BK CrossFit Gym Owners Take Stance After CEO's Racist Remarks

BROOKLYN, NY – A handful of owners of Brooklyn CrossFit gyms are part of a growing group of business owners nationwide that have ended their affiliation with the brand this week after CrossFit founder Greg Glassman’s racist remarks over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on social media and later in a call with black gym owners.

Glassman resigned from his post with the company on Tuesday after a series of controversial tweets surrounding Floyd’s death appeared on his feed. In addition to the social media posts, CNN reported that Glassman also made insensitive comments on race on a two-hour video call with several owners of CrossFit affiliated gyms and company executives. According to CNN, which obtained a recording of the call, Glassman was asked why the company had not issued a statement on Floyd’s death.

“We’re not mourning for George Floyd,” Glassman said on the call, adding that Floyd’s death while in the custody of Minneapolis police officers had nothing to do with race. “Can you tell me why I should mourn for him?”

Gym owners and coaches were already frustrated with the company's lack of response after Floyd's death, which came while he was in the custody of white police officers on Memorial Day. In the days since, gyms once associated with the brand and that have locations around Brooklyn have quickly distanced themselves from the CrossFit name by changing the names of their facilities and making financial donations to donating to organizations that are working to end police brutality and hold officers more accountable in New York City.

The owners of BK Fit, formerly known as CrossFit Outbreak, which has five Brooklyn locations – including two in black and brown neighborhoods (Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant) – made the decision to rebrand within 48 hours of Glassman’s comments, co-owner Adam Sturm told Patch on Friday. While the coronavirus pandemic and gym closures had already taken a toll on the fitness group’s business over the past 2 ½ months, Glassman’s comments led to even more issues and forced Sturm and his business partner, Shimi Litkowski, to re-evaluate and take action.

Sturm said that as outcry from CrossFit owners came for the company to respond publicly to Floyd’s death, he fears the response from himself and Litkowski likely also came too late. Glassman’s comments made things worse, he said.

“We needed to move away from it,” Sturm said in a telephone interview. “While the methodology and the movement and the style is really amazing and people see great benefits out of it, what’s not good is the stigma associated with the name (CrossFit).

“So for us, when Glassman’s comments came, it was really a no-brainer for us. We knew we couldn’t be associated with that.”

Other local fitness centers formerly affiliated with CrossFit announced they would be making name changes. CrossFit South Brooklyn announced on social media it would end its affiliation with the brand after 13 years and saying that the company’s leadership’s values are no longer in line with their own and that the “self-inflicted damage is essentially (unrepairable). Owner David Osorio is among those who have contributed to the cause by making donations to The Movement For Black Lives and Make The Road New York.

BK Fit recently made a $1,500 donation to Communities United for Police Reform and has made a commitment to the hiring of more black and brown coaches at its studios. While Sturm and Litkowski don’t feel like it’s their place to become involved in political movements, recent events have forced them to think about their company’s role in the community.

Since the coronavirus pandemic forced gyms across the country to close, BK Fit has offered 20 park classes per week across Brooklyn, including in neighborhoods like Williamsburg, Bed-Stuy and Clinton Hill as it strives to provide a safe and inclusive environment for people to work out.

“We don’t want to be in front of political issues, but we need to support our community and we need to support our members,” Sturm said. “For that reason, we do raise our hand, and say, ‘these are our values and this is what is important.’”

One of BK Fit's part-time coaches, Chimene Okere said that while he found Glassman's comments jarring and deeply disrespectful, the former executive's stance hasn't compelled him from stepping away from his part-time coaching job. Okere remains employed on a full-time basis, which hasn't put him in the same precarious position as other fitness coaches. But because of the satisfaction that comes from helping clients achieve their fitness goals, he remains dedicated to the job without associating with the stance of the company's brass, which continues to anger Okere.

"I didn't mourn CrossFit, but it was definitely a sense of betrayal in a lot of ways," he told Patch Friday.

"(CrossFit) is a more holistic approach to fitness and health. I believe that and preach that and here, to see the leadership of the organization so quickly disregard a well-documented health risk that is systemic racism and the health risk that is the interaction police have with people of color and to first be silent on that and then for leadership to make light of that in that regard is both confusing...and deeply disrespectful to the folks they assume to care about the health of."

While several gyms have stepped away from affiliations, others are in the process of deciding what’s next. Maillard Howell, the owner of Dean CrossFit (formerly CrossFit Prospect Heights) said Friday that Glassman’s comments spurred a series of meetings among his partnership group of how to respond.

Howell told Patch as a coach who attended last year’s CrossFit Games in Madison, Wis., he knows what it is like to be the minority in what is otherwise a vast majority of white gym owners and athletes. So when Glassman’s comments made their way to the surface, Howell said he wasn’t necessarily surprised by his lack of response to Floyd’s death, but that it cause he and his colleagues to take a look at their affiliation with CrossFit and ultimately decided not to renew its license with CrossFit when it expires later this summer.

Locally, however, his gym’s reputation is not representative of Glassman’s feelings. The gym has been in Prospect Heights since 2014 and has always been known, Howell said, as a place where are all welcomed and respected. Members and coaches from his gym have been regular participants in Brooklyn’s Pride Parade for the past several years and have taken part in peaceful protests since Floyd’s death. So, he said regardless of what happens with its affiliation to CrossFit, the way his fitness center goes about its business will not change.

“(Glassman’s comments) seemed very much intentional and as a result, the brand is tarnished,” Howell said in a telephone interview Friday.

“But we are Brooklyn – very diverse. We’re all shapes, all colors, all genders, all sexualities and so our (reputation) in the community for the past six years has always been one of equality and that has been reflected in our membership, it’s been reflected in our longevity.”