Note: This piece is published in Volume 26, now available
Banner photo of the author by Nikki Smith
The question of what defines a professional climber is more than an intellectual exercise. I truly believe that question, and its answer, holds the future of climbing. To remain sustainable, our sport has several challenges ahead, many of which stem from how difficult it is to understand climbing. It’s tough to learn how to be a climber, and it’s tough to understand how the sport is organized. Even the grading scale can be confusing. On top of that, there are many types of climbing (and many types of climbers) yet little in the way of organized leagues and events.
With all these questions, it makes sense that separating pros from amateurs is tough. After all:
There are pro climbers who push the limits of athleticism and those who used to do so.
There are pro climbers with large followings and those with no social presence at all.
There are pro climbers who focus on the community and those who focus on performance.
And there are pro climbers who contribute locally and those who do so globally.
I think a variety in the “type” of professional athletes our sport has is a good thing. We even have well-known athletes who may not be pushing the pinnacle of climbing grades but have the media savvy to soak up some spotlight and spread their influence upon the sport. Now, though I think diversity of athletes is a good thing, I also think these pros’ contributions get devalued by the ambiguity of what makes them “pros” in the first place. We also have a second challenge we face with our pros: They’re pretty damn homogenized. Most pro climbers are either white, male, or both. (Of course, it’s not inherently bad to be a white man, but I’m sure some will twist my words to say that.)
While it’s difficult to track demographics because there’s no roster to consult, one can get a sense of how homogenized climbing is simply by looking at the covers of every Reel Rock film to date. While not every cover is a white man, it’s much easier to count which ones aren’t. Of course, this isn’t unique to climbing. Like many fringe activities, climbing’s community is a product of its inaccessibility. And when the same type of people tend to find an activity, the stereotype becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; that’s how you get to “climbing is crazy white people shit.” Climbing also, like many fringe activities, has an old guard that is resistant to change. People like this will often decry any change as destructive to the sport’s “core values.”
But I would argue clarity for our sport is a core value. Clarity is a sign of respect to our athletes, who dedicate their lives to climbing. It’s a sign of respect for the rock and all it’s given us weirdos who climb on it. Athlete diversity is not a box to be checked but an asset to a well-rounded, sustainable sport. So as we develop climbing from the top down and the bottom up, clarity and diversity must be equal priorities.
We as a community must address these challenges to ensure climbing does not become a marble monolith, white and unchanging, that will eventually get swept up in slews of executive orders seeking to turn nature havens into fracking fields. And yes, I do believe that starts by answering what defines a “professional climber.” If we define pros, we’ll have clear expectations of what it is we’re standing for: who and what gets support and why. We can more easily hold institutions (and athletes) accountable to standards of conduct. We can get support to more professional athletes than the fortunate few and stop companies from favoritism. Undefined concepts are unregulated, and with a lack of regulation and standards comes exploitation.
Perhaps the best place to start defining pros is to think about how we define climbing itself. Climbing, at its core, is all about leaving behind the norm for something new. It is something that champions the unknown. That’s part of why I and so many others love it. The role that climbing plays in our lives is part sport, part art, part community, part self-discovery. And I think that variance is precisely what makes the sport so amazing. But the sad truth is our sport’s representatives come from a small pool of people, based on dubious criteria.
Many might say professional climbers are defined by their athletic accomplishments, and that’s somewhat correct. It’s true that on the surface, at least nominally, elite performance is the de facto trait. But then, why are there so many exceptionally strong climbers who aren’t pros?
For most sports, the best athletes are literally “leagues” ahead of any amateur. So why can some average Joes in the gym outclass professional climbers? I mean, 5.14- isn’t even considered elite by many climbers anymore, which is still wild to me. But if I were at Miguel’s, I could throw a Nalgene and probably hit someone who’s sent Omaha Beach (5.14a).
Of course, not every climber is at that level. But the average person who casually plays, say, American football, would be in mortal peril on an NFL field. And the average hooper is not going to be able to play three-on-three with people like Giannis or Curry. As someone who’s spent my life playing, coaching, and working in sports of all types, climbing is the only one where I’ve noticed the greatest athletes are not always professionals but oftentimes everyday people.
