October 11, 2025 • 26 mins
The Sounds of Film presents an inspiring conversation with Perri Peltz, the award-winning filmmaker behind She Runs the World, which is featured at the Port Jefferson Documentary Series.
The film tells the electrifying true story of Allyson Felix, the most decorated track and field athlete in Olympic history, who risked her career to fight for what she knew was right.
At the height of her fame, Felix became pregnant and discovered that Nike—her longtime sponsor—planned to slash her pay by nearly 70%. Refusing to accept unequal treatment, she took her story public, helping to spark industry-wide reforms that improved maternity protections for female athletes. Her decision to walk away from Nike and create her own sneaker brand designed for women’s feet made headlines around the world.
She Runs the World offers an intimate look at Felix’s evolution from athlete to activist and entrepreneur. Through never-before-seen archival footage spanning three decades, the film explores her faith, her family, and her unyielding belief that success should never come at the cost of equality.
The Sounds of Film is the nation’s longest-running film and music-themed radio show. For over 35 years, host Tom Needham has been providing in-depth conversations with legendary directors, composers, actors, and cultural icons. The show has featured guests such as Howard Shore, Billy Joel, Laurie Anderson, Jordan Peele, Nile Rodgers, and Chuck D, exploring the creative intersections of film, music, and social impact.
For more information, visit soundsoffilm.com
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Hi, this is Tom Needham and you're listening to the sounds
of film today. We're very excited to have on
the program one of the film makers of She Runs the World,
Perry Peltz. It's a powerful new documentary
featured at the Port Jefferson Documentary Film Series.
The film follows Olympic champion Allison Felix as she
(00:22):
challenges Nike and the sports industry to protect mothers and
female athletes, turning her fight for fairness into a
movement for equality. Perry, thank you so much for
joining us on The Sounds of Filmtoday.
Thank you so much for for havingme and for talking about She
runs the world. It's a it's a treat.
(00:43):
Well, I I should mention you arenot the only film maker
responsible for this film. Who else is?
So Matt O'Neill is my film making partner and unfortunately
right now he is stuck on a trainsomewhere between Brooklyn and
Manhattan but and is sorry that he can't be here but he is my Co
(01:04):
director on She Runs the World. OK, well we're very happy to
have you here. How did the two of you get
interested in making this film in the first place?
It's such a good question, Tom. We were at A at a conference and
we heard Allison speak in conversation.
She was in conversation with herbrother Wes, who is also her
(01:26):
manager, her best friend. And we're listening to this
story and thinking, how is it possible that we have never
heard this before? And during this whole time
listening to her talk, I'm thinking, we've got to get this,
we've got to make this documentary.
We've got to make this documentary.
So after the, the the conversation was over, we went
(01:48):
and, and spoke to them and they were they Wes and Allison both
said that they weren't particularly interested in
making a documentary, but as good journalist, we kept bugging
them and eventually talked them into taking taking their chances
with us. And I have to say, I feel I
always feel privileged in the stories that we get to tell, but
(02:13):
fell so deeply in love with bothof them and just so gratified to
be able to to tell their story. I'm actually kind of fascinated.
I speak to a lot of documentary film makers and being able to
make the film in the 1st place, you know, going up to a subject
and asking them is very tough. It's, it's kind of mysterious
how it happens sometimes. And you said that you were
(02:36):
persistent. Can can you just give me an
example of the technique that you used?
Because you got her to say yes, which is a big deal.
So may we switch the word persistent to just plain out
annoying? How about that for a tactic?
I it's, it's a great question. And I think in general, when it
(03:01):
comes to asking, talking people into telling their story, that
is a hard thing to to to sort ofgive your life story over to two
strangers. You've never met them.
And they're saying, Hey, give usyour story, we're going to tell
it. And you don't have any right to
(03:21):
change that story, right? We because that was, you know,
we, we were really clear that wefelt that they could have, you
know, they could have input, they could screen the film
before it went, you know, beforeit was distributed, but
basically that they would not have final cut on this.
