#I’ve had not even a draft but a banner & a concept sitting in my drafts for like over a year at this point

[sadisticyouko]

all I’m saying is … kurama has impeccable vampire vibes & one day I’ll get off my ass & write it ❤️

[katnissmellarkkk]

Summary: At the Seventy-Fourth Reaping for The Hunger Games, volunteering is outlawed, thanks to a tribute four years prior. Because of this, when Katniss’ sister Prim’s name is chosen from the bowl, there’s nothing she can do but hope that Peeta Mellark, past victor and now Prim’s mentor, can somehow bring her sister home alive. (Obviously heavy on Everlark.) 

AN: Hi! I don’t really have a big author’s note or anything--at least, I don’t think I do? We’ll see how long this trails on--but this is one of the fics I’ve been working on for a while. It’s multi-chaptered so there’s gonna be a lot more coming in the future, but this first chapter is honestly a little similar to the original book, with some (significant) deviations here and there, but after this first chapter, this story becomes extremely different from canon. I gotta thank, obviously, @rosegardeninwinter​ for a). making me my pretty lil banner and for b). reading the million, unpolished, unedited screenshots of my drafts that I’m sure ya’ll got tired of really quick. And also for encouraging me to write this in the first place. And also, I gotta thank everyone who liked and reblogged the lil story edit I posted months ago for this concept. It really encouraged me to write this concept out. (I’m talking about this edit right here if you forgot or never saw x). Okay, anyways, I’m talking too much but thank you! Also link to this story on AO3 [x].

Chapter One :

I stare out into the sky, introspective, as I wait for familiar footsteps to approach. The footfalls of my hunting partner, my friend even, Gale, still remain absent, despite our longstanding agreement to hunt on Reaping Day, no matter how hot it is, or how scarce the game, or how worried we may be deep inside.

Of course, how could a couple kids from the Seam not worry about Reaping Day? At least a slight bit, deep down?

Reaping Day. The day that decides the almost absolute fate of a lucky—as our assigned escort, straight from the Capitol itself, so proudly proclaims—boy and girl.

We're District Twelve. The smallest and one of the poorest districts in the country of Panem. There's an almost guarantee that whoever gets their name picked from the reaping bowl, even the strongest eighteen-year-old boy in the district, will have an almost sure fate of death. Likely before the number of tributes drops below twenty.

Tributes from our district almost never fare well inside the arena.

Almost never.

We have had a few winners in history, two of which are still around, but a few out of seventy-three games isn't inspiring much hope in anyone today.

The wind breezes against my arms, prickling the hair at the back of my neck, and I'm struck by the memory of being out here, in the forbidden territory of the woods, outside our district limits, when I was just a kid. When my dad was the one hunting and I was just along for the ride. Just along because I wanted to be with him. When I used to blindly trust him and my mother, when I thought he'd live forever, when I was too young to truly grasp the concept of the Hunger Games. When I was too young to truly grasp the concept of the world in which we live.

When I was eleven my every illusion was shattered violently. Almost as violently as the death in which my father must have endured, underground in those mines, as they exploded.

I remember hearing the alarm at school, blaring so cacophonously over the speakers that it shook the schoolrooms themselves. I remember blindly grappling through the scurrying bodies of my classmates, until I found my way to my little sister, Primrose. Her room was completely empty, but she still remained, sitting behind her desk with small folded hands, waiting for my arrival with excessive patience.

I'd always coached her on what we'd do, if there ever should be a mine accident. I made sure she knew the drill, just as I knew it. Like the back of my hand. Like a prayer or a lullaby. I could recite it in my sleep. Because my father had just as sternly instilled it into me.

I wove my way through the chaos of bodies and white-hot panic, towing Prim only inches behind me by the hand, as the kids from town lingered in the hallways, their classic, bright blue eyes large and their voices all quivering, and as the kids from the Seam dutifully made their way to the nearest exits, hoping and praying and begging silently that it wasn't their parent who had been hurt. Hoping the accident hadn't taken what was typically the sole provider in most households, here in the poorest section, in the most impoverished district.

Prim and I must have not hoped hard enough, because we learned almost immediately upon finding our mother, who was now immobilized with grief, her characteristic gentle smile eviscerated and in it's place, a blank stare, void of any life at all, that our every fear from hearing that alarm were coming true.

My mom was supposed to get a job. She was supposed to find a way to provide for us, to take care of her two daughters, who were grieving her husband just as much as she was.

But instead she lay in bed day after day. On the good mornings, maybe if Prim begged and pleaded, she'd move to a chair, in front of the fireplace and stare at the flames with the same vacant expression that had replaced the loving, kind woman who'd raised us.

The money from the government, the minuscule amount of money given to keep us afloat until our mother found work, ran out. The meat our father had hunted, the plants he'd saved, ran out. The food we had the small luxury of sometimes buying—or more times than not, trading for—quickly ran out.

And our mother still did absolutely nothing.

