NHSenior, (and any others who care to read)-
You've submitted quite a few lengthy posts in the last couple of days - your passion for running, race management, and this topic in particular clearly shows through! At the risk of putting some of your comments together in the same post, I had some questions and responses to some of the things you mentioned, so I hope that it is okay that I have put them all here. I don't mean to tie them all together in one neat package that puts any kind of spin on your comments, I just hope to gain some clarity or offer a counterpoint.
I suppose I should start by saying that I do use headphones on about 75% of my runs in my neighborhood and on the running trail I frequent near my office, and would use them in more races 1) if I ran more races than I do now and 2) if they were allowed in all of the races I do run. I used to run more along the lines of your 25 races per year, but in the past few years I've scaled back to my favorite few, those I can sign-up with friends to run, and my annual marathon, which I am hoping to double to two this year. The last time I tried that, a knee injury forced me to scale my early race back to a ½ marathon. But I digress...
The point is that I feel that while I am by no means an expert on any running topics, I do have some experience to draw from. I have also never been a race director, although I have volunteered at a few races, and have some translatable experience managing other events and large-scale volunteer efforts. So first, I empathize with your plight (as I'm sure most other RDs might concur) with maintaining an enthusiastic and large-enough volunteer force to pull off as many events as you do.
I think we are also in agreement that the folks who act as if the race exists purely for their individual pleasure/achievement are a problem - regardless of whether they wear headphones or not! And I applaud your efforts to call them out, make them think about what they are doing, whether it's violating a race policy in wearing headphones, lining up in a pace group that is not their own, or committing other errors in etiquette throughout the course.
Here's where we start to disagree:
"Most of you can't be a manager of anything or you would understand what it is to have people work for you and what you have to think about to keep them interested in doing what needs to be done. And even if you are a manager most of you won't have much experience managing some large and important with a volunteer crew, that doesn't get paid, that is inexperience, has no chance to practice what they need to do and in most cases they freeze up in an emergency. A few latent leader types will rise to the occasion but most will shiver in their boots and most often overreact pulling help from places that needed the help to stay where they are. A good intentioned volunteer who panics is a problem."
I think the above statement is a broad generalization on the viewers and posters on this site. Granted, I'm fairly new to these particular message boards, but I've used message boards since the advent of the internet (yes, I'm old enough to say that!), for a variety of purposes. And it's always incendiary comments like that, more often than not, are issued to rile people up more than to prove or disprove a point. We don't know a thing about anyone's management experience out here, save for the few posters whom you might know through the races you work/run in New England. Would it make a difference to you if I said that while I've not managed a race, I've organized event with 1700+ volunteers, spread out over 20 different sites, or that every day I work in an environment that changes on a dime with no notice, yet we somehow manage to resist the urge to shiver in our boots and get the job done? I don't want to speak for everyone here, but I'm sure there are others who were a little taken aback at your implication that none of us knows what we are doing during our days.
"Only an idiot (or a dishonest person intent on spin, your choice to pick which badge you put on) would glean that out of what I said."
That may be true, but do you think that implying that a fellow poster is an idiot is going to do anything other than get them bent out of shape and lose sight of the true conversation point? Maybe that is your intent, I don't know. Perhaps your strategy of debate is to get your opponent flustered through veiled personal attacks, in the hopes that they will derail their own argument. It clearly has worked here on the boards, judging from some of the replies you have elicited. You seem to think it's okay to call people twits, idiots, rookies, scum, and other such names, and while you don't specifically mention anyone on the boards, it's hard to believe that if someone out there disagrees with you, you do regard them as contributing to the "dumbing down of the sport" as you put it. I would be willing to bet that statements like that will make people feel as if they are not worthy to neither compete in your race nor participate in your discussion. And in neither case do I think that furthers our sport. Isn't that what you want to do, as a runner, manager, or volunteer? Why not as a message board contributor too? You even took a swipe at the Rock-n-Roll race series - how is that okay as a race manager? I don't run those races, and don't mean to imply that you should have respect for them simply because of your position in the racing community, but come on. You talk about parents who didn't teach their children well - did you never learn "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all?" I don't mean to tell you to stop talking about this subject, but why insult a race series that for some might be the best experience they can have? I would encourage you to take the calm, less antagonistic approach you directed to another poster:
"If you want to be successful in dealing with people and things (debates in particular), you have to be able to figure out (accurately) what the other guy is saying and where they stand before you can deal effectively with it. That doesn't mean you have to agree with what was said but if you don't understand you can go off half cocked with entirely the wrong impression."
"There tons of subjects of which 99 percent of the runners don't know about and if the do they think their "simple" suggestion hasn't been tried and rejected many times as new people get a race committee and say "hey fixing that should be simple", sure!"
But isn't bringing up the suggestion again the only way to re-examine it? Can you think of a time in your life, in all of your races, where someone brought up an idea that was rejected before, but was accepted because of a new perspective, a new idea, or someone brave enough to try it before assuming it would fail? I'm sure you can. Sure, there is a lot that the average runner doesn't know about volunteering. Is it safe to say that there is a lot (maybe less) that the average race volunteer doesn't know about running? Volunteers often hang on to water cups to long, step too far into the course, or run across the course path in front of a pack of runners. They are clearly well-intentioned, but just don't know what they're supposed to do in each situation. But if they have a good enough experience, chances are they'll come back, and learn from their previous race. Or a more experienced volunteer or race staff member will hopefully show them the ropes.
"Yet again, I am regaled with the proof that something doesn't happen because someone didn't see or never heard of something."
I agree this is faulty path to an answer. I think what some might