And there Allison, and you can see this in the film.
(03:43):
Allison is very much a person who is quiet, thoughtful and not
somebody who would be comfortable opening her life in
in a significant way. Now people might say, well, she
did lots of press. Yes, she did.
But opening up your story, telling your story is a
(04:04):
documentary, as we know is a very different thing.
And I we really, what wound up happening is we, we first got
them to agree to look at films that we had, other films that we
had made. And then we got them to agree to
talk to us after they screen thefilms.
And then we just kept talking with them.
(04:24):
And eventually they said, OK, we're, we're in.
And once they were in, they weretotally committed to the
project. And it felt like the entire way
through that we were a team working to tell this story.
And you know, it's just, it was,it was a wonderful experience.
(04:48):
Perry, can you just give our listeners just a little summary
of who Allison is for, just in case there's someone out there
who doesn't know her? Yes, absolutely.
I'll give you Allison one O 1. Allison Felix is the most
decorated track and field athlete ever in history in the
world. More than Hussein Bolt, more
(05:10):
than Carl Lewis. She started running when she was
very young. She went she went pro when she
was very young, before she went to college.
And this is the story of what happened.
She starts to win all of these Olympic medals and she becomes
the, you know, the, the, the most incredible runner and then
(05:33):
she gets pregnant and her world goes upside down.
At the time, she was in her early 30s, which is the end,
coming towards the end of a, of a career in running.
And what she would see with all of her colleagues is that when
they became pregnant, they wouldhide their pregnancy because
(05:56):
there were no pregnancy protections from the sneaker
companies that were their sponsors.
And that is a whole long conversation that I won't get
into about why that was. And so when Allison got
pregnant, she was in contract negotiations with Nike that
we're not going well in spite ofher incredible success and in
spite of being the most forward facing female athlete at the
(06:18):
time for Nike. She basically said to them she
she was hiding her pregnancy andthen she was in contract
negotiations. And then she told Nike that she
was pregnant. And she basically said to them
that either they gave her pregnancy protections or she was
going to walk. And eventually they offered them
(06:41):
to her, but not the rest of the team.
And she said it has to be for the team or it doesn't work.
And so she left. And eventually Nike came around.
They did the right thing. They gave pregnancy protections.
But at that point, Allison decided not to sign the contract
and to go out on her own. And the story really starts in
(07:06):
in so many ways starts there about the challenges she faces
trying to go out on her own and run one final Olympics.
And I think, Tom, that's a good place to leave it because
otherwise I'll, I'll, I'll be a spoiler alert.
Yeah, I'll try not to spoil anything.
I I do want to talk about some of the things though that you
(07:27):
mentioned. OK, of course.
So, man, she was an incredible star and I, I was unfamiliar.
I, I mean, I knew of her, but I,I didn't know to the extent all
the records that she broke and all the medals that she won.
So, so it's pretty incredible that she was that accomplished
(07:49):
and then still ran into this issue with Nike.
For for people that maybe don't understand the whole issue from
I know you don't agree with Nike, but what would Nike's
argument be back then about about not wanting to pay?
If they gave a big endorsement contract to a female athlete?
(08:10):
Why from their point of view, would they have a condition in
there that if someone got pregnant that the contract would
not be honored? You know the way it was.
OK. So Tom, that's a really good
question. And basically the way that it
went and and I want to be reallyclear, this wasn't just a Nike
issue, this is an industry wide issue that what would happen is
(08:33):
the contracts would freeze. So they would say, OK, great,
you're pregnant, we're going to just freeze your contract.
And when you come back and when you start to meddle, then we
will continue the contract. So what would happen?
And the reason why women why athletes would hide their
(08:56):
pregnancies is because they had families, right?
They had they had bills to pay, they had rent to pay.
And so they wanted to keep getting paid.