I take a deep breath now and try to force myself to forgive her. Forgive her for not being strong enough to keep going, forgive her for not caring enough about her own children to keep them alive in the face of her grief, forgive her for being so in love that losing my father had almost killed her too.

I know it's what my father would want. And I know it's something I can't let myself do. Because if I let her off the hook, it's like saying it's okay that she almost let Prim wither away to nothing. Forget me. I will never forgive her for almost taking my little sister away from me.

Our mother did absolutely nothing until Prim's ribs were prominent, until my stomach was nearly hallow, until our cheekbones were so blatantly obvious you could count them from down the road.

And all my fears, all my resolve, to keep the three of us together as a family, went out the window. There was nothing left to do, but wait for me and Prim to be taken to the Community Home, with the other orphans or kids from unsafe families. Kids who still remained too thin, who's eyes told stories no ear wanted to hear, who still wore bruises upon their skin like freckles from the sun, who looked nearly worse than the corpses I encountered every winter, while walking from the Seam to town. Those corpses were the unlucky ones who'd actually starved to death, who had sat down to merely rest, because they had no substance to carry them any further, and somehow never got back up.

On that day, at eleven years old, living in the Community Home sounded no worse than living with the immobilized shell that had once been my mother. My resolve to hold out until my birthday, until I could get the tesserae that would feed my family for an entire year, was shattered by the harsh raindrops pelting me from the grey, unforgiving sky.

I vaguely heard the baker's wife, the mean-spirited woman, with her deeply embittered, hostile blue eyes that somehow seemed black, scream at me, calling me names, shooing me from her property.

I'd simply wanted to rummage her trashcan, so desperate for any small morsel to take back to Prim, any motivation to take even another step forward, when I felt her rough and calloused hands shove me away.

I toppled over, my legs already weak and shaky from lack of nutrition and substance. My depleted form laid on the ground, my eyes bleary from exhaustion and the shivering wind and rain.

The witch went back inside the bakery as I scarcely conjured up the will to sit upright. I was beyond done. The fighting to even gain a fraction of my mother's awareness, to get something, anything, to feed myself and my starving sister, to even stand up, became overwhelming and I felt the last bit of my resolve crumble from deep inside.

Let them come and take me and Prim to the Community Home. I don't care any longer. Let them come.

Out of the corner of my eye, a boy exited out the same backdoor the witch had gone through. He was carrying a bag of trash in his hands and my famished mind focused on that first, focused on what could be inside the contents of that bag, on what a baker could potentially be throwing away, before I realized the boy was in my year at school. I knew him, or at least, I knew his face. But he stuck with the other blonde-haired, fair-skinned town kids and I didn't even remember his name in that moment.

In hindsight, that's absolutely hysterical now.

But he evaporated as soon as he'd appeared and I closed my eyes and let the rain drown me, hoping perhaps I could be swallowed up within the downpour itself. Hoping that perhaps I'd never have to face the reality that I was out of options and I had nothing of subsidence to take home.

But then I heard a clatter and a clang and the sound of a scream. It was her, the witch. She was screaming and calling someone names my own mother had never even uttered in my lifetime.

I mentally prepared myself for her to come back outside, to drive me away with a stick or a knife. Or possibly even a hot, scorching prong.

But it wasn't the witch. It was the boy, the one from my year. The one I thought went back inside after taking out the trash, that I believed didn't even notice me before.

He was carrying bread. Two loaves, in fact. The crusts were black and burned and the welt across his face told me, without a doubt, that he was the target of the witch's insults. That he was the victim of whatever clanging noise I heard.

And though I was the one starving to death, I didn't envy him having her for a mother.

I remember vividly, the most crystal clear image I have of this day, the boy checking and making sure the witch's attention had been claimed elsewhere. And then, without even glancing in my direction, he tossed one loaf of bread to my feet. Seconds later, the other followed.

He didn't hesitate to head back inside after that, and I've spent more time in these last four years than I'd more than likely care to admit, wondering what possessed him to commit such an act of kindness. No one was kind for free, I'd learned by that point.

And yet, as I shook myself forcefully out of my stupor, and carried the loaves back to my house at the edge of the Seam, I had no explanation for his simple act. I had no basis to explain why he would help me, when no one else ever had.

The next day, I saw him at school. I passed by him in the hallway, and saw his eye had now blackened, his cheek welted, but somehow he still managed a joyous smile. He didn't notice me then. He was surrounded by his friends. Like always, he was surrounded by a constant crowd.

He is, after all, one of the most charming and sweet people Panem's ever known.

Later that day, when I was about to walk home with Prim, who was excitedly chattering about the leftover bread awaiting us on the kitchen table, the bread I'd brought home the night prior that had filled our stomachs for the first time in months, I caught the boy looking in our direction. My grey Seam eyes met his baby blues for a microsecond, before he looked away. I snapped my gaze downwards too, embarrassed, when I caught sight of a dandelion.

It was that moment that a bell went off in my head. That I saw how I could survive, how Prim could survive. How, through the things my dad had taught me, I could keep me and my sister alive.

