We’ll Be Right Back After This Message

For the first time in our 20 year history, we broadcasted the entire World Challenge XX competition via Livestream. Well, that’s not quite accurate. For the past two years we ran a stationary camera and a chat line.

Thanks to the contributions of Lion, this year we invested a lot of resources to bring you a live show that was worthy of Primetime. With two fixed cameras, two tethered shooters and a jib, all directed by 8-time Emmy winner Rick Lewis, the show had the look and feel of an ESPN production. Matter of fact this is very similar to the show that we produced for one of our ESPN telecasts using a production truck.

The numbers of viewers were impressive. We had a total of 757,337 total viewer minutes- that’s thirty times last year’s total. There were 42,371 US streams; 11,461 in Canada, Germany: 5,601; Slovenia 2,812; France 624 and New Zealand 507.

Right now, you can go to http://www.livestream.com/firefightercombatchallenge to view archival footage. All of the broadcast has been backed up on a 2TB hard drive and we’ll begin the process of editing the segments into clips for uploading on YouTube as well as some special features such as “Bloopers of the Challenge” and a highlight reel.

This is tedious work and will take some time, but hey- we’ve got five plus months before the season starts anew.

The really good news is the numbers of subscribers. We had viewers from around the world. The compliments that we’ve received warm the cockles of my heart and inspire us to add even more content and features next year. The Air Force Academy, Elgin and Warren produced vignettes on their teams and we encourage more of these kinds of features for next year’s show.

Maria Prekeges who is a familiar face on a number of ESPN shows conducted nearly 50 interviews. We’re going to make some changes to the placement of our loud speakers so that you’ll be able to hear her better. We’d like to hear from you- about anything you liked, didn’t like or wanted to see. This is the time that we start planning for next season.

I can guarantee you that there will be commercials; that’s how free TV works. This grand experiment had some significant costs; but now that we’ve proved the worth, as they say, “well be right back after this message.”

Count Down to WCXX

The purpose of this BlogSpot is to get out in front of the questions that typically arise before, during and after the World Challenge. If this is your first World Challenge event, congratulations! If you’re returning, welcome back. After last year’s highly successful competition, we’re following our format for last year. The Wildcard Eliminations start without fanfare at 9AM (0900 EST), Monday through Thursday, November 14-17.

The Venue: Broadway at the Beach
All of the activity will take place on the parking lot at Broadway at the Beach. The landmark is the Hard Rock Cafe. We have rotated the orientation of the tower by 180°. This will provide even sunlight and reduce shadows. The Keiser Force Machines now have heated trays, thereby eliminating any differences in the coefficient of friction caused by temperature. This system has been in use for the season and has expunged complaints about red versus blue side differences. There is ample room for “camping out” with your pop-up and lawn chairs. This is one of the huge benefit over Las Vegas- a topic that I will address in an upcoming Blog.

Rule Change: Finish Standing
There is a rule change since last year on hand-held timing. Competitors are required to finish standing up. They must stop the clock by dragging the feet of the Rescue Randy® across the threshold. Lunging backwards is a dangerous and highly discouraged practice. It also damages the SCBA units and tears the carpets. And most importantly, it does not get you a faster time since it is the position of the dummy’s feet and not the torso of the Competitor that counts. Subsequently, we implemented a penalty of 2 seconds to be added to the Competitor’s time when a Competitor fails to stop the clock. Everyone that has ever been involved in a sprint sport knows that lunging or jumping interrupts terminal velocity.

Benefits of a Controlled Race
This has had an immediate benefit in reducing the number of finish line crashes and the associated ambiguities as to who actually won the race (i.e., we no longer have to have a conference of officials to look at hand-held stop watches to decide an outcome). Since its inception, the Scott Firefighter Combat Challenge® has had in place the same timing paradigm and technology for measuring races. In an attempt to promote a safer playing field and consistency across all the nationalities that are licensed to conduct competitions, we will appreciate your cooperation and adherence to the protocol of running under control. Clayton County, who broke the World Record with a blistering 1:07, finished standing and even put the dummy on the transporter cart. If that doesn’t validate what I’m saying, then I don’t know what else will convince you. Well, actually the 2-second penalty might do it.

