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Fast Freddy: Giving back to the sport
On the eve of his sixth Tour de France start, Fred Rodriguez wants to giveback what he’s been fortunate enough to experience at the highest levels.The 32-year-old Californian is doing more than just winning races in Europeand the United States. (see Part1 of Andrew Hood's interview with Rodriguez.)
Working with his Fast Freddy Foundation, Rodriguez is hoping to help young American cyclists to be able to develop their racing skills and still stay in school.
Rodriguez wants to boost collegiate racing and development programsso riders won’t have to make the choice that he and so many of his peerswere forced to elect: college or racing.
VeloNews recently talked with Rodriguez about the future of American racing and what he’s doing about it. Here are excerpts from the interview:
VeloNews.com : There’s obviously a lot of Americans at the top level now in Europe, how do you think the media and the fans will react after the retirement of Lance Armstrong?
Fred Rodriguez : There are a lot of guys. Floyd can be a huge guy, everyone seems to be stepping up, Levi, George, Zabriskie, Tom Danielson, that style of Tour riders have come. There are plenty of people to take his place, but there’s not just one person who can replace him, it’s more a group effort to keep our sport alive, instead of a one-man show. That’s what nice to see Levi and Floyd at the Tour, Danielson, Zabriskie, these new guys are doing well. Now that Lance is gone, there is a wider broad of riders.
VN.com: Do you ever see anyone – American or not – who will be able to match Armstrong?
FR: I just don’t see it happening, if ever. To be able to win seven Tours in a row, that’s impossible. It’s like the whole Michael Jordan thing, when he left, they were scrambling to find the next Michael Jordan, then they realized there was no next Jordan and they had to work with their whole league. Not just their star player. Over time, the NBA came back up. That’s what our sport has to realize. Our sport being smaller, it’s easier to maintain.
VN.com: Is the sport set up to handle those challenges?
FR: The bigger thing I think is our sport has to be looking for here is the next generation. We’re here, the Levis, the Georges, the Bobby Js – we’re here, but who’s next, that’s what my concern is. Where are those 17 year olds that are going to take over? Are we setting up the sport that it’s something that they want to do?
VN.com: What needs to be done?
FR: Creating a better, a more Americanized-style flow of athletes into the sport. To keep them interested in their education and work with their sport. Especially with a sport like cycling in America, it’s not like inner-city sport, it’s a middle-class, upper middle-class sport, parents are usually well-educated, you have to have a certain amount of money to buy the bicycles, the parents have a huge interest for the kids to go on to higher education. Right now our sport is really not involved in that side. It’s either cycling or school. What happens is that we lose a huge amount of candidates who can be at the level of Lance. We’ve probably already lost a Lance in that mix, who decided to go to college instead of racing. At the college level, racing isn’t that good of a level. We need to link college-level racing with elite development. That’s what I am trying to work on with the foundation. We’re already doing a couple of things
VN.com: What kind of work are you doing?
FR: We’ve created a few Fast Freddy Scholarships, which is giving money to athletes to pursue cycling while pursuing an education. I look at myself as one of the lucky ones, who’ve made it to this level. How many guys were on my toes and didn’t make it, where are they now? How do you fix that and that they have something leftover.
VN.com: It’s so hard to make it at this level, it’s all or nothing, was that a choice you had to make?
FR: I tried to go to college, I was too scared I wasn’t going to go to the next level because I would miss events, miss training. I was only on a winter program, but looking back on it now, I should have done both. When you’re 18, you don’t realize that, you’re full of goals, thinking I want to go to the Tour de France, and I’ll do whatever it takes, then I’ll move to France. At an 18, you’re not thinking how you’re going to fall, you’re looking how you’re going to get up. If we have a structure in place that encourages their big goals and cycling, that’s a better way. … Tom Danielson did the whole program and finished his degree. He was such a talented athlete that he stuck around, but what would have happened for one reason in one semester he had too much of a load, his parents were pushing him, that could have been it, we could have lost him.
VN.com: What kind of scholarships have you developed?
FR: Now we have two scholarships to the NorCal High School Mountain Bike League, and a new scholarship this winter called Road Scholar for road riders. We are trying to work with USA Cycling to get more involved in their development and push them on the idea working at the college level. They’re interested, they want to hear more ideas, they have a lot of stuff they have to work, they’re revamping the college level already. It’s going to get there, everyone can play their part. … For the US, I would never copy the European style of development. Here, they will grab kids when they’re 13 years old and take them out of school and throw them right on their bike.
VN.com: Have you considered returning to university once you retire?
FR: I never finished college. Realistically, I’d like to go back, maybe I will go back and ride with my development team. For me it’s something I really believe in.