After that day, I could never stop associating the boy with the bread, the one who gave me hope, with the dandelion that reminded me I wasn't doomed.

I never stopped associating him with his simple act of kindness, even when he became famous for some much less appreciable acts.

And I never stopped kicking myself for failing to thank him, for saving my life and my family's life, before he was whisked away, to a land far from Twelve, called the Capitol. When he later returned, now a part of a much more elite social class, thanking him for his kindness became even less of a possibility.

A girl from the Seam had no business seeking out a boy from Victor's Village. Even if I did have the guts.

Though he isn't exactly in good company here in Twelve, seeing as the only other person who holds the same title is a drunken, middle-aged man who can barely form a coherent sentence most days and lives like a hermit by his own volition.

My thoughts are interrupted by the quiet—almost as quiet as mine, but not quite—steps of Gale.

"You're late," I state without turning around, pulling the cheese from my pocket. "You're lucky Prim's cheese held up under the sun."

But Gale pulls something even more impressive from behind his back. "This will probably go nice with it," he says and I almost gasp.

Fresh bread is so rare in our district, generally reserved for the Peacekeepers and perhaps a merchant who is having a good day. Here in the Seam, fresh bread from the bakery is as common as new school shoes.

Gale updates me on his day as we split the bread and cheese and have our own version of a small feast. He'd gotten to the woods early, while I had been still at home, and shot a squirrel to which he traded for the bread.

"The baker really went for that?" I ask in disbelief. The baker was a subdued, large man, who resembled all three of his sons quietly strongly, and was one of my dad's best customers. Sometimes I think he still trades with me and Gale out of respect to my dad's memory, but a simple squirrel for a loaf of fresh bread isn't common.

"I think he was feeling generous this morning," Gale suggests a little snidely, his bitterness leaking through. "Besides. It's not like the Mellark's need the money they ask for bread. They could easily skim off their precious son and he'd probably never notice."

Gale has a special affinity for hating anyone and anything associated even minimally with the Capitol. He was lost his father in the same mine explosion I lost mine in. But whereas I don't let myself get too worked up over the inequities between the town and the Seam, and especially between us all and the victors, Gale takes a special pride in fuming over the things he cannot change.

I don't mind listening usually, since neither of us can speak our minds in public or even within our own homes, out of fear small ears will pick up on our words and repeat them elsewhere. But today, I just don't have the energy to be a sounding board.

Instead I take a segue towards a slightly different topic, but one, without a doubt, weighing on both our minds. "Prim has been having nightmares of the reaping," I murmur solemnly. "She's convinced they're going to call her name."

Gale shook his head, his demeanor becoming more subdued now. "Least Prim's name is only in there once, Catnip. Rory had to take tesserae this year."

I nod silently at that admission, knowing what it must have cost him to even allow his little brother to take additional risks of being called. Knowing it meant his family of five must be even more hungry than he leads on.

We don't say much more after that, only lingering in the woods long enough to catch some additional game from what I've already collected, and hurry back to town to trade.

As we walk back to the Seam, having divided up our goods evenly, Gale murmurs suddenly, "I might be able to stomach the idea of Rory's name being in that bowl six times if we were still allowed to volunteer."

I bypass his words the best I can. I don't want to think about what Gale must be going through, making himself sick with worry, not for himself but for a sibling in which he considers himself responsible for. And, as it happens once in a lucky moon, I feel grateful that my tesserae is still sufficient for a family of three, and I don't have to worry about Prim the same way. Her one entry pales in comparison to the thousands that are piled in that bowl.

Still, the silence between us as we walk is deafening and I can't take it any longer as we come closer to my house. "At least then, you'd get to see the Capitol," I say lightly, as a means to brighten his mood, even just a little.

At that, Gale rewards me with a humorless smirk. "Generous of the president, isn't it? To allow us district people to experience the great Capitol firsthand while they slaughter our family."

And it's true. Just a few years ago, it was allowed to volunteer as tribute in the place of whoever's name got chosen, as long as you were the same gender and between twelve and eighteen on Reaping Day.

But four years ago, when a twelve-year-old boy volunteered for his seventeen-year-old brother, an outrage sparked across the entire country. People are never happy, in any district, to see a twelve-year-old be chosen for the games. They're the youngest, the smallest, the most innocent, and never in history had a single one made it past the Final Fifteen in the games.

So when one volunteered, the country wasn't pleased in the slightest. However, like always, the anger was contained by Peacekeepers in a matter of weeks, and promises came pouring out from the Capitol that a change would be made after the games that year to ensure never again would this situation occur.

And it never again could. Because three days after the Seventieth Hunger Games, President Snow announced that all volunteering, from that point forward, was officially banned.

This new law is even more ironic when you realize that the twelve-year-old volunteer from that year became the youngest victor in the entire history of the games.

Still, I suppose the president was feeling generous that day, and he threw in a bonus treat for us in the districts. Now when someone is chosen from the reaping bowl, though their fate is sealed definitively when their name is uttered, they get to choose one family member to take on the train ride to the Capitol with them, to get a special viewing of the games with the mentors and the sponsors and the past victors, to get to experience the wonder that is the mysterious Candy Capitol firsthand.