Wildcard Eliminations
The Eliminations have become highly competitive. While we like to boast that this is “The Toughest Two-Minutes in Sports™” the fact is that you’ll need a time significantly faster than two minutes to make it in the open category on the final day. An oft-heard complaint is directed at teams that make it with people who are significantly slower than two minutes. Our clear preference is directed to qualifying teams on the basis of their fastest three times. Everyone on that team is treated equally; they all get a pass. Historically, individuals who were predicted to have their time counted in the top three have had a bad run, resulting in a fourth member of the team contributing his time. Just as all members of the World Series team earn a ring, so likewise do the members of the winning team. Please don’t gripe about this structure. Get a team together and you can likewise collectively earn a spot on the final day. Simply stated, we just don’t have enough slots for everyone that’s sub-whatever to race on the final day. We have opened up sufficient individual slots to ensure that there is a fair representation within all the categories to guarantee that even a person not on a team has a chance to take first place.

International Growth
It is our quest to create a truly international competition. I cannot say with certainty how long it will take to achieve critical mass of say, 25 nations fielding teams, but ultimately, the World Challenge will be comprised of only one team from each country. The event may also move to another continent. And what is now the World Challenge will become the US Nationals. Until that day, we afford our foreign visitors byes into the final round because they have earned these slots through competition in their native land. This is difficult for some Competitors to accept as they feel that the final day should be based solely on merit, and not based upon the country of origin. We subscribe to the Olympic model, even at this early stage of our competition. If we want more foreign teams- and we do, then this is a reasonable concession. To this end, we opened up the number of US slots so as not to deprive the truly outstanding athletes an opportunity to compete. The practical reality is that we can’t run an 8-hour competition. Next year, we will be holding events in Germany, Canada, France, Austria, Brazil, New Zealand and Slovenia. All of these competitions welcome you. We hope that you’ll appreciate the hospitality and camaraderie that is extended by this rapidly expanding international brotherhood.

The March On
There will be a formal march on of all the states, provinces and countries on the last day (Saturday). We will play the national anthem of the host nation only. This not meant as a slight to any person or peoples; but from a practical and protocol perspective, we will follow Olympic traditions.

Livestream-Webcast
This year will be providing a professionally produced Livestream broadcast. Last year we had over 25,000 viewers with no promotion other than word of mouth. You’ll be able to watch live- on your computer every day’s activities including post race interviews and analyses. Lion is the presenting sponsor and we extend our thanks to them and our other sponsors for making this possible. This will be of great benefit as you’ll have a sense as to where we are in the start order by viewing the home page. A word of warning, however. You are still responsible for showing up on time. Not unlike the Olympics, we have had to disqualify people for being no-shows.

In Summary...
I trust that this information is of benefit. I also hope that the people who need to read this will avail themselves of the opportunity to realize that there is a bigger purpose behind the growth of the Scott Firefighter Combat Challenge than to satisfy everyone’s ego.

Let’s Hear It for the Old Guys

This past weekend in Fort Piece was a homecoming for a lot of Challenge veterans. In one of the over 50 relay races, these competitors boasted over 500 years of collective life experience. I had some quality time talking to Walter White who’s been with the Challenge since its inception. He’s seen his original department, American River morph into Sac Metro. Walter is now a Battalion Chief and is running solo. At one time, American River was a national threat. It seems as though the younger generation doesn’t have the same mental toughness as the old guys. We’ll talk more about this and expand on Walter’s particular insights on the Challenge and the fire service in an upcoming blog. (BTW, Challenge veterans, have you ordered your patch yet- it’s on this link: http://firefighterchallenge.com/VeteranProgram/home.php)

But, in the meantime, what was very interesting were the comments of the course volunteers. Indian River State College provided some of the best support we’ve seen so far this season. Comprised of instructors, staff and students the red shirts made the event run like clockwork. It was as though they had been training for this event for some time. A recurring topic of discussion was the respect and admiration for our over 50 crowd. This indelible image of real, tough guys who were posting impressive times was not lost on the spectators.

Our announcer, Mike Word would point out many of the accomplishments of these grizzled veterans, never failing to mention their ages. For recruits, what better example could be made of firefighters in the twilight of their careers still able to run the course in blistering times. This does not happen by accident.

For the better part of 9 years, I wrote a column for Fire Chief magazine. In one such article, I facetiously remarked that we should eliminate PT (physical training) from the recruit curriculum. Actually, I was half serious. After all, why should it be management’s responsibility to rehabilitate you to get the job that you should have been prepared to do the day you walked in the door.

If you had not been maintaining your fitness on your own time, what makes us think that you’re suddenly going to have a change of heart and start working out once you’re actually hired to do one of the toughest jobs in America today? A recent anecdote makes my point. Larry Hinds had suggested that climbing an aerial should be a routine drill for everyone. After all, this is an essential function of being a firefighter. The chief pushed back, knowing full well that a significant number of incumbents were physically incapable of performing the task. He’s still looking at it.