And that was Nike's argument is you're not going to be meddling,
you're not going to be in the mix of it.
So therefore we don't pay you. What Allison said and what her
(09:18):
brother, her manager, said is, well, wait a second.
If that's what you're going to say, and I thought this was such
a pivotal piece of the storytelling, then are you
saying, Nike, that you're going to take her images down from the
stores? Because if she can't get paid
because she can't run, then you're also saying she can't
(09:39):
sell sneakers. And therefore, let's take her
photos down. Let's take her images down.
Let's get rid of the ads. And they said, no, no, no, no,
we can't do that. You know, that doesn't work.
And I think for me, that was sort of a pivotal piece of the
story. She's still selling sneakers.
(10:00):
So why shouldn't she get paid? And what her brother said to
them, she's still selling sneakers.
She's going to continue to trainthrough the pregnancy.
She will have the baby and then she will return to her job and,
and Nike and the rest of the industry just didn't see that
(10:20):
way and and see it that way. And I look at it now and I think
that she changed the industry for every woman athlete because
after Nike came around, the other companies came around and
then other sports, your different sports also came
around. So it really started a wave of
(10:43):
saying, you know what, women should be entitled to go have
their babies, keep their job. And I understand that it's this
is not a normal job. This is an athlete and and then
continue to allow them to train,come back to the sport if they
decide that that's what they want to do and then let them
pick up from there. So that's basically what the
(11:06):
argument was. You know, there was like 1/2 a
second, not that I sympathized with Nike, but you know, if you
just didn't really know all the details, it sounded like
somewhat reasonable if the if the person wasn't going to be
playing and you paid them all this money.
But then when you gave that turning point where she gave
(11:28):
them that ultimatum, OK, then take down my images and your ads
and. Yes, that made.
So much sense that that's convinced me and it's such a
good point. You know, Tom, that's.
Exactly. That's it's so interesting.
You, you, it's, it's complicated, right?
Because you say, well, why should they pay if she's not
(11:50):
delivering medals? Well, we can argue that from a,
from a, a, you know, a women's issue, a gender issue, but
you're absolutely right. Great.
If that's where you want to go, then take down the photos, take
down the ads, because I think that's exactly right.
(12:11):
That's that's so interesting. So tell me what it was it like
getting so closely involved in her life and getting to know her
family so that she would let youin to tell her personal journey?
It's funny, I joke with with Matt and with the Felix family
that in my next life, if you're looking for me, I will be a
(12:31):
Felix. They are truly time like they
are extraordinary and not, you know, as a complete aside,
Allison's family is religious. They pract their faith is very,
very important to them. And Marlene Felix, Allison's
mom, taught me something that isreally, really sits with me,
(12:55):
which is this notion of having grace and just being kinder to
yourself and kinder to those people around you.
And that's a take away from my time with them that has been
really impactful for me. Have grace.
And you'll see in the film that that's something that is, is
(13:17):
sort of a recurring theme is this notion of of of grace.
And the family is as delightful and wonderful as they come off
in the film. Allison and Wes, as I said, are
absolute best friends. Allison is the little sister.
Wes is the brother. Wes became her manager.
(13:37):
They live together in college. They are basically in
inseparable. And the father, Doctor Paul
Felix, is, is a pastor. And the mom, Marlene, is a
retired school teacher. And they are just as lovely a
family as people see the film. And they say to me, come on,
(14:01):
like, what didn't you include? And, yeah, like, tell us that.
Give us the real thing. And I swear to you, Tom, I'm
giving it to you. Like this is they just are like
this. And they welcomed, you know,
Allison and Wes ultimately decided to let us tell the
story, but their parents didn't necessarily right.
Like they didn't bargain for us coming.
(14:23):
And I remember the first day andyou'll appreciate this because,
you know, there's there's some the the big challenge about
telling a story in the past tense that much of it, which has
already happened is how do you tell that story visually?
