Ep. 712: Leading with Grit - Marcus Fitts
Adventure Sports Podcast
Curt Linville
4.6 • 579 Ratings
🗓️ 11 March 2021
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As a kid when Marcus wanted to play football and baseball his mom would only allow it after he fulfilled one condition, learn to swim.
Even after excelling at track and football, the foundation of swimming was what Marcus always came back to and also excelled in. He eventually went to college on a track and swimming scholarship, giving him a leg up in the sport of triathlons, which he would soon discover.
Seeing a lack of diversity in the sport for a multitude of reasons, Marcus began to strategically find ways to break down the barriers in his community to create avenues for new folks, especially those of color and minorities, to try and excel in triathlons.
This led him to organize the District Triathlon club in DC as an official 501(c)3. After a handful of successful years growing the community and seeing even more potential, Marcus then decided to start GRIT USA, an adult endurance and multisport development program for triathletes.
Today Marcus splits his time between growing GRIT, pursuing his other goals like the Speed Project, and using his platform in the DC area to continue to be a voice of change, equality, and hope.
Learn more about Marcus, District Triathlon, and GRIT USA below:
triathlete.com/culture/more-than-ever-triathlon-clubs-matter
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | More and more people came on. |
| 0:01.5 | More and more people joined. |
| 0:02.8 | And then we put a name to it after maybe like the first six months leading up to our first race. |
| 0:08.8 | It was just six of us that were going out to race. |
| 0:13.4 | And then after we did our first race and started doing kind of like group and community workouts, it turned into like 113 people. So, |
| 0:21.6 | Hey folks, welcome to the Adventure Sports podcast. |
| 0:42.9 | I'm your host, Mason. |
| 0:44.2 | So this week is going to be a little bit different. |
| 0:46.4 | This throwback Thursday isn't necessarily going to be a throwback. |
| 0:49.3 | It's going to be featuring an interview from my other show without compromise that's hosted through athletic |
| 0:55.1 | brewing, the non-alcoholic brewery I work for. This is an episode that just came out with us |
| 1:00.4 | a couple weeks ago, and it's an interview featuring Marcus Fitz. He's a triathlon coach |
| 1:06.1 | and just triathlon advocate, really, in the D.C. area. And he's all about bringing, you know, people of |
| 1:12.9 | color and unrepresented groups into the world of triathlons. We're going to learn a little bit |
| 1:17.8 | today about how he discovered triathlons, why he loves it so much, and why he's so passionate about |
| 1:24.0 | bringing everyone into the world of triathlons. So I thought it would be a really cool |
| 1:29.6 | interview to feature. And also, literally yesterday, Marcus won the USA Triathlon Coach of the Year |
| 1:37.6 | Community Impact Awards. So that's a huge honor. And I thought it was just great timing to feature |
| 1:43.6 | him. You know, know on Monday we talked about |
| 1:45.9 | barry cruise who's learning lessons and teaching lessons from adventure sports um for leadership |
| 1:52.7 | and for business leadership and for just life lessons and i think marcus's story is on that same |
| 1:58.4 | thread of what has triathlons taught him, what has getting out there and |
... |
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