However, when all is said and done, twenty-three family members must ride the train home alone to their districts, with their loved one in a casket beside them. The thought chills me to the bone and I shiver as me and Gale wish each other good luck. We probably won't see each other again until it's time for the customary dinner we all try to put on with our neighbors to celebrate, even minimally, that we've survived another year unchosen.

Prim is already wearing my first reaping outfit when I enter the house, though it is a bit large on her. She's slimmer than even I was at Twelve, despite her having months on me when I attended my first reaping.

I get ready quickly, if only because I want to spend time with her before we have to go. I protect Prim in every way I can but I'm powerless against the reaping.

Still, she's only entered once and that's as safe as anyone can get from being chosen. It's almost unheard in the Seam to be that safe from the games.

But my sister never did appear like she fit in here anyway. Her golden blonde hair and sky blue eyes resemble the merchants, not the Seam, and her and our mother stick out like sore thumbs next to our neighbors.

Our mom is restless now, busying herself with preparing the food for our small feast tonight and braiding Prim's hair and then mine.

I still haven't fully forgiven her for leaving us when we needed her most, but I also can't imagine how difficult it must be to have to send both your children off to be potentially chosen for an absolute death. And I let her hug me as I guide Prim out the door.

Attendance is mandatory for all in the district, but the ones viable for being chosen and those just watching don't typically enter together.

I guide Prim by hand into town, the walk feeling longer than it did with Gale. Perhaps it's the trembling twelve-year-old I'm towing, or perhaps I'm more afraid than I'm even admitting to myself.

After all, unlike my sister, I have twenty slips with my name splayed across this year. It's not as a bad as someone like Gale, who has forty-four chances of being called. But it's not as safe as the kids from town, who likely only have to worry about a handful of slips with their names.

Its not that they're rich by any standard, but they get by better than those in the Seam. Even if they're hungry, they're not at risk of starving, and no one is going to sign up for tesserae unless there is no alternative.

A year ago, my mother let it slip once over dinner, just out of the blue really, that my father had always sworn no child of his would be in need of tesserae.

I shake my head, as if to physically rid myself of the reminder. I don't want to dwell on what my father would feel if he were here. I don't want to be reminded how different things would be if he hadn't died.

I help Prim sign in and then drop her off, as gently as I can, with the other girls her age. At the last minute, she pulls on my hand, yanking me back to her with surprising force.

"Prim, I have to go stand with the sixteens," I say as she leans up and kisses my cheek.

"I just wanted to say I love you," she whispers softly, her big blue eyes so terrified, and then she steps back into the crowd of twelves surrounding her.

I sigh softly and give her what I hope is a reassuring smile. She truly is the best of our parents. Kind, smart, level-headed. She's funny and resourceful too, even if she can't take hunting animals herself.

She is the only person I'm certain that I love. And just about the only thing that keeps me going most days.

As I make my way to the sixteens, straightening my mother's dress on my hips, I check the clock. Only five minutes before we start. Before our lovely Capitol escort, Effie Trinket, reads off two names in her distinctive, afflicted accent. Before two kids know they're never coming home again.

This place isn't much. But it is all we've ever known, and no one wishes to leave it.

As more people crowd in, I begin to pick up an excited buzz in the girls surrounding me. Already knowing what I'll see, I crane my neck just the same, to peer up at the stage ahead.

Sure enough, I see exactly what I knew I would.

There's four chairs set up on the stage. One for Effie Trinket, because no one from the Capitol could ever bear to stand for more than three minutes at a time and she must have a seat to relax in before she calls out the names and sends two of us—a lucky boy and girl, as she says it—to the slaughter.

One of the other chairs is occupied by Mayor Undersee. A man who looks like he's been beaten down by life too many times as it is and would rather be anywhere but here. His daughter is my age. She sits with me at lunch, since Gale is two grades ahead of me and we rarely see each other at school. We make polite small talk but other than that, I barely know anything about her, and by association, her father.

However, it's neither of them that's stirring up the buzz within the crowd—admittedly, more so with the female portion of the crowd—and it's definitely not Haymitch Abernathy, who's stumbling on stage right at this moment. He managed to win the Fiftieth Hunger Games and I still can't imagine how. He's a paunchy man my mother's age and he's never sober, on the rare time he's even seen in public. Today is no exception, as he flops onto a chair gruffly, and murmurs something unintelligible with his eyes closed.

No, the murmuring, the now batting eyes and coy smiles, the soft vibrato still traveling within the crowd, are all because of the last guest of honor, walking upon the stage right behind his old mentor.

Peeta Mellark.

Winner of the Seventieth Hunger Games. Youngest ever. District Twelve's first and last volunteer. The twelve-year-old that changed the rules for the entire country.

The youngest mass murderer in history of Panem.

And now one of it's most beloved celebrities.

