PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAUL VILLECOURT; SOME ARTWORK …ter trip with a local outﬁ tter. Now, she is a ﬁ...

26 / PADDLER / Jan-Feb 08 / paddlermagazine.com

PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAUL VILLECOURT; SOME ARTWORK USED IN COMPOSITE ©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

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WHILE THE PADDLESPORTS INDUSTRY LOOKS FOR MORE BOATERS, THE DEMOGRAPHIC ON THE RIVER LARGELY REMAINS THE SAME BY JACK IGLEMAN


ollie Marie Noble lights up when she talks about paddling. For her, whitewa-ter is still as alluring as it was the fi rst

time she sat in a kayak. But don’t get the idea she is a beginner. She’s not, though Noble wasn’t hooked as early as many boaters of her caliber. Now 30, she was raised in a single-parent home in Maryland and

didn’t have access or the resources to latch onto outdoor adventure sports.

While on vacation more than a decade ago she convinced her family to join

her on an afternoon kayak tour. She adored the experience—though it was several years until she paddled again, into her 20s, on a whitewa-ter trip with a local outfi tter. Now, she is a fi erce devotee of the sport

and this past April qualifi ed for the U.S. Wildwater Team.

Outdoor lover fi nds boat is a con-ventional story, but not for someone like Noble (pictured left).

She is black, you see. According to the Boulder, Colo-

rado-based Outdoor Industry Foundation (OIF), nine of 10 kayak-

ers are white. Young urban minorities have remained an untapped market. After all, you could presume that a teen from New York, Baltimore, or Phoenix is unlikely to don a PFD. For one, there isn’t white-water in the city like there are ballfi elds, parks, and playgrounds. So it would make sense that minorities, who mostly live in urban areas, wouldn’t engage in something they can’t see, get to, or, in some cases, aff ord.

But to truly grasp why there is only a trace of diversity among participants in the outdoors, you’ve got to look beyond the obvious presumptions.

“It is a complete misconception that minorities aren’t interested in the outdoors,” says Frank Hugel-meyer, president and CEO of the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA), the primary trade association for outdoor-recreation businesses. “Paddling would be attractive to any person of a diff erent ethnicity.”

Noble speaks Russian and was an accomplished fencer. She credits her attachment to these pursuits to her mother, who in the mid-1960s crossed color lines as a lifeguard in Washington, D.C., and encouraged her to be adventurous and experiment with diff er-ent cultures. Th at inherited spirit has kept her from feeling racially isolated on the river.

“I really don’t think of myself as doing anything


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groundbreaking,” Noble says.Th at is, until a meeting on a Maryland river last

year. A well-intentioned boater remarked that she might be the fi rst African American to paddle the Upper Youghiogheny. It was the fi rst time her race was ever a topic on the river and it caught her off balance.

“It felt strange at fi rst,” recalls Noble. “Th e river is my home. I belong here. It brought me to the reality that I am an anomaly. And no one likes to feel that way. It made me much more aware of my color.”

A growing number of paddling’s top brass have had a similar awakening. Th is, at a time when other sports with overwhelmingly white participation—such as skiing, NASCAR, and golf—are confronting the complexities of both race and economic disparity.

“Th e concept of a sport that only the wealthy should have access to is not acceptable,” says Gina Sanchez, a Mexican American from south Texas and

currently President of the USA Canoe/Kayak Board of Directors. “Th e American way is to utilize the melting pot.”

Many in the boating industry who are keen to boost participation in paddlesports agree with Hugelmeyer and Sanchez and are rallying around the challenge of attracting more ethnic and economic diversity.

Th e trouble is how to actually do it.West of downtown Charlotte, the four

northbound lanes of Interstate 85 are usually packed with a steady fl ow of commerce, travelers, and commuters. Often, Cathy Hearn joins the fray, but not on the concrete super slab. She has one of the most unconventional commutes in Charlotte—she paddles.

If anyone boats to work it’s not surprising that it’s Hearn. She’s a life-long boater and one of the most

“The concept of a sport that only the wealthy should have access to is not acceptable.”

—Sanchez

Noble, a member of the U.S. Wildwater

Team, never felt like an anomaly on the river, until last year on the

Upper Youghiogheny.


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accomplished competitive kayakers in U.S. history, with three world championships and a recent induc-tion into the International Whitewater Hall of Fame to her credit. Now the U.S. National Whitewater Slalom Canoe coach, Hearn boats from her apart-ment in Mount Holly, across the Catawba River, and then a short stroll through the woods to the national team’s offi cial training facility.

