An Open Letter To CrossFit

An Open Letter to CrossFit

My name is Greg Walsh. I began involvement with CrossFit in 2003, and was a member, trainer, and manager of CrossFit Long Beach until 2008 when I returned to my hometown of Rochester, NY.

 

In 2008 I began Wolf Brigade, and we have been expertly training people of all walks of life and fitness levels every day since.

 

During my time in Long Beach, I developed relationships with many involved in the CrossFit brand, and began a friendship with Greg Glassman. That led to a “partnership” based on my idea of providing a one-stop-shop for affiliates to receive world-class artwork and garment printing, and the ability/ option to showcase them for worldwide purchase on a website called, at the time, crossfitshirts.com.

 

We had a small but very high-quality printing business in Rochester, I loved CrossFit- especially the affiliates- and wanted to both help them and be more involved. I presented the “CrossFit Shirts” project at an affiliate gathering in 2007 to very positive response, and we were off and running.

 

The project was a big hit. CrossFit branded merchandise had never looked better, and affiliates were benefiting from our high level of expertise in art direction and graphic design.

 

The crossfitshirts.com platform was fun, exciting, and mutually beneficial; CrossFit received a percentage of everything sold, as did the affiliates we worked with, and it expanded quickly.

 

Between 2007 and 2009, Greg and I became friends (or, at least, that is what I believed), and I felt no overt reason to pump the brakes on development of our combined projects. We expanded the print shop, hired talented staff, and rose to the growing occasion. During that time, Greg would routinely call to talk about his life, marriage, business struggles, and also routinely invited me to his house in Arizona, on various CrossFit-related trips, etc. I appreciated though seldom accepted, because we were neck-deep in working on both the gym, and developing our “partnership”.

 

My mistake, was in assuming a handshake “contract” meant the same to others as it meant to me.

 

In 2009, with our coordinated projects in full swing, I was called out of the blue- first, by a hard- talking lackey of Greg's, and then, by a smarmy and stylized CrossFit lawyer. Both were tasked with delivering the message that, effective immediately, we were no longer permitted to use the CrossFit name without affiliate-specific branding, and much more seriously- that

the crossfitshirts.com site was to be handed over to them immediately.

 

Without overplaying the hand, it felt like a bad joke. We have always struggled- I have been working in and running small, high-quality businesses for over 25 years, and we were finally on to something that was growing, and fully in our wheelhouse.

 

I did everything I could to figure out what was truly happening, Greg would not return calls, texts, or emails, and I was eventually given the “option” to haul all remaining softgoods to another affiliate event in Austin, Texas, and attempt to sell them off. Having sold shirts at shows and events since I was a young teenager, I knew exactly how that would go, (poorly), but had no other option. After paying shipping for the garments, and my travel, and selling less than ½ of what we brought, at less than ½ the prices we usually charged, I had lost several thousand dollars.

 

This was around the same time that poor decision-making, ego-based leadership, and shortsightedness drove off some of the most progressive, endearing, and well-respected minds in CrossFit, including Robb Wolf, James “OPT” Fitzgerald, and Greg Everett- three people that I have respected since first exposure and whose positions I took very seriously. I knew then, even though I was very much in the fringes in comparison to those three, that our “partnership” was truly over; I had been deemed expendable or worse, and we had to act accordingly.

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