So the first day we would that we interviewed Doctor Paul and
Marlene at the end of the interview, we said, you know,
(14:45):
what are you any, any family videos that you, you know, might
have and, you know, hoping that maybe they would have a couple
of things that they could pull out.
And Doctor Felix says, yeah, we we have some things disappears
into the basement, comes back with a like a carton filled with
with and I thought, and Matt andI were like, oh, this is great.
(15:07):
And he's like, this is great. Four hearts later, 367 hours of
archival family material and that's, you know, truthfully
from from my perspective, that'swhat made the film sing is
because we were really able to retell visually.
(15:29):
Now I knew we could do it editorially.
I knew we could tell that story,but I didn't know that we could
show it. And, you know, I can't tell you
how. Yeah, exactly.
That's all I have to say about that.
Exactly. Yeah.
So, Perry, a lot of times a filmmaker will have a personal
connection to a story. Was there anything that you saw
(15:52):
in her story that on a personal level you connected to?
It's interesting. So let me start by saying I am
not a runner. I am not an athlete.
So let's get that off. I am not a person of great
faith. I, I, I try every so now and
then to, to be. So I don't, I don't share that
(16:13):
with Allison, but I'm a woman. And while I can't relate
specifically to being an athleteand pregnant, I can relate to
being a person who grew up in the news world.
I wasn't in the doc world. I started out in television news
and felt very deeply. I remember I had my first child
(16:37):
and I got pregnant. My second child was born 14
months later. So I got pregnant pretty quickly
thereafter. And I remember the fear of
having to tell my boss and I waspanicked and did hide it for a
really long time. And I remember the day finally
(17:00):
that I felt like I had no choiceas I was being asked to do a
story that I really couldn't do because I was pregnant and
having to come clean and, and really fretting about it.
And it wasn't that I didn't havepregnancy protections.
I did much more so than Allison certainly didn't.
But I knew that it would change the way that they looked at me
(17:22):
or the kinds of stories that they assigned to me or what it
would mean long term. So I do there.
I can relate and I believe, Tom,that all women can relate in
some form or fashion to Allison,Allison's story.
And I, I want to stress Allison Felix, even as the most
(17:45):
decorated track and field athlete going up against Nike,
let's remember who Nike, you know, Nike was the the entity.
They paid her, they sponsor her.They were the biggest sponsor.
This was an enormous undertakingto go up against them.
And I don't think I mentioned that the way she ultimately did
(18:09):
is when they couldn't agree, Allison went public.
And Allison, as I said before, is a quiet person who says
without a doubt, all she wanted to do was run fast and win
medals. The rest of it, no interest.
But she wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, and it was
actually the turning point because so many people, it
(18:33):
created this viral sensation of like, wait, what are you talking
about? This is so wrong.
We need to fix this. Yeah, that was powerful.
I, I think everybody knows that athletes have endorsement deals,
but I think your film did a really great job of sort of
(18:53):
explaining the situation that particularly like in track and
and probably some other sports, for many athletes, that
endorsement deal becomes like they were major source of
income. And as a result, they're,
they're really, really tied downto that contract.
And I was wondering if you can just like elaborate on that a
(19:17):
little bit because I could, I could imagine for her that was
really just incredibly difficultwhen she went up against them
because that was her major source of income.
At least that's the way it seemed in, in.
Oh no. No, no, Tom, there's no question
that was her absolute absolutely100%.
(19:38):
And, and what we didn't talk about, because while all of this
was going on, Allison's contractwas up for negotiation.
She had just won several gold medals, not only in the
Olympics, but also in the, you know, in the national
championships here in the UnitedStates.
(19:59):
And in Allison's case, Nike offered her a 70% pay cut when
her contract came up for renewal.
And you know, she was getting. Older, I think at the time, Tom,
she was 31 and 32. And as I said, that sword of
beginning to get to be the end. But Allison said she fully
(20:21):
expected that there would be another renewal.
