About three weeks ago, CrossFit’s owner and CEO, Greg Glassman, made some inappropriate comments on Twitter, relating the government’s response to COVID-19 to the government’s response to racism. He also responded to an affiliate owner’s request to disaffiliate with profanity and disrespect. Finally, it came out that his treatment of women had been consistently disrespectful and inappropriate. These actions are inexcusable, and two days later, as the CrossFit community insisted through direct communications and by promising to disaffiliate themselves, Glassman stepped down and made longtime CrossFit Training and CrossFit Games Director Dave Castro the new CEO.
Coach Glassman created CrossFit. That whole 21-15-9 thing? As many rounds as possible? That’s him. And he gave it up, because he knew that the CrossFit community had become so strong, and is so much more powerful than just him, just one man. Greg Glassman let CrossFit go because he knew that what he did was reprehensible, and there was no other way to save the brand and the community that has become one of the most positive influences in my life.
But Greg Glassman still owned the brand, and although the changes that had been made were a good start, he could not remain affiliated. The groundswell of the CrossFit community continued to show their support for each other and their disgust with Glassman. Many prominent CrossFit athletes began to boycott the 2020 CrossFit Games, demanding more change and for Greg to completely disaffiliate himself from CrossFit.
Today we learned that Eric Roza will be buying CrossFit, Inc at the end of June. Discussions about the sale of CrossFit had begun more than a week ago, and upon finalizing the deal, Dave Castro, made it public today.
Three weeks. They seemed like a long three weeks, but in the grand scheme of things, that is a very short time to make big changes, and CrossFit HQ and the community of affiliates and athletes got it done. What a powerful metaphor for other changes we need to see in our own lives. Commit to pushing toward the next big step, and we can get it done!
I don’t know much about Eric Roza, other than what Castro mentioned in his announcement, but he seemed excited: “Eric is one of us. He’s a 10-year CrossFitt athlete and founder of CrossFit Sanitas in Boulder, Colorado. He opened boxes at his tech company, Datalogix, and at Oracle after it purchased his company. You can see his passion in every line of this New York Times story.” Eric and Dave just hosted a Zoom call for all affiliates to watch and respond to, and both of them seemed very excited and energized. Eric is a passionate and intelligent speaker, and I personally feel very good about his chances of success.
Please let me know if you have any questions or thoughts about this change. I’d like to extend an open invitation to all of you to pick my brain about the future of CrossFit and of CrossFit Kent Island at any time. You, our community of athletes and friends, are what makes us who we are.
Ryan