For the record, I love that our sport’s not limited in that way. I think athletic ability shouldn’t be the sole factor of becoming a professional climber. But even if I liked that way of defining pros, climbing does a pretty bad job of sticking to that standard. If we look at climbing from a strictly athletic perspective, there is a clear disconnect between performance and resource distribution. Stranger still, some of those “everyday people” who are elite climbers (including ones that I know personally) often want to be pros but describe a silent, grueling grind with little to no help for their goals.
Meanwhile, our discourse centers on the same select few pros: chronicling their crusades and indulging their ideas. Our sport supposedly prizes prowess above all else, but no other sport that cares about performance diverts resources in this way; typically, the top-performing athletes get the best pay, the most opportunities, and so on. In the NFL, Rex Grossman never got paid more than Tom Brady because, in the NFL, performance is the top priority for pros.
Climbing seems to operate on a “one and done” philosophy for pros: If you do one great accomplishment, you’re a professional athlete for life. There is no retirement for pro climbers, no proverbial hanging of their jerseys from the rafters, and no change in how much we focus on their actions. This brings up yet another issue: Once you hit a certain stature in the climbing world, we’re happy to film you doing, well, whatever you want. How does that make sense if cutting-edge performance is the goal?
Michael Jordan is arguably the best basketball player ever. But the NBA today does not still exclusively talk about him. We might get the occasional “flu game” callback, but they’re not forsaking the future in favor of the past. MJ’s not trotting onto the court during All-Star Weekend; we’re seeing the NBA’s current best athletes. And fans aren’t watching MJ warm up for a pickup game at his house; they’re watching the latest blazing teams like OKC and the Pacers, historically “smaller” teams, go on incredible championship runs. I would even argue the NBA is headed for a new age, where teams aren’t built around superstars but a team of rockstars who synergize well…but that’s a whole other article.
I don’t think all of our climbing films need to be about training hard and sending—quite the opposite. There is so much about this sport that’s amazing. And that’s why it’s frustrating for me to watch our content repeat the same tired thesis, whether it’s performance based or not. But a lot of climbing media doesn’t actually prioritize performance…at least, not in the way other sports do. We instead insist on highlighting the same climbers, regardless of what or how they’re contributing to the sport right now.
I think part of why this hasn’t changed goes back to the “old guard.” Climbers often have knee-jerk reactions to any professional that doesn’t look like what they’ve come to expect. And ironically, when diverse individuals are included (read: Black women), the default complaints center on their…athletic ability? The claims of “fraud” often center their hardest sends, yet this is not a concern for other pros who occupy the spotlight despite not pushing grades.
Many climbers treat any nonwhite professional as a checkbox for social points, regardless of what they’ve accomplished. And the community often attacks these climbers’ credibility, worthiness, and even question whether they’ve climbed as hard as they say they have.
Many of my nonwhite pro-climber friends receive regular backlash, both in public discourse and private messages. Their social media feeds run amok with whataboutism and straw man arguments, racism and misogyny, often with the disclaimer of “being a leftist” or other virtue signals. This not only says the quiet part out loud but expresses climbing’s clear issue with homogenization: Much of the community sees anyone different as abnormal and thus a threat to their idea of what climbing “used to be” or “should be.”
We don’t get different athletes because climbing doesn’t want different athletes. Our culture’s rigidity to change is in stark contrast with our supposed core value of embracing the unknown.
Currently, climbing culture sends a mixed message: Both anybody and nobody can become a professional climber. Anybody can be one as long as they get into the club, and nobody can be one if our culture says they’re unworthy. It’s shockingly easy to dismantle a climber’s ascent to professional status. All you have to do is not give them resources—or in the case of minority athletes, throw their credibility up for debate and watch the community eat their young.
You could argue that professional sports are just like that in general, a ruthless, dog-eat-dog world, and you’d be somewhat right. But climbing has a unique disregard for merit when that merit challenges cultural norms. In our sport, if you don’t fit the mold or just don’t know the right people, you’re already out, whether you’re an elite athlete or not. Similarly, once you’re a “made man” in the pro sphere, you’re a pro for life, whether you’re an elite athlete or not.