She was still winning lots and lots of medals.
She also had gotten to that level where usually they offer
some kind of lifetime commitment, but that that didn't
happen. So that's my point, to walk away
from something. And the reason that Wes and
(20:41):
Allison made that decision, well, first and foremost,
because they felt it was the right thing to do, but they also
assumed that somebody else wouldcome and sign them right away.
But what happens when Nike, you have a dispute with Nike, No one
will touch you. And that's what happened with
Allison, Wes says. And you see it in the film.
(21:01):
Wes said, you know, he started calling around and saying,
Allison's available and everybody no, like people just
said, absolutely not too hot. So that and that really.
And there's a moment where Allison talks about have I
worked this hard my whole life? And everybody.
I want to tell all of your your listeners, Tom, working hard is
(21:25):
just like you cannot imagine what, what, how hard and how
difficult all of this was to achieve what Allison achieved,
but she gave it. She gave it all up and
eventually, as I said, Nike comes around, but and she
(21:45):
decided to, to, to go her, to goher own way.
And she, you know, as I said, she was pregnant.
She had a very, very, very difficult pregnancy.
She gave birth at 32 weeks, 8 weeks ahead of schedule.
The baby almost died. Allison almost died.
She had preeclampsia. You know, what's the
(22:08):
relationship between the stress of running and, you know, doing
everything that she was doing inpreeclampsia?
I can't say that I'm not a doctor, but it's very possible
that that was that that was partof what led to this.
And it was, you know, it was an extraordinary moment that all of
(22:29):
a sudden she realized, you know,she had this very, very sick
baby who was in the NICU for a long time and then trying to
come back from AC section and trying to.
And at the time, she was still under contract with, with Nike
and had to get back on the on the on the podium.
And that's really where everything fell apart.
(22:49):
She decided to go her own way and she needed to, she had no
other sponsor. And so she decided to make her
own sneaker, and I don't know how much you want to get into
that, Tom, 'cause that's obviously it's own story.
Well, I think people can see that in the film.
It is an incredible story. One of the things I want to say
(23:09):
'cause we we don't have too muchmore time though, is that she's
an incredible person. Her story is remarkable and she
got involved in a very important'cause and it it's all in the
movie. But on top of all that, this
film is incredibly entertaining.It's just a great documentary
and it's a great drama. And I was just wondering how
(23:33):
you, as a film maker used music and editing and all the
different skills that you have as a director to really make the
story come to life. Oh, first of all, Tom, thank you
for your your lovely comments. We are really grateful for them.
(23:53):
I said to you before we went on the air that, and I'll say it
now, I I never ever, ever say things that are self laudatory
about a film. And I don't say this about us as
much as I say it about Allison. I love Allison's story so much
and I love watching it in with with audiences because at at its
(24:17):
surface, I'm telling you all of these things and it sounds like,
you know, there was the contractNico, like all of these things
happen and she had this terriblepregnancy and all of these.
But it's Allison's story is delightful and her ability to
take control and fight for women's rights and to do what
she did. You just at the end, at least I
(24:39):
and cheering for her and when she runs in that final Olympics.
And I'm not going to say what what happened you I find every
time I see it and I I could recite the film to you because
obviously I was in the edit all the time, but I was sitting
there biting my nails every single time about what what
(24:59):
happened. So I'm so grateful for for your
comments. Well, I, I do want to say, not
that it matters, but I'm personally not a real major
sports documentary kind of person.
And that's why for me to really have enjoyed this movie as much
as I did, it's surprising. And that's really on you.
(25:23):
You just made a very entertaining film, as I said
before, and she's a great subject and I learned so much
about her and it's a thoughtful documentary and her story is so
inspiring, so great job. I want to highly recommend this
movie to everyone. We've been speaking about She
Runs the world. It's featured at the Port
(25:43):
Jefferson documentary film series here locally.
People are listening outside of the area too.
Where else can people go online to learn about where this film
is going to be shown in the future?