Peeta is smart—brilliantly smart—and he's always been charismatic. Even at twelve, he had the Capitol audience, as well as every single soul watching on television at home, eating out of the palm of his hand.

It doesn't hurt that at sixteen, he's become quite a looker. His blonde curls, his blue eyes, those long lashes and bubblegum pink lips. His fair, perfect skin that has not a blemish in sight. His toned, muscular body and devastatingly genuine smile that no one can help but fall in love with.

He's also the boy who saved my life. The one who committed the simple act of kindness, knowing it would cost him, to help me.

I never thanked him. And now I never can, as I'm sure he has zero memory of me. After everything else that's happened to him since, after the last four years of living as a Capitol darling, as one of the country's most cherished victors, he'd never remember the starving eleven-year-old he threw some burned bread to in a rainstorm.

But I remember him. I don't know if it's what he did for me that day or what he did for his brother only a matter of weeks later, but something about Peeta Mellark crawled under my skin four years ago and ever since, I've never been able to completely shake the feeling I get inside upon seeing him.

I break my gaze away, refusing to stare at the boy, who I will always accredit as the one who saved my life. I venomously refuse to gawk at him, like every other girl in the district.

He rarely comes out of his house when he's home here in Twelve, and I know the overzealous amount of attention he receives just by going to his parents' bakery has to be at least a part of the reason. Unlike Haymitch, who has lost his clout and his appeal with age and with deterioration, Peeta has only gained more and more notoriety as the years pass by.

You'd be hard pressed to find anyone in Twelve, outside of a few outliers like Gale perhaps, who'd say a negative word about Peeta Mellark.

Of course, rumors about his random and long stretches spent in the Capitol itself are always floating around, no matter what time of year it is, but they don't affect his public persona or anyone's opinion of him. He is, after all, the most valuable figure Twelve has and perhaps the only thing we can take any pride in.

Effie Trinket steps up to the microphone just as I turn my head away from the stage. "Welcome!" She greets, so vivaciously, so brightly, I can't imagine it even resonates in her head that she's just moments away from announcing two of our impending funerals. "Welcome, everyone! To the reaping for the Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games!"

I can't even bear to listen as she prattles on, with too much confidence and dignity for someone dressed in every neon color known to man, speaking in such a peculiar accent, with a thickly painted face that is so blatantly visible to the every eye here today, even in the back row. Doesn't she realize how ridiculous she is to us? Doesn't she realize how wrong it is to preach about the morals and disciplines of the Capitol, in such a prideful voice, when they're the ones about to murder us for entertainment, and in repentance for a long over war that only a few elders can still remember?

As I advert my eyes, my gaze travels once again to the back of the stage, and I'm more than a little surprised to see Peeta Mellark with a similar expression as mine. He, too, is shifting his eyes elsewhere, away from his own escort, looking sick to his stomach.

Of course, it still can't be easy for him, even with his own games four years in the past. He was a literal child when he volunteered and it's fact that he didn't understand what he was getting himself into when he took his brother's place that fateful day. His innocence was stolen as soon as the countdown ended and talk still circulates, even in the Hob, that he wakes up screaming most nights, calling out the names of fallen tributes. Though those words are not given much weight in the Seam, as we all know, people get bored in this tiny district and bored people begin to spew lies whenever encouraged.

Effie continues, in a long overdone mantra, one I could recite in my sleep, the same one she spews every year, that two kids from every district must be chosen to battle to the death in a new and invigorating—one of her favorite words—arena, in order to pay for the blood shed during the rebellion and war, in order to ensure we'll never again even think to rebel.

It would almost be easier to swallow, this whole charade, if the people sent from the strange land of the Capitol would just be honest and blunt with us. If they'd just admit that they see us as lesser than, as animals or beasts of some sort, as less than human beings. It'd be easier if the Capitol spokespeople would just outright say, "we'll take your children, we'll starve your district, we'll ruin your homes, we'll broadcast the deaths of those you love most, all to keep you too powerless to fight. In order to make sure you never are able to stand strong, we have to kick your legs out from under you first."

Instead of being honest though, Effie Trinket is reiterating the Treaty Of Treason, in a tone so serious that it takes all the self-control possible to stop several boys standing in the fourteens from bursting out laughing. Her accent and a serious tone do not mesh well together.

Once she's done though, my heart automatically skips a beat. Because, after four years of standing in this square, I know exactly what's coming. "Ladies first!" Effie announces and I feel a bead of sweat glide down my forehead, both from anxiety and from the overload of heat. Reapings always take place in the start of the hottest month of the year.

Standing in my mother's well-crafted dress, one of the most luxurious pieces of clothing we own, only makes my perspiration worsen, as the dress was clearly made to keep the wearer as warm as possible.

Our district escort makes her way over the bowl containing the names of every girl eligible to be picked in the entire district and I feel myself take in a breath involuntarily.

There's twenty chances she's going to call out my name. Twenty chances I'll be sent to an almost imminent death. Twenty chances Prim will grow into her teen years, and later adulthood, without a sister.

