The B.A.A. at 125

The Boston Athletic Association (B. A. A. ) was established in 1887 and is one of the oldest sports organizations in America. It’s best known today for its signature annual event, the Boston Marathon, which is the third-largest marathon and attracts tens of thousands of participants and worldwide media coverage. The B. A. A. has also been amazingly prescient in anticipating what would become one of the major social trends of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries: the modern fitness movement. Consider some B. A. A. ’s firsts: Nine out of fourteen members of the US team participating in the modern Olympic Games in Athens (1896) where B. A. A athletes. The B. A. A launched the first US marathon, the Boston Marathon, in 1897.