‘I had to be very dominant’: Runner Joseph Gray has made a spot for runners of color

By Michael Abeyta

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    COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (KCNC) — A Colorado ultra-athlete has excelled at his sport, but he says he has been passed up for opportunities — possibly because of race.

Joseph Gray is a professional long-distance runner from Washington state who trains in Colorado Springs. He says he has found the perfect career for himself. He started when he was a kid.

“I was actually getting into a little bit of trouble in middle school and the track coach kind of talked me into it,” he said.

He uses running as a way to explore his world. He ran everywhere, even in inner city Baltimore, when he visited his grandma as a child. He jokes people there didn’t know what he was running from.

“People were looking at me like I’m crazy,” he said with a chuckle.

He ran in high school and in college, then turned pro as an adult and dominated trail racing.

He was the first Black athlete to make the USA Mountain Running team and win multiple National Mountain Running Championships.

He’s been awarded USA Mountain Runner of The Year seven times and is a member of the Colorado Running Hall of Fame. He has also won many more races and awards throughout his career.

He says that even with all that success, when it came to getting paid for his talent, running companies weren’t eagerly knocking on his door.

He saw his fellow athletes who were white getting big sponsorship deals, while he wasn’t.

“You don’t want to jump to conclusions like, ‘Oh it’s because I’m Black,’ but it kind of makes you wonder,” said Gray.

“I had to be very dominant, almost, before I could get what I think I deserved,” he said.

Eventually he did get sponsors, a big one from shoe Company Hoka One One, but the experience reinforced what he already knew; people of color are underrepresented in the distance running community.

At times he says he wondered if he was really welcome. Especially when amateur Black runner Ahmaud Arbery was chased down and murdered in Georgia.

“It’s like, man you are telling me that there are people out there that feel like they can be the police because you are Black and you are in the wrong neighborhood,” said Gray.

Those experiences led him to his second passion: exposing children of color to his sport. He spends time visiting with kids and telling his story so they can see that there is space for them in distance running.

“I think it helps them dream. I look at when was a kid, you had Sugar Ray, we had Michael Jordan, we had Magic Johnson, Doctor J. We had these people that made you dream and you saw them being great so you thought ‘Oh I can be great too,’” said Gray.

He knows that just seeing someone who looks like them succeeding in sport will help them achieve their goals. He is glad to be on their team the way his coaches and sponsors were on his.

“I had a lot of people help me throughout my career and I wanted to be that same kind of person for kids in my community,” said Gray.

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