Competitors
Many of the nearly 100,000 Americans members of USATF participate in athletics competitions through one of the thousands of clubs established in all 50 states. While most of these members participate as athletes, coaches, officials and supporters of athletics at the grass roots level, elite athletes who represent the USA in international competition are also required to be members of USATF. USATF also has 57 Associations to promote the sport locally, and membership in USATF also constitutes membership in a local association, with the dues being divided between the national and local group.
During the 1980s and 1990s, USATF encouraged major marathons to require USATF membership as a prerequisite to entering those races. However, after all marathons dropped this requirement for non-elite runners. As a result, the adult membership in USATF dropped dramatically in the 2000s. In some USATF associations, the number of youth members far exceed the number of adult members.
Today, USATF competes for youth membership with a parallel effort from the AAU, and with road racer/adult recreational runner membership with the Road Runners Club of America (RRCA) and its member clubs. In many cases, youth track clubs join both USATF and AAU so that they can compete in both sets of track meets, and adult running clubs join both RRCA and USATF. However, unlike USATF which requires each individual runner to also become a member of USATF in order to compete in events or gain other membership benefits, when a club joins RRCA, all of its members automatically become members of RRCA as well. As a result, RRCA has grown to 180,000 individual or family members compared with 100,000 USATF members, many of whom are children.
To the general public, the similarity in terminology used by the organizations' events can lead to confusion. For example, both USATF and AAU conduct a series of track meets called the Junior Olympics and USATF, AAU and RRCA conduct separate National Championships and State Championships. Both AAU and USATF operate 57 state or local Associations, although the boundaries of their service areas are no longer exactly the same.
Regarding the funding of promising post-collegiate athletes, USATF competes with RRCA's Road Scholars program to select athletes for stipends.
Read more about this topic: USA Track & Field