EUGENE, Oregon — Greg Cleary ran track in college at San Jose State. Wife Karmela is happy to accompany Greg to meets. They both think it’s great stuff.
Sons Anthony, 16, and Marco, 14? Not so much. There were 272 NFL games in the 2021 season. Marco watched 230. How many track meets did Marco watch? Zero.
For their summer vacation, Greg and Karmela decided it would be a great idea to bring the boys, and their 3-year-old dog, Justice, a black-and-white Mi-Ki, to Eugene, for the full run of the 2022 world track and field championships. As the meet wraps up Sunday, this one family’s story underscores the many challenges inherent in the key goal of these championships: trying to grow the sport — with an eye toward the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics — in and around the 50 states.
From left: Anthony, Karmela, Marco and Greg Cleary // photo courtesy Karmela Cleary
Track and field already has a base of support. That support, however, skews older. See Greg, 63, and Karmela, 48. He’s now a financial advisor; she’s an operations manager for a big tech company. Meeting up at Oregon22 with legends like John Carlos, who also went to San Jose State? Getting to sit in the stands with an Olympic bronze medalist (1984 Games men’s 200 meters bronze medalist Thomas Jefferson) on one side and a Baylor track coach on the other? Wow. For them, a big wow.
What the sport needs — what every Olympic sport needs but particularly track and field, the anchor sport of the Games — is young people. It needs, and desperately, Anthony and Marco, who also of course are into video games (Marco) and, it being summer, sleeping late (Anthony). In a month or so, Anthony will be a junior at Redwood High School, north of San Francisco; Marco will be a freshman.
After being here for nearly two weeks, Anthony’s verdict: “It’s not as fun as a big sporting event, like a Giants game,” meaning a San Francisco Giants baseball game.
Marco, asked what he would tell his friends: “I mean, it’s fun and all but,” and here he meant the action at the meet itself, “it’s too much time in between everything. It’s too long.”
Track and field is far and away the No. 1 participation sport for boys and girls in the United States. But sparking interest in those young people in track and field — the same high-octane interest they have in the NFL, NBA and other pro sports — remains the riddle.
Anthony Cleary would fit the profile to a T, for track. He even runs track for his high school team. He has been formally timed in the 100 meters at 11.69 seconds and informally hand-timed at 11.3.
Watching Fred Kerley lead a U.S. sweep of the 100? Cool. Noah Lyles run 19.31 to lead an American sweep of the 200? Also, cool.
The rest? “The stuff before that, leading up to it, I wasn’t into it,” he said.
A football game lasts three-plus hours. There’s tons of time between plays. Even so?
“I feel like some of the events are boring,” Anthony said about the track meet. “The 10k? I can’t stay interested in one race for that long,” the men’s final here just over 27 minutes, the women’s a few ticks over 30.
And overall? “It was a little better than I thought it would be,” Anthony said, “but I would rather still be at home with my friends.”
In 2019, the Prefontaine Classic — the leading one-day meet in the United States, typically held in Eugene — moved to Stanford because Hayward Field was being redone. Let’s say the Pre meet was moved again to Stanford. Would you, Marco, be interested in going?
“Probably not.”
To be clear: the brothers were interviewed separately so one’s answers would not affect the other.
When Sydney McLaughlin ran an otherworldly 50.68 seconds Friday night, a new world record in the women’s 400 hurdles, the Clearys only had two tickets. Greg and Karmela were in the stands. They were thrilled.
As a sign of how difficult it is for track to break through in the United States, that race — which for those who understand the sport immediately became one of the signature moments of the 21st century — was but No. 10 on ESPN’s top-10 “plays of the day.”
A caveat about the paragraph that follows this one. The top-10 is largely a promotional vehicle for ESPN and the events for which it holds broadcast rights; thus, nothing that would build content equity for a competitor (read: NBC) that holds Olympic rights is likely to rank high. All the same, what McLaughlin did is not only outrageous but historic. Yet — nine, ahead of 50.68?
A Canadian Football League catch; a UFC knockout; a long chip shot at the PGA 3M Open; a block in something called TBT basketball; a long pass in a WNBA game when the score of that game was 6-2 in the first quarter; a warning-track catch in a minor-league baseball game; a nicely turned 4-3 groundout play in a Cubs-Phillies game; a diving catch for an out by an Astros shortstop against the Mariners; and, finally, another minor-league outfield catch.
To recap: one football, one UFC, one golf, two basketball, four baseball.
Ahead of one of the most incredible runs of all time.
“I have seen the replays, and it looked pretty awesome,” Anthony said.
Did he think any of his friends were watching McLaughlin or, for that matter, any of this meet? “Maybe one or two.”
Over the length of these world championships, the competition on television has been significant if not ferocious: golf’s British Open, baseball’s All-Star Game, the ESPY awards and more. Now NFL training camps are getting underway. In the Bay Area, there’s a big drama revolving around the San Francisco 49ers’ uncertain quarterback situation. The Niners, a team that traded up to No. 3 in the 2021 draft to take Trey Lance, have very publicly been trying to trade Jimmy Garoppolo.
Referring to that drama and his friends, and emphasis on the first word here, Anthony said, “All of them are paying attention to that stuff.”
Marco, too.
If he was “probably not” interested in Pre tickets, what about nosebleed seats at Levi’s Stadium to a Niners game? 100 percent yes.
“Watching football! It’s my favorite sport to watch. I love to watch every single one of the games.”