It’s clear that today’s “definition” for pro climbers is a nonsolution—one that’s quite easy for corporations, climbing gyms, and entertainment outlets to exploit. So, what’s the alternative?
Climbing has a chance to break the mold of professional athletes—and it already has, albeit by accident. By having such ambiguous criteria for “pro climbers,” we’ve created a sport where not every athlete has to focus on achieving the pinnacle of performance, and I think that’s a great thing. After all, professional athletes lead in more spaces than the wall. They can push our sport in the community, on Capitol Hill, or on their public platforms.
Part of me wonders if we could have different levels or classifications for pros who focus on different aspects of climbing…but I worry that this setup would create the same problem. My guess is that the “pushing grades” pros would get all the money and support while the “impacting community” pros would be left to fend for themselves yet again.
Perhaps the answer is to incentivize different types of contributions: Help people help people, so to speak. If the community rewards all forms of contribution, not just sending hard, I bet we’d see more aspiring pros who seek a variety of goals, including performance. On the other hand, it’s possible we might accidentally create perverse incentives that make things worse in ways we couldn’t have predicted.
Regardless which path we take, there is no silver bullet for these challenges. But I do think in any path forward, our sport needs to be held accountable for how it distributes resources. Since there isn’t a universal professional league for climbing and there’s currently no clear way to track athlete rankings (except maybe 8a.nu, but that system has its own flaws), we largely label pros based on visibility and their sponsorships—both of which come from corporations. (Talk about perverse incentives.)
I hear all the time about how small the sport is and how finite our resources are. But climbing is not small anymore. We can literally watch its ascent, both in participants and in revenue growth. Gyms and outdoor companies are allowed to play as mom-and-pop shops when it benefits them, while raking in millions and putting profits behind, whatever and whoever they want. Even if what they tell us were true and resources were scarce, that’s not an excuse for exploiting athletes and cultural hiveminds for corporate profit.
Athletes deserve security in their work just as much as any job. They, like any employee, also deserve clear guidelines and expectations: contracts, health benefits, and everything else that comes with a career. When the NFL needs new players, there’s a combine, a formal draft, and public contract negotiations. The NFL is certainly not perfect, but it’s surprisingly egalitarian in how it distributes resources across the league. Pro climbers should be given that level of respect from our industry, and in return they should give their work that same level of respect.
Another benefit of having a standardized “anointing” process for our pros would be creating a more diverse, well-rounded group of professional athletes overall. This is not just about diversity in race or gender but also in skill sets and contributions to the sport. Anyone who’s heard me talk about routesetting teams before knows the “Justice League” analogy I use to describe building a great team. That sort of thinking can apply to pros too: A healthy ecosystem of athletes requires a wide variety of skills, specialties, and abilities. We don’t need seven Supermans to get a cat out of a tree, and none of those Supermen would be helpful when a shipping train full of kryptonite derails. The Justice League exists the way it does because everyone on the team helps balance things out—different approaches for different challenges—and in the process, they all make each other better.
Silly analogies aside, I would like to leave you, my community, with two questions:
How can we hold the sport of climbing to a higher professional standard?
I believe we need the organizations of our industry to be more transparent, accountable, and deliberate when they choose who and what to support. That said, I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all solution for how companies go about supporting athletes. It’s going to look different depending on what that company does, how big it is, and a million other factors. But transparency and accountability should always be a part of their process. Secondly:
How do we want to define professional athletes in our sport?
I would love to see a world where pro climbers get sufficient support for what they give to our sport, whether that’s on a rock face, in the hold room, at team practice, or in the community. I want our great community accomplishments to get as much attention as great athletic accomplishments. I want elite athletes to be professional climbers, but I also want guides to be professional climbers. I want routesetters to be professional climbers. I want coaches to be professional climbers. And I want community leaders to be professional climbers.
But my goal here isn’t to be prescriptive about how we define professional climbers. I’m merely proposing our current methods—shrouded ambiguity and ad hoc systems—encourage abuse, nepotism, and boys clubs that are resistant to the winds of change. So let’s find a better way.
Devin Dabney is a freelance writer, music producer, and community organizer from the Midwest who loves challenging cultural norms as much as he loves being outdoors. He is currently working alongside The Zine to produce their next mixtape.
