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Scott Tinley

Bio

Scott Tinley, a 6th generation Southern Californian, is an accomplished teacher, author, and athlete. He teaches sport humanities courses at San Diego State University and California State University, San Marcos and has authored several books, including Racing the Sunset: An Athlete’s Quest for Life after Sport, a personal and in-depth study of life transition. Tinley has also written for CBS News and Sports Illustrated, among other popular and academic sources. He is a member of the Triathlon Hall of Fame, a two-time Ironman World Champion, and has competed professionally in over 400 triathlons since 1976.

Recent Articles

Triathlon's Poster Boy

The Story of BD "Big Dave" Knox and his Most Unlikely Quest
Sunday, July 3, 2016

The collection grows.  ST and Dave Knox make a trade and another poster is signed and changes hands. 

Some stories are told through pages; visual text in black and white. Other stories are orally-woven, verbal campfire chronicles that rattle and shake. And sometimes the best are too often never told in the quiet settlement of a singular person’s quest—a regular person in a regular life, denying the banality of his or her existence by asking why not? Why shouldn’t I do what compels me, what keeps me up at night, however measured or far away? I’m no hero but there is this thing that no one has done.

The Soul of Triathlon, Redux

Sunday, March 13, 2016

A Second Look at the Past, Present and Future of the Sport, circa 1998

In 1998 France won the World Cup and snowboarding made its debut in the Winter Olympics at Nagano, Japan. Microsoft was the most valuable company in the world, the Dow dipped below 500, and President Clinton denied having sex with Monica Lewinsky. Alistair and Jonathon Brownlee were 10 and eight years old, respectively, and Europe had fallen in love with triathlon after three German men had topped the podium in the previous year’s Ironman race in Kona.    

Death of a Voice

Monday, November 2, 2015

Bill Katosky in his triathlon life circa 1984

William R. Katovsky didn’t like very many triathletes. And in a pathetic indictment of the sport, many of the self-anointed movers-and-shakers didn’t like him. Or at least they didn’t or couldn’t or wouldn’t understand him.  Bill, founder of Tri-Athlete Magazine (which merged with Triathlon Magazine and eventually became Triathlete Magazine), was a quirky intellectual from the San Francisco Bay area, a UC Berkeley grad, a sometimes self-loathing, Jewish-guild laden, endurance athlete who had a hard time convincing anyone he could run 5k in under an hour.

A Silk Purse: How a Long, Tall, Blonde Quite Accidentally Invented Modern Endurance Sports

PART 2 of TWO INSTALLMENTS
Sunday, September 20, 2015

Valerie Silk, addressing the Ironman award ceremony (circa 1985) 

In part 1, Silk discussed how she acquired the Ironman, why and how she moved it Kona from Oahu, and the early parts of taking the race commercial. Her tale of the Feb. 1982 event where she missed the Julie Moss/Kathleen McCartney episode is the stuff of legend.

In part 2, Valerie offers additional thoughts on those seminal years, her sale to Dr. James Gills of Florida, the current sale-in-works to the Chinese multinational corporation, Dalian Wanda, and her own forgotten legacy within triathlon.

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Elsewhere on the Web

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