The gut-churning fear I'd repressed all morning, in that moment, overtakes my entire being, curling up like a ball in the pit of my stomach, as I do my best to listen on baited breath, somehow expecting to hear my own name spoken through the raucous microphone for all to hear.

Don't be me, I whisper inside my head, more fearful than I'd ever admit out loud. Don't be me. Please, don't be me.

And, as it turns out, it's not me.

Instead it's the name I never in a million years thought I'd hear. The name I believed to be so safe I didn't even allow myself to worry about her.

"Primrose Everdeen!"

[rpsports]

Maverick Multisport Team: An interview about Coaching and Ironman Training Tools

  Bevin: On today's hot property interview, we're very happy to be able to welcome Chris Hutchens from Maverick Multisport Team to the show. Welcome to the show, Chris.

Chris Hutchens: Thanks Bevin. Appreciate it.

Bevin: We just spoke before the interview and we were talking about how our podcast of light has just been focusing a little bit on the professional ranks and how professionals make money. This being the upsurge in professional Troy teams. We've been talking about BMC recently in Bahrain. You're not quite on those guys' budget levels just yet, but you've been around for a while now. Where did the concept of Maverick Multisports stand?

Chris: Oh gosh. You want the 60-second version or the long version? Which do you want?

Bevin: The long version.

Chris: Long version. Okay. Well, a little backstory on me. I was actually an airline pilot for about five years. When my wife and I had our third child, I ended up leaving Delta to be a stay-at-home dad. After about a year, I got a little stir-crazy. As a former collegiate swimmer and active triathlete, I started in the fall of I guess 2012. Helping out some pros in the sport that were really struggling with getting sponsorships lined up. That's what I went to university for.

I have some experience after college in that market. I stepped in and said, "Hey you're doing this all wrong. [laughs] Let me help. Please let me help you. I don't want to see you banging your head against the wall any longer." I hopped in and I helped three pros that year. It was one of those things where I said, "Hey, I'm not too bad at this. I'm actually having some success at it." That was in 2013, was the first full year that I did that.

From that I jumped in. 2014 is when it really took off. That year I had five pros. I had Matt Hanson on the team. His first year as a professional triathlete, he won Ironman Chattanooga that year and obviously, he's gone on to win Ironman Texas. I think everybody for the most part probably knows who Matt is. I had Amber Ferreira on the team that year. She won Ironman Lake Placid and went to Kona.

That second year, it just went like a rocket ship, and all of a sudden, everybody knew at least who we were as an organization. It just took off. Then last year, well I guess in 2015, we had six pros and we spun off an age group component to give us some additional bandwidth. Last year, it continued to grow with seven pros and 20 age groupers and now here we are.

In 2017, we've signed five pros for 2017 and we've got 48 age group athletes, now that raise for us. It's grown quite a bit from five years ago when I just had three pros and now we've got 53 athletes under the Maverick banner I guess you can say. It's been a fun ride. It's one of those things you can look back and say it like, "Wow. I can't believe where we are." It's just one foot in front of the other.

Bevin: Interesting. Really, really interesting. Would you say that you started off as more of an agent and working with them as individuals? Did it actually get to a point where you started to attract brands to these individuals and thought, "If I can retain all these brands, we may as well create a banner and then bring individual pros under that banner." How did it go from three or four athletes into what is your own brand?

Chris: Actually the name Maverick came from -- I started coaching youth and junior draft legal athletes. Here in the area where I live, I live in Louisville, Kentucky which is home to the Kentucky Derby. I was looking for something that would reflect the area. So horses and maverick and that's where the name Maverick Multisport came around. I started working with these three pros under that same banner and the pro thing really took off. The coach that I was running the junior team with, she moved to Colorado.

At that point I made a decision to say, "Okay. As much as I love coaching the youth and juniors, I'm putting all my chips in with the pros." It was one of those things where I really see a huge advantage being able to go to a company and saying, "I'm bringing to the table five, six, seven professional athletes that are going to have a very uniform look to them. Everybody is on the same bikes, the same wheelsets, the same power meters, wetsuits, everything like that." It gives a very clean look. Obviously if you're a company and obviously you use Polar as an example because Wayne sets this up.

Bevin: Great friend of the show.

Chris: If Polar comes to me, they're obviously a lot -- it's a lot easier for them to activate a relationship with me as one person as opposed to saying, "Okay, Chris. We would much prefer to go out and just find five or six or seven pros on our own." Well that takes a lot more legwork on their end where they can just come to me and say like, "Boom." It's a one-stop shop.

All the sudden, they don't have to worry about the contracts. They don't have to worry about anything else that goes on behind the scenes. It's just basically like, "Chris, we want to work with you guys." You activate the relationship and supply all the content and manage everything on the backside. If I was a company, I think it will be a dream relationship.

Bevin: Did it start like that though? Did you look when you had your first couple of pros and you were looking at them as individuals? Did you immediately into the market with that concept already fully formed?