Hearn has been making the commute since the United States National Whitewater Center opened in 2006. Th e 300-acre facility is open to the pub-lic and includes a climbing wall, an environmental education center, trails, and of course, it’s marquee attraction: an extraordinary loop of engineered whitewater enclosed by concrete embankments. Th e neatly landscaped park is a great technical leap forward for a sport that is only a handful of decades from running rapids in clunky aluminum canoes. Th e manmade river is authentic in a way that a climbing gym can’t be. Instead of synthetic stone, the element crucial to the sport—water—is the real thing. Nonetheless, the synthetic river is slightly out of context in such a planned environment, like a lush green lawn in a Phoenix subdivision. Th at unnatural truth has armed the park’s critics who eye it with suspicion, calling it a contrived attempt to com-mercialize whitewater.

Hearn doesn’t see it that way. For one, it gives U.S. athletes a year-round training ground to keep pace with the Europeans who rule in artifi cial whitewa-

ter. Also, what she considers the broader picture is a chance to tout the outdoors to an untried audi-ence. And making the outdoors more attainable is something Hearn is passionate about.

“It’s one thing if someone doesn’t choose to paddle or be in the outdoors, but it’s another thing if they don’t have the opportunity,” she says. “I am in favor of making it easier to get outdoors.”

Of course, there are a few obvious reasons why paddling isn’t on the radar of many city dwellers, regardless of ethnicity. Whitewater is often remote, equipment is costly, and the perception of risk, to name just a few. Consider this: even if whitewater was accessible in say, the Bronx, the likelihood of a local teen paddling there may be as slim as joining a lacrosse team.

To be sure, there is diversity in paddling. But pad-dlers like Noble and Sanchez are rare. So is Lamar Sims. He is African American and has been paddling for several decades. He chose to enroll at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, in the early ’70s because of the school’s paddling program and later settled in Denver for its access to the outdoors. Sims, like Noble, can’t point to a single experience of abject racism on the river, but still appreciates why urban minorities may steer clear of the outdoors.

“A city kid may look at paddling and say, ‘Th is is not my world.’ Th ere is safety staying in your com-fort zone,” says Sims. “Th at’s a universal truth.”

Th at’s especially true for teens since social accep-

“We give these great programs for minorities, but in the back of my head, I know the chance of them continuing is slim.”—Dickert

The U.S. National Whitewater Center—just 10 minutes from downtown Charlotte—could be a bellwether for tapping into the urban-minority market.

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tance is vital. Kids tend to stay where they create friendships and connect with role models. Further-more, a wild, dangerous river may be the last thing to appeal to the sensibilities of an urban teen. So, the less likely a teen is to identify with a leisure activity, the less likely they will get involved. For Sims, who grew up in New York City, his entry to nature came through summer camp. Still, for a large part of the population, that link is rare.

“Historically, the traditional paths into the out-doors are parents, school and youth groups, or peers that infl uence you into new behaviors,” says Hugel-meyer. “We need to fi nd and create those paths. You need to have a mechanism by which you get over the safety concerns. You need to be where they live.”

Many of those ordinary avenues into the out-doors, such as a parent or youth program, are under-funded or non-existent, and this is what Hearn fi nds most vexing about paddling and out-door activities in general.

“My personal view is that the sport is growing by the path of least resistance,” she asserts. “Th e industry has had the view that some parts of the population are not worth engaging.”

In 2005, the OIA estimates there were 162 million paddling outings. Th at’s more than three times the tickets sold to Star Wars III, the year’s top-grossing fi lm. Th is is good news for Matt Menashes, Executive Director of the Paddlesports Industry Association. His role is to promote the sport. In fact, the paddling industry has set a challenge to increase participation 100 percent. To do it, they’ve got to open a few

doors , no small task, especially for a pastime in which diverse racial groups aren’t queuing up.

“Th e way the industry has responded to the market is that we listen to the people that are screaming the loud-est,” admits Wayne Dickert, the paddling school director at the Nan-tahala Outdoor Center.

Th e proof is ads in magazines like this one that seldom show minorities in action.

“If you get minorities into one (sport), then you will get them into others,” says Hugel-meyer.

Paddling, however, has seen an increase in partici-pation of Hispanics. Canoeing has had among the largest participation increases of any outdoor activ-ity since 1998. And if NASCAR—which in 2004 formed an Executive Steering Committee for Diver-sity co-chaired by NBA legend Magic Johnson—can reach out to broader audiences, then surely, it seems, paddling can fi nd a way to urge more minorities to play in the water.

One problem, says Hearn, is that some may be turned off by the extreme image of the sport and suggests that attracting more families and youth into the boater mix will balance the gung-ho perception with a tamer, friendlier style of boating.

“A city kid may look at paddling and say, ‘This is not my world.’ There is a safety staying in your comfort zone.”—Sims(Continued on page 94)TO

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/ PADDLER / Jan-Feb 08 / paddlermagazine.com

“Whitewater rafting just looks too risky for me,” Surin Nelson, a 38-year-old Seattleite of Th ai descent, says between jumpshots at a neigh-borhood gym. “I think the outdoors are a great hobby to get into, but I spend my free time play-ing basketball or tennis. Basically, I’m just not that type of person. It’s not a racial thing at all. I’ve just never really been introduced to it.”

