways. Consider five puzzle pieces that have shaped the USA/ VISA Decathlon Team:
MAKE IT A TEAM
From the start, Bennett, Marra and Samara envisioned a team. It was a model that worked for pro sports, and a model that VISA could get behind for marketing purposes.
From the credit card company’s perspective, Bennett says, “We were able to demonstrate to consumers that when we say, ‘Use your VISA card and we’ll make a contribution to the Olympics,’ we’re able to show what that contribution means. It puts a tangible benefit to that contribution so that people know that it’s not just going for the administration of a sport.
“The way that it’s special to us is that it has really created a family among these 10 guys, the coaches. Everybody feels very together about this.
“I was just talking to Dave Johnson. He said in Atlanta, it took a little effort of will to go down there and sit behind the javelin runup. Dan saw him and came over and asked him before his last throw which jav he should use. Dave gave him some advice, Dan threw it and did a PR. That’s the kind of thing that we accidentally created.”
Olympian Huffins agrees, “It’s a lot easier to compete knowing that there are other people — whom you may or may not like — who are close to you competing for that same thing. We come together twice a year. You couldn’t get 10 sprinters in the same room, and we get 25 guys together twice a year.”
To enhance the team feel and its effectiveness, Samara points out, “We tried to involve as many coaches as possible.” And the list is long, including Irv Mondschein, Bill Webb, Cliff Rovelto, Ed Miller, Rick Sloan, Mike Keller, Mike Maynard, Robert Baker, Glen Sefcik, Ken Shannon and Sam Adams, to name a few.
In the health care realm, Dr. Jim Reardon has worked as team sports psychologist and Dr. Gary Fanton and his SOAR medical group have provided orthopedic services. Health care provider HealthSouth opened the doors of its clinics nationwide to any VISA team member requiring medical attention.
And VISA’s financial clout allowed Samara and Marra to direct resources as needed with Bennett’s approval.
“When I sat down with John at our monthly breakfast meetings,” Marra says, “I almost felt like an NFL coach, sitting down with the owner and saying, ‘You know, we’re doing really well but I’d really like this.’”
EMPHASIZE ATHLETES
Athletes qualify for the 10-man team and to receive direct monthly stipends from VISA at the USATF Nationals every year. Neither decathlon team members nor VISA like to bandy about the size of stipend checks, which by all accounts help pay the rent and put a little food on the table.
Bennett once acknowledged the six-figure annual cost of the entire program was a relative drop in the bucket in his marketing budget, comparable to the toll for 30 seconds of television commercial airtime. But for the athletes it was vital. And Marra points out that Bennett generously allowed athletes to seek out and benefit from personal sponsorships with other companies besides his own.
Bennett meanwhile made himself an integral part of the team, attending its annual camps and its meets with his wife, Anne. After 7 years, he felt the pride of a parent on graduation day during the Atlanta Olympic deca. And beyond pride, anxiety — particularly as he watched O’Brien run the 1500.
“Bill Toomey just kept looking over his shoulder and smiling and nodding and saying, ‘He’s OK, he’s OK, he’s OK,’“
Bennett says, “At the same time we were trying to sense how Steve [Fritz] was doing in his battle because the silver and bronze were right there. It was exciting, it was satisfying, it was terrifying.”
REWARD COMPETITION
Each year, 10 athletes have earned membership on the VISA team by placing in the top 10 at the USATF Championships.
Marra terms the self-selection process a double-whammy: “One, we help USA Track & Field by making sure the top guys are there every year at the nationals. Two, we really help ourselves. How? Because we make the national championships each year that much more of a high-pressure meet because there’s dollars on the line… And what does that pressure do? It prepares the guys for the Olympic Trials, which is the biggest high-pressure meet in the world.”
COME TOGETHER
Two times a year since 1990, the USA/VISA Decathlon Team has converged for development camps. Not just camps, but what Marra terms “grandiose” training camps of the sort that brought America’s living decathlon gold medalists on board in ‘90.
The most recent camp innovation has been to let the athletes stick to their own training routines during the gatherings while coaches with expertise in each event area stand by on the field for consultation.
LOOK FORWARD & BACKWARD
At the VISA camps, decathletes receive sport science education, blood analyses of nutrient levels, advice on technical innovations, personalized discussion of training plans and psychological consultation. At competitions, they get dedicated medical attention, including the initially controversial administration of intravenous fluids. In other words, cutting-edge stuff.
Looking forward in another way, the coaches decided a few years ago, “We’d like to bring in emerging guys.” Bennett liked the idea, and at the next camp included 40 young sub-elite decathletes, all expenses paid.
An initiative now in the works is “The Great American Decathlete Search,” which will use magazine ads to recruit high school and prep prospects. Based on answers to a questionnaire, promising applicants will be invited to a physical and psychological assessment camp. Marra predicts the next Dan O’Brien will be discovered and says, “We’ll take the next Chris Huffins and Steve Fritz, too.”
The USA/VISA team reaped value from the past, also, by tapping the past gold medalists as well as former decathletes like Jeff Bennett, Fred Dixon and Russ Hodge who closely approached the medal stand but missed it.
“Guys like Toomey and Rafer Johnson felt, ‘This is great. I have a wealth of knowledge on the decathlon but nobody’s asked me about it,’“ recalls Marra.
“I said, ‘We’re asking about it. You get down there and you tell these guys what it’s like to run a 45-second quarter, what kind of training you have to do. And Rafer, how tough you had to be to hang on to C.K. Yang when you weren’t the best 1500 guy.’“
Even O’Brien acknowledges the help of his gold medal predecessors. “They gave me instant role models right there,” he says.
“… As soon as I started scoring well, I thought, ‘Hey, I can hang with these guys here.’ It’s really neat. That meant a lot to me. It still does — I wanted what they had. Now I want what Bob Mathias has, and that’s two golds.”