Chris: No. I just went into the market with I'm going to package everybody under one umbrella as opposed to try and say, "Okay I've got this athlete. What can you do for this athlete, this athlete, this athlete?" I said, "I have a collection of athletes. This is what I wanted to do with them. Can you support these athletes as a single unit?" Fortunately, we had a couple companies that signed on that very first year which allowed it to start that snowball effect.

If that wouldn't have happened then, obviously we probably wouldn't be sitting here. Things worked out that first year and we got some traction. I think once you get a couple big companies signed on board, then the chips just started to fall into place like, "Oh okay. Well, you're working with XYZ company already." That's a pretty reputable brand. You must be doing something right if you already have a relationship with them. It just seemed to work out.

Bevin: Now that you've been doing this for a little bit, what is the sponsorships based like for triathlon? It seems that the budgets are getting a little bit tighter. We've got provisional triathletes that I coach. We talk to professional triathletes who are up and coming in and entering this market. You've just signed a couple of professional triathletes. One who's just entering the 70.3 space coming out of ITU, Dan Wilson who we had on the show a few weeks ago. Do you think that these teams are where most of triathlon is going to end up if you are actually trying to enter in as one of those newer pros?

Chris: If you are new or still relatively -- you're trying to establish yourself in the market, I think that getting onto a team is really and truly the way to go because again not just from a corporate standpoint but from an athlete standpoint if you go to a team, you immediately walk into relationships with bike companies, wheel companies, nutrition companies. You instantly even as an athlete have just a spider webbing reach where -- and then it takes a lot of the pressure of having to develop all these relationships.

I think that's something that certainly you have to do down the road, but if you are like you said Dan Wilson 10 years' racing ITU, coming into 70.3 this year, I think it's a great way for him to segway into non-draft racing. He may be on the team for a year. He may be on the team for five years, who knows, but I think it's a great way for him to get his name out there and step into a situation where he's got a ton of bandwidth behind him; because with 48 age group athletes on the team, all those athletes are obviously going to be following Dan and Clayton and Leslie and John and Rhuidean, all the pros that are on the squad- -and helping to like and re-tweet and follow and just do all the things that go on to help build a brand for them online.

Bevin: When did you decide to deviate into the age group side of things? And I noted from your website that initially you're only looking for a dozen age group for the team, but it's obviously moved out since then because it's successful?

Chris: Yes. I think at the end of the day, this is a business. As a business, you have to look at "Okay, how are we positioning ourselves to make money?" If you go to an Ironman race, a challenge race, 98% of the people on the starting line are age group athletes. How do we tap into that market? How do we leverage that relationship? Best by engaging with the age group athletes as a brand. We started that two seasons ago with six. Last year we had 20 and now we're up to 48.

It allows us to -- as a brand also go to the companies that we've worked with and say -- "The buck doesn't just stop with the five pros that we've worked with. You're also able to tap into and have a trickle down effect with these age group athletes. It's a good relationship. I think it's a win-win-win for everybody. It's a win for the age group athletes. It's a win for the company. It's a win for Maverick as a brand. It's just like a circle. You've got to keep everything going around and you don't want to break the chain. As long as we continue to do that, then I think it continues to work.

Bevin: Okay. Triathletes are trying to make money out there.

Chris: Right.

Bevin: Maverick's is trying to make money. How does it all work in terms of a business model because you're not doing it -- most of us in triathlon are doing it for the love [laughs] including a lot of the pros, but how does the business model actually work, so it serves both the pros and makes a sustainable living for you as a director of the team?

Chris: It's definitely tough. I wouldn't say that anybody is really getting rich off of it. I think we're able to provide a solid level of support for athletes. I think that there's probably 25 or so men and 25 or so women something like that. Really like globally that are able to I would say like this is --

Bevin: Yes. Paying the bills.

Chris: I've been around long enough to know what most people want, what most people are making. Like you said Bevin, I think most people are doing it for the love of the sport. There certainly are people that are making good money doing it. I know that for a fact. I think that we're able obviously to provide a lot of things that would be difficult to go out on your own and get. I don't want to go into it too much because I don't want to get on it all completely. We support the athletes to a degree where they're able to be successful.

Bevin: Also to a point where you see yourself in the market because as I say some of those other brands obviously -- there's no prints giving you --

Chris: On our back pocket of course.

Bevin: And no property you magnate in Europe.

Chris: We're basically in a stage, maybe you'll lose, get a President elect and put him in a pocket or something like that.

Bevin: Get one who's fond of triathlon.

Chris: That's perfect.

Bevin: What's the long-term goal for the team then? Obviously, it's really well established now. It's been running for a longest period of time. It's in that sickened tier of teams but it's successful and you've got some great brands aligned with you. Your job would be to obviously continue to try to expand.

Chris: Yes. Just like any brand, I come to look at it just like you would at any product. How do we make this watch better? How do we make this bike better? How do we make Maverick multi-sport as a brand better. We did that by continuing to recruit better pro-athletes. We try to do that by creating better relationships with the companies we work with. We try to step up to what we're doing from just a content creation standpoint. Because at the end of the day, as maybe shallow as this may sound, all these athletes is just an extension of the marketing departments for these companies. That's what an athlete really has to recognize that.

