Anything for a T-Shirt

This paper discusses Ron Rubin's book "Anything for a T-Shirt: Fred Lebow and the New York City Marathon, the World's Greatest Footrace," which is the story of a man who managed to surpass his limits in order to achieve his goals, and, in doing so, influenced the evolution of the New York City Marathon. The paper discusses the history of the marathon and how it has evolved. It discusses the book's portrayal of the main character."The number of participants was however rather low for different reasons. On the one hand, in the early days of the marathon, competing was even dangerous, as the police did not offer adequate protection to the racers; moreover, the prizes did not represent an incentive for all those involved in the run, because only those who actually won the marathon would be rewarded. From this point of view, the marathon was relatively unattractive for the common people. Lebow, taking this into consideration, decided to deal with both issues. On the one hand, it worked out different arrangements with the authorities to ensure that roads are closed to traffic and that police cars insure the security of the racers; the funds for financially supporting these actions came from well off members of the New York Road Runners Club. This move transformed this organization from a leisure volunteer based club into a business enterprise which worked with a profit target set in mind. Therefore, from this point on, the Marathon became a business." He fought against it.

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