I would suggest to everybody that they please visit
ourwebsite@sherunstheworldfilm.comand we are going to keep
(26:04):
everybody update. We're we're trying to find a
great home for She Runs the world and please check out the
website. And Tom, thank you.
Thank you so much for the time to talk about Allison and her
incredible story. We are really grateful.
Thank you, Perry.
Hi, this is Tom Needham and you're listening to the sounds
of film today. We're very excited to have on
the program one of the film makers of She Runs the World,
Perry Peltz. It's a powerful new documentary
featured at the Port Jefferson Documentary Film Series.
The film follows Olympic champion Allison Felix as she
(00:22):
challenges Nike and the sports industry to protect mothers and
female athletes, turning her fight for fairness into a
movement for equality. Perry, thank you so much for
joining us on The Sounds of Filmtoday.
Thank you so much for for havingme and for talking about She
runs the world. It's a it's a treat.
(00:43):
Well, I I should mention you arenot the only film maker
responsible for this film. Who else is?
So Matt O'Neill is my film making partner and unfortunately
right now he is stuck on a trainsomewhere between Brooklyn and
Manhattan but and is sorry that he can't be here but he is my Co
(01:04):
director on She Runs the World. OK, well we're very happy to
have you here. How did the two of you get
interested in making this film in the first place?
It's such a good question, Tom. We were at A at a conference and
we heard Allison speak in conversation.
She was in conversation with herbrother Wes, who is also her
(01:26):
manager, her best friend. And we're listening to this
story and thinking, how is it possible that we have never
heard this before? And during this whole time
listening to her talk, I'm thinking, we've got to get this,
we've got to make this documentary.
We've got to make this documentary.
So after the, the the conversation was over, we went
(01:48):
and, and spoke to them and they were they Wes and Allison both
said that they weren't particularly interested in
making a documentary, but as good journalist, we kept bugging
them and eventually talked them into taking taking their chances
with us. And I have to say, I feel I
always feel privileged in the stories that we get to tell, but
(02:13):
fell so deeply in love with bothof them and just so gratified to
be able to to tell their story. I'm actually kind of fascinated.
I speak to a lot of documentary film makers and being able to
make the film in the 1st place, you know, going up to a subject
and asking them is very tough. It's, it's kind of mysterious
how it happens sometimes. And you said that you were
(02:36):
persistent. Can can you just give me an
example of the technique that you used?
Because you got her to say yes, which is a big deal.
So may we switch the word persistent to just plain out
annoying? How about that for a tactic?
I it's, it's a great question. And I think in general, when it
(03:01):
comes to asking, talking people into telling their story, that
is a hard thing to to to sort ofgive your life story over to two
strangers. You've never met them.
And they're saying, Hey, give usyour story, we're going to tell
it. And you don't have any right to
(03:21):
change that story, right? We because that was, you know,
we, we were really clear that wefelt that they could have, you
know, they could have input, they could screen the film
before it went, you know, beforeit was distributed, but
basically that they would not have final cut on this.
And there Allison, and you can see this in the film.
(03:43):
Allison is very much a person who is quiet, thoughtful and not
somebody who would be comfortable opening her life in
in a significant way. Now people might say, well, she
did lots of press. Yes, she did.
But opening up your story, telling your story is a
(04:04):
documentary, as we know is a very different thing.
And I we really, what wound up happening is we, we first got
them to agree to look at films that we had, other films that we
had made. And then we got them to agree to
talk to us after they screen thefilms.
And then we just kept talking with them.
(04:24):
And eventually they said, OK, we're, we're in.
And once they were in, they weretotally committed to the
project. And it felt like the entire way
through that we were a team working to tell this story.
And you know, it's just, it was,it was a wonderful experience.
(04:48):
Perry, can you just give our listeners just a little summary
of who Allison is for, just in case there's someone out there
who doesn't know her? Yes, absolutely.