You're not part of their production. You're not part of their -- maybe sometimes they're indeed, but you're not part of their shipping department, you're not part of their executive department, you are part of their marketing department. We have to find the best and the most creative ways to help these companies market the products that we represent, so that we can provide the best ROI for them. So that when we come back around to the next year to look at contracts, they'll say "Yes. Dollar for dollar you guys gave us the best bang for our buck of anybody that we work with." That's what I've pretty consistently heard across the board.

The only complaint I've ever had from anyone is like "Chris, you gave us too much stuff," [laughs] which is a good thing. I guess our goal is to continue just to grow. Obviously just like any sport, whether if you're playing American football, you want to go to the Super Bowl. If you're playing in the NBA, you want to go win an NBA championship. Or you want to win a World Series in baseball. I think for us as a brand, obviously we want to try to continue to chase championships. 70.3 World's get somebody top 10 in Kona. Obviously podium at Kona maybe in the next two or three years. It's one of those things, it takes some time and it takes proper athlete. It takes at the end of the day money. But I think it's possible. I think we're on our way.

Bevin: One of the things that we've just talked about is actually last week on the podcast is that -- And I've been privy to a couple of contract offers for some of the athletes, my professional athlete that I coaches who sign for a team. There seems to be some push back from some of the brands at the moment as to where the athletes rise. Do you find that the market is Ironman scene trick from a sponsorship perspective? From the brands that you're dealing with? It is about 70.3 Worlds or do you find that it's a little bit more broader than that and the events like in the past we've had Rev3 and we've obviously got challenged and Toughman Tri's trying to establish itself. Or do you feel some pressure from the industry that it has to be 70.3 and Ironman focused?

Chris: I think that obviously Ironman and Ironman 70.3 is -- that's top dog. It probably will continue to be that way for the foreseeable future. I think challenge is second there. Some of the other brands you mentioned Toughman and Rev3, they're great brands. We've got athletes to do those races, but I think that they still need to establish themselves a little bit more. They need to develop those brands. They need to get the following behind them. It's hard to compete with the brand where you got athletes; as soon as they finished the race, the next day are going to tattoo parlors to stamp.

Though you've got people that are so over-obsessed with Ironman, it's hard to get people to get that focus away. I think from an athlete's standpoint though, as far as companies that we work with, I think they prefer Ironman. I haven't really heard anybody say like "You have to do all Ironman races." I think at the end of the day, it's about how you -- if you go and win Challenge Rugby or whatever it may be, I think that at the end of the day, it's how you relay that information and how you take those results and repackage them and then obviously distribute it, and then just really activate that.

I would rather have somebody go and get third place at a race and we really blow the marketing out of the water and really create some buzz around that- -as opposed to go and have an athlete win a race. And then it's just crickets where nobody hears about it. That does nobody any good. I think it's [sic] really falls on the athlete's shoulders how you put a spin on the race result.

Bevin: This year you've got a few new athletes on the team. It's an exciting year for you because there's always going to be athletes who come and go. Say in Dan Wilson's case, his entry to 70.3 race has been actually pretty spectacular today. You've actually maybe signed up someone who could be quite a heavy hitter at 70.3 before the end of the season. Does that excite you with the people that you're working with this year?

Chris: Absolutely. Yes. Like you mentioned Dan, he transitioned after 10 years of ITU racing to 70.3 and goes and wins Noosa, and then -- the world's largest Olympic distance race. And then he follows it up with a win at the Challenge Shepp and Ironman 70.3 Western Sydney. He's into 2016 on fire. I'm excited to see what his -- how 2017 starts. I think as long as he stays healthy and just continues to do what he's been doing, I think he's going to be just fine.

And then, obviously, we brought on Clayton Fettell, another Aussie and he's had a great career over the past few years. Obviously, he's been to Kona and he's got his sight set on Kona this year. He just got married and had a little boy last year. So I think last year was probably pretty busy for him. From a personal standpoint, I think this year, the focus is going to be pretty lasered and dialed in. I expect great things from him this year as well.

Bevin: Well, it looks like -- You never know, Dan sneaks a 70.3 world title, all of a sudden Maverick Multisport is going to be spoken about in the same breath as BMC in Bahrain.

Chris: You never know. You never know. I wouldn't put it past him.

Bevin: No, I wouldn't put it past him either. Anyway, Chris -- Well. Thank you so much for taking some time out this afternoon to have a chat to us about Maverick Multisport. We'll definitely put the links up to your website and Facebook on our show notes. It's exciting to see the team expand and evolve, and we wish you the best of luck for the 2017 season.

Chris: Well, thank you, Bevin. I really appreciate the time. Thanks for having me on today.

- Interview brought to you by Fitter Radio (http://www.fitter.co.nz)  & Chris Hutchens, Maverick Multisport

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