Stop Anthos from Taking over CrossFit

[Chris Donnelly]

Originally Posted by Eric Montgomery

I think you're being a bit overdramatic with those last two lines...especially seeing how (at the root of it all) CF is a business that needs profits and not just wishes and rainbows to stay afloat. Yes, businesses are supposed to make money--that's called maximizing shareholder value, and failure to do so is a failure of fiduciary responsibilities. That doesn't mean all big business is evil or soulless.

Eric - of course its over the top a bit but i think people forget. i just mean what they hold dear in clients, training and the overall philosophy means nothing to a large demographic of pure businessmen. Sure Crossfit is a business but the way it was built was a catalyst for all these Affiliates being nervous and standing behind a Individual who has to most them demonstrated a personal commitment..but when "Big Business" comes in it quickly becomes ALL numbers beyond that built up developed commitment.

[Chris Donnelly]

Originally Posted by Chris Mason

The whole idea that profit is the only thing that drives a private owned business is ignorant. Privately owned businesses are a reflection of their ownership and usually of said ownership's ideas and values.

I could make a LOT more money than I do by doing a lot of the things most other supplement companies do. I don't do them because I have a sole and feel that AtLarge is a reflection of ME.

Yes, I want and need to be profitable, but my business decisions are FAR from being predicated solely on that desire.

Chris - True, it's because its your baby.. If you bought in a outside company things USUALLY change quickly. That reflection USUALLY becomes a cash register because they don't and CAN'T share the same feelings/passion as you did starting it. ..but no not all business is Evil..that's not what i'm saying.

[Ben Norris]

Greg stands for improving peoples lives and snubs his nose at making huge profits because this would not be in the best interest of our community. I stand behind Mr Glassman 100%. He has always had our backs and we will always have his.

Crossfit has changed my life and I cannot see me ever going back to how I was pre Crossfit.

[Greg Amundson]

Hello friends,

I have not posted to the message board for several years. Although the board serves a wonderful purpose, I spend most of my time in direct and personal human communication.

However, many of my friends, and several complete strangers, have contacted me and asked for a public statement regarding the Anthos situation. I've felt compelled to answer their requests.

When I reflect on CrossFit, my memory takes me back to a cold December morning in Santa Cruz, CA. I opened the door to CrossFit Santa Cruz, and none other than "Coach" Greg Glassman extended his hand, and welcomed me into both his gym and his family. Coach immediately became a father-fugure to me, as my dad had passed away from cancer only a few months before we met. With the exception of my dad Raymond Amundson, no other person has had such a profoundly positive influence on my life as Coach Glassman.

I've done my best the past twelve years to be a good ambassador for CrossFit, and to set a positive example in my life that others may follow. This is what Coach and my dad taught me to do. I'm only human though, and I've made some mistakes, and learned some lessons, many of them the hard way.

After nearly fourteen years in Law Enforcement and Military Service, I've found it's important to have a good partner, and solid back-up you can trust your life with. Like many of my friends, such as Dave, Nicole, Rory, Paula, Jordan, Lynne, Pat and Jeff have posted, I've got Coach's back. And I've got the back of the larger CrossFit community as well.

We must remember to focus on the areas of our life we have direct influence over. CrossFit Inc. has the World's best legal team in the fight. I trust Dale and the HQ Legal Department to win the fight.

Our job as Trainers and Athletes is to be the best Trainers and Athletes we can be. We must strive each day to set a positive example in our gyms and in our lives for others to follow. Take care of your Athletes, take care of yourselves, and remember what Coach Glassman taught us all: "When you get home, knock on your neighbors door and teach them how to squat."

Greg Amundson

[Michael V. Erickson]

Five years ago I was looked ahead and saw my life going down a black hole of old age. I found crossfit. Now I look forward to new challenges and feel better and am fitter at 64 than I was at 45. Greg Glassman's vision, the thing he created is responsible. What crossfit teaches is the owners manual for our bodies we were never given. Coach Glassman doesn't pretend to know everything, to have all the answers, but he's created a system that encourages exploration and a means of testing the results. As coach envisions it, crossfit will always be diverse, a thousand minds trying different ways of fine tuning fitness and coming together once a year to test the results. Whoever finds a better way teaches the rest of us and that becomes crossfit, ever evolving, improving. That could not happen with a central control commanding a single uniform product across all affiliates. I think without coach calling the shots, living his dream, crossfit as we know it dies. And the exploring and learning dies. I'm not a trainer or owner but I love the crossfit idea, it is genius. I hope it continues to evolve as it has been. Best wishes to all of you doing the hard work to maintain the dream.

[Chris Mason]

Originally Posted by Chris Donnelly

Chris - True, it's because its your baby.. If you bought in a outside company things USUALLY change quickly. That reflection USUALLY becomes a cash register because they don't and CAN'T share the same feelings/passion as you did starting it. ..but no not all business is Evil..that's not what i'm saying.

Sure, I was referring to myself and someone like Mr. Glassman, not Athos!

[Daniel Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Chris Mason

The whole idea that profit is the only thing that drives a private owned business is ignorant. Privately owned businesses are a reflection of their ownership and usually of said ownership's ideas and values.

I could make a LOT more money than I do by doing a lot of the things most other supplement companies do. I don't do them because I have a sole and feel that AtLarge is a reflection of ME.

Yes, I want and need to be profitable, but my business decisions are FAR from being predicated solely on that desire.

Then may your profit be a reflection of your altruism.

[Daniel Scarnecchia]

Dale, thanks for the reply.

Addressing something else: Jesse, thanks for the support. The replies to his posts following mine are a bit unsettling. The insinuation that because he is calling for transparency and asking the community to wait for all the facts before making a judgement somehow indicates he somehow don't have the best interests of Crossfit at heart is galling.

If the goal of this conversation is education and information, this is not the way to go about it. If the goal is unhinged groupthink, well, I guess we're already there.

[Brian Thurmond]

I met Coach on a Wednesday morning at a small seminar in Coronado. The seminar was mostly for military folks. I think that Coach had been told that some higher ranking folks would be present, but when they didn't show he gave us the seminar anyway. He did not outwardly demonstrate that he was in anyway frustrated by those people not coming. Instead, he treated each and everyone of us lower ranking folks like we were the only ones he was interested in speaking to. I was immediately impressed by Coach and what he had to say. I drank up every last word. This man, who had been dismissed by the leadership, had not dismissed us. I always wanted to personally thank Coach for that. I know to him it was a very minor thing, but to me, it was impressive. Coach invited all 12-14 of us Sailors and Marines to the weekend seminar going on at one of two affiliates in San Diego at the time. Coach did not charge any of us to go to this seminar, we were his guest. Seminar prices are the same today as they were back then. I thought to myself that Coach was a hell of a guy, but a poor businessman. I thought this for one instant before I heard Coach speak on excellence. Coach spoke on chasing excellence as opposed to chasing the dollar. This is something that I had never fully tried to understand or embody until Coach spoke of it.
Coach, through CrossFit, I struggle with excellence on a day to day basis. Some days are more excellent than others. I am constantly reminded that it is a noble endeavor to pursue excellence in everything that I do. I am a humble affiliate. We train out of our garage, and our home's backyard. I say "our" because it is my groups home too.
Coach is CrossFit. My group and I are 100% CrossFit...a humble part of it. 50% of anything else and you can subtract the letters CrossF, and add sh to the front of it.
Coach, you have my support in whatever form that may take.

[Daniel Scarnecchia]

somehow doesn't*