Hard to believe that we can take seriously the mantra, “everyone goes home” when in fact, a lot of these people should stay home. And it’s even worse that we know we have the problem and won’t do anything constructive to address the huge, looming problem of a workforce that is unsafe at any speed.

The Overcash Award

If you haven’t met Ted Overcash by now, you’ve missed out on one of the great benefits of the Scott Firefighter Combat Challenge. Ted is now 66. He’s been a fixture for years, although he’s slowed down a bit, he’s still alive and kicking.

Ted hasn’t set any records recently, although he and I held the over 60 Tandem record for about a year. But Ted would come out and run the course, time after time and year after year. His times would slowly work their way down as he trained and trained.

Ted is not a very big guy. He stands about 5’5”, weighting around 160. But Ted has the biggest heart of anyone I’ve seen. From the beginning in 199#, he struggled mightily, to the point that he scared me. But he would never give up.

Some years back, Ted was diagnosed with cancer. In his characteristic style, he battled back and became a cancer survivor.
He found out that he had a tumor in 2002, weeks after receiving the first GNC award in Deerfield Beach.
In May 2003 he ran his first Challenge 11 weeks after surgery.

In the Scott Firefighter Combat Challenge, we have a number of World Champion awards that are sponsored by Lion and named after our fallen comrades. We decided that while this was a proper way to honor their memory, why not name an award after one of our competitorsbefore they died? How much more fitting?

And so, the Overcash Award for the person who accrues the most points was created. Ted has been present to make the award for a number of years. Recently in Tinley Park, he asked me if we were still going to give out the award and would it be named after him?

“Of course,” I responded. “We wouldn’t have it any other way.“

Ted seemed pleased. So, if you’re in Myrtle Beach and see Ted, stop for a moment and let him tell you a little bit about his life’s journey. It’s always a great perspective to get the inside scoop on what it’s like to be a cancer survivor; just ask Ted.

Steve Jobs and the Scott Firefighter Combat Challenge?

In 1984, I was running a company called Institute of Human Performance. We provided occupational health services to a variety of local and federal government emergency service organizations. The backbone of our business was a mainframe computer manufactured by Data General (DG). It was the size of two side-by-side refrigerators and required its own climate-controlled room. My 250MB Fujitsu Eagle drive for my DG cost over $10,000 and was so heavy that a small forklift was required to move it. One the features we provided our police and firefighters were computer generated customized health and fitness reports and individualized exercise prescriptions.

A friend of mine with a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Maryland introduced me to the Macintosh computer. I had dismissed his entreaties to test-drive his for months. Finally succumbing, I told my wife that I’d be heading over to Phil’s house and would be back in an hour.

I was of the opinion that this could not be a real computer because there were not shelves of manuals required to document everything. Five hours later, I was still exploring and amazed at a computer that had no manuals and a mouse. That Sunday changed my life and the pathway of my company. I went to Sears the next day and purchased a Mac. They were over $2,500, with a whopping 1MB of Ram and no hard drive. From that point, we never looked back. We dumped the Data General and assembled a number of connected Macs.

One of the immediate uses was a contract with the US Navy. I wrote their fitness manual and produced 18 Command Fitness Coordinator certification programs, hauling my 22-pound Mac cube with me around the world. All of this was done with floppy disks!

The ability to create graphics, typeset technical reports, edit video was all within our grasp, and best of all, in-house. It has had a profound impact on every nuance of what we have done over the past 27 years. Steve Jobs’ death at 56 is a tragedy. His contributions to society are staggering. The productivity that we as a company have gained is enormous.

Steve went out on top; he created the world’s most valuable company and has been vindicated and richly rewarded. But the sad, sad part of this whole story is that there is no amount of money that he would not have spent to have his health back.

Isn’t amazing how people can easily disregard or fail to appreciate the very precious gift of life. Like the words of the song, “…you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” Life can be cruel. I have no idea as to what Steve’s health and fitness habits were. And maybe, he was one of those statistical flukes, where he did everything right and still got run over by the cancer bus.

But, there are a lot of things that we do know about that contribute to health and the avoidance of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Taking responsibility for our behavior is what makes us good animals. Right now, a disproportionate number of our population are on a collision course with diabetes. There will not be enough money to take care of the huge epidemic that is approaching. And this condition is avoidable and remediable by simply moving more.