For a facelift, the industry may look at ski resorts that are pitching a more urban look, through terrain parks, for example, to appeal to largely untapped metropolitan markets. Some ski areas also off er bi-lingual beginner instruction, highlighting that Hispanics are the fastest-grow-ing minority group in the country.

“No one wants to see [paddling] grow with the same profi le,” says Menashes. “Th e overall desire is there, but it’s going to take a systematic and industry-wide eff ort to develop new markets.”

Since minorities make up about one-third of the population, he is betting that potential profi ts will pester boating companies to shift the emphasis of their ads over time, but wants the industry to make the fi rst move.

Still, minority-savvy marketing campaigns aren’t the only strategies needed to cultivate an ethnic mix. Some speculate the remedy may be an injection of urban whitewater to bridge the divide to new groups of participants.

Soon after the 2000 Olympics, Jeff Wise tuned into a radio broadcast about a proposed whitewater park in downtown Charlotte to be modeled after the Penrith whitewater stadium, the venue at the Sydney Games. In a city where green space is at a premium, Wise, now Executive Director of the U.S. National Whitewater Center (USNWC), envisioned that the park would bring the outdoors closer to a captive audience and, ultimately, promote an outdoor lifestyle there.

Th e center is well positioned geographically to draw in more minority paddlers since 40 percent of Charlotte’s 540,000 residents are non-white. Yet its fi ve-star locale doesn’t solve the problem of cost—a boat is still pricy relative to a ball or bike. Th e hope is that the $30-million center may have the economies of scale—that is, the ability to provide more paddling for less cost—to bank roll cash-strapped, would-be boaters.

With only a year under its belt, there hasn’t been a noticeable change in the racial profi le of paddlers at the center, but Hearn has noticed a broader range of ethnic people visiting the center. Although the USNWC is a nonprofi t corpora-tion, its facility is unrestrictive and welcoming. Its accessibility increases the likelihood that a visitor, who may not know an eddy from an ender—will one day test the water.

Still, the whole story isn’t just signing up new paddlers. “It’s about getting more people

The Color of Whitewater(Continued from page 31)

94 / / /



outside,” says Hearn. And that alone may be one of the strongest

arguments to promote the outdoors to an ethnic mix, particularly in metro areas where it is vital to connect more people to the value of green space, and policies and programs that support crucial local and global environmental issues. Furthermore, outdoor sports can help fi ght obe-sity, create community, and above all, diversity is an Olympic value.

Paddling programs designed to appeal to minorities do exist. Th e USNWC has launched the Rise and Shine Program that introduces teens to the outdoors. Also, the Lanier Canoe and Kayak Club near Atlanta was established as a legacy of the 1996 Olympic Games and has had reasonable success attracting minorities to the water via local boys and girls clubs. But keeping participants with limited access immersed in the sport is a struggle.

“We give these great programs to minorities,” says Dickert, “but in the back of my head I know the chance of them continuing is slim.”

And therein is the central question: how do you change the color of whitewater? It may involve more than a few strategically placed boulders and high-tech whitewater to raise the welcome fl ag. Arguably, a human element is crucial.

“What will bring the sport to more people is for city kids to see minorities in boats,” says Sims. “Th at will begin to change their perception of the outdoors.”

According to the OIF, the vast majority of Americans were invited into an active outdoor lifestyle. Since the growing minority population doesn’t typically have a tradition of outdoor rec-reation in their families and communities, the likelihood of a minority taking up paddling on his own is small. Th e belief is that the USNWC and other urban programs can become a surro-gate path into the sport and create a sustainable mentor chain to invite new groups and weave a community of ethnically diverse paddlers.

If Hollie Marie Noble succeeds internationally, she won’t be the fi rst female African American paddler to stand on a podium. She follows in the path of Kirsten Brown—the fi rst black member of the U.S. canoe and kayak team, who lost a battle with cancer last year. Th at a black female can excel in paddling is promising. After all, the sport is hardly a stronghold of racism.

“It really is a paradox. Th ere aren’t a lot of prejudices in boating,” says Dickert, “Yet you don’t see many minorities.”

Few, if any, want the sport to be exclusive. But, the few minorities who are exposed to the outdoors typically get just one chance. Th e chal-lenge is to keep them coming back.

“Th e outdoor industry is to blame if we don’t respond (to the lack of participation),” says Hugelmeyer. “Ten years from now, if there is the same profi le, then we are at fault.”

/ / /


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PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAUL VILLECOURT; SOME ARTWORK …ter trip with a local outﬁ tter. Now, she is a ﬁ...

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