I sometimes wonder if some people are just plain predestined to end up as casualties? Warnings screaming from cigarette packages in 24pt type: Smoking Kills! “This is a free country!” they respond. Were it only so; someone’s going to pay. I just don’t want it to be me.

Still Need Proof?

One of the sixteen initiatives for reducing line of duty deaths (LODD) in the “Everyone Goes Home” campaign is physical fitness. What troubles me about this program is the mouthing of a platitude without any real follow up. It’s like dental hygiene: don’t have to floss every day; just those teeth that you’d like to keep. By that I mean we continue to preach about the need, but really don’t follow up with standards.

In a study conducted by Harvard University School of Public Health and published today in the journal of the American College of Sports Medicine, men who engaged in vigorous exercise had their risk of fatal heart attack cut by 22%.

“We studied vigorous exercise because of its stronger association with coronary heart disease,” said Andrea Chomistek, Sc.D., the lead author of the study. “While we discovered that vigorous-intensity exercise decreases a man’s risk of heart attack, we also were able to partially determine why. The benefits of exercise on a man’s levels of HDL-C, or ‘good’ cholesterol, account for approximately 38 percent of that decrease. Other important markers included vitamin D, apolipoprotein B and hemoglobin A1c.”

There were 18,225 men who participated in the study, of which 454 suffered a nonfatal heart attack or died from CHD (coronary heart disease) during the 1994-2004 data collection window. After the 10-year period, 412 men with CHD were matched to controls based upon age, smoking status and their date for providing a blood sample.

“As expected, traditional cardiovascular disease risk factors were more common among cases than controls,” said Chomistek. “Men who suffered a nonfatal heart attack or died from coronary heart disease had less ‘good’ cholesterol, more ‘bad’ cholesterol and were more likely to have high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes.”

The study, “Vigorous Physical Activity, Mediating Biomarkers, and Risk of Myocardial Infarction,” is published in this month’s issue of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise®, the official journal of ACSM.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranks heart disease as the nation’s leading cause of death among men. Between 70 and 89 percent of all sudden cardiac events occur in men, and nearly half of men who have a heart attack before age 65 die within eight years. And of course, heart disease continues to lead the list of LODDs for firefighters.

None of this really comes as a surprise. But regrettably, until we actually start to recruit and select the most fit- people who have a real penchant towards fitness being a priority, we’ll continue to see the results of sedentary living.

“Our Fathers Fought the Second World War”

This familiar refrain written by Billy Joel (from the hit song Allentown) came to mind today as I and hundreds of other grateful people at BWI airport stood and applauded for the nearly 25 minutes that it took to unload the arriving Southwest Airlines flight that conveyed scores of Second World War veterans from Detroit. We were occupying ourselves with the usual activities of checking emails, surfing the net when the gate agent announced that an honor flight of WWII vets were on the in-bound flight. Would we all welcome them? Would we?

But of course! Flags were handed out and a squad of sailors in dress whites formed up a alley. Everyone, and I mean everyone, stood and started clapping and kept clapping as though each of these grizzled and some stooped figures were a member of our own families. Hundreds of travelers came together and proudly gave every aged veteran their undivided attention. Travelers were wiping tears from their eyes at the incredible sight.

Statistics about WWII vet mortality are bantered about, like 30,000 WWII vets are dying every month. Just a few months ago, Frank Buckles, the last surviving WWI veteran passed away at the age of 110. Based on that model, statistically, there will still be a few more WWII vets left for some years to come (a GI of 17 in the last year of the war, 1945- living to be 110 would die in 2038).

All paid for by private donations, the honor flight contingent would be loaded onto buses and taken to Washington, DC to view the WWII Memorial, the Korean War Memorial and the Vietnam Memorial. Then, they would be flown home to stay in their own beds. Many of these heroes were in wheelchairs. I noticed that the captain of the SWA flight ferried several of the vets off the flight. We all forgot about the fact that the plane was about 90 minutes late due to mechanical problems. That minor distraction quickly paled in comparison to the awesome experience of watching these venerable warriors embracing the experience. The smiles on their faces, the waves and salutes were rewarded with more intense clapping, cheering, whistling and flag waving.

This episode seemed in so many ways, foreign to cacophony of partisan politics and all the divisive vitriol that spews daily from TV, print media and zinger emails. For a short half hour of the day, we shared common values and a sense of pride for what these veterans had done for us.

It made me very proud to be an American and the son of a now deceased WWII submariner. I just wished that Dad could have been there.