I'll give you Allison one O 1. Allison Felix is the most
decorated track and field athlete ever in history in the
world. More than Hussein Bolt, more
(05:10):
than Carl Lewis. She started running when she was
very young. She went she went pro when she
was very young, before she went to college.
And this is the story of what happened.
She starts to win all of these Olympic medals and she becomes
the, you know, the, the, the most incredible runner and then
(05:33):
she gets pregnant and her world goes upside down.
At the time, she was in her early 30s, which is the end,
coming towards the end of a, of a career in running.
And what she would see with all of her colleagues is that when
they became pregnant, they wouldhide their pregnancy because
(05:56):
there were no pregnancy protections from the sneaker
companies that were their sponsors.
And that is a whole long conversation that I won't get
into about why that was. And so when Allison got
pregnant, she was in contract negotiations with Nike that
we're not going well in spite ofher incredible success and in
spite of being the most forward facing female athlete at the
(06:18):
time for Nike. She basically said to them she
she was hiding her pregnancy andthen she was in contract
negotiations. And then she told Nike that she
was pregnant. And she basically said to them
that either they gave her pregnancy protections or she was
going to walk. And eventually they offered them
(06:41):
to her, but not the rest of the team.
And she said it has to be for the team or it doesn't work.
And so she left. And eventually Nike came around.
They did the right thing. They gave pregnancy protections.
But at that point, Allison decided not to sign the contract
and to go out on her own. And the story really starts in
(07:06):
in so many ways starts there about the challenges she faces
trying to go out on her own and run one final Olympics.
And I think, Tom, that's a good place to leave it because
otherwise I'll, I'll, I'll be a spoiler alert.
Yeah, I'll try not to spoil anything.
I I do want to talk about some of the things though that you
(07:27):
mentioned. OK, of course.
So, man, she was an incredible star and I, I was unfamiliar.
I, I mean, I knew of her, but I,I didn't know to the extent all
the records that she broke and all the medals that she won.
So, so it's pretty incredible that she was that accomplished
(07:49):
and then still ran into this issue with Nike.
For for people that maybe don't understand the whole issue from
I know you don't agree with Nike, but what would Nike's
argument be back then about about not wanting to pay?
If they gave a big endorsement contract to a female athlete?
(08:10):
Why from their point of view, would they have a condition in
there that if someone got pregnant that the contract would
not be honored? You know the way it was.
OK. So Tom, that's a really good
question. And basically the way that it
went and and I want to be reallyclear, this wasn't just a Nike
issue, this is an industry wide issue that what would happen is
(08:33):
the contracts would freeze. So they would say, OK, great,
you're pregnant, we're going to just freeze your contract.
And when you come back and when you start to meddle, then we
will continue the contract. So what would happen?
And the reason why women why athletes would hide their
(08:56):
pregnancies is because they had families, right?
They had they had bills to pay, they had rent to pay.
And so they wanted to keep getting paid.
And that was Nike's argument is you're not going to be meddling,
you're not going to be in the mix of it.
So therefore we don't pay you. What Allison said and what her
(09:18):
brother, her manager, said is, well, wait a second.
If that's what you're going to say, and I thought this was such
a pivotal piece of the storytelling, then are you
saying, Nike, that you're going to take her images down from the
stores? Because if she can't get paid
because she can't run, then you're also saying she can't
(09:39):
sell sneakers. And therefore, let's take her
photos down. Let's take her images down.
Let's get rid of the ads. And they said, no, no, no, no,
we can't do that. You know, that doesn't work.
And I think for me, that was sort of a pivotal piece of the
story. She's still selling sneakers.
(10:00):
So why shouldn't she get paid? And what her brother said to
them, she's still selling sneakers.
She's going to continue to trainthrough the pregnancy.
She will have the baby and then she will return to her job and,
and Nike and the rest of the industry just didn't see that
(10:20):
way and and see it that way. And I look at it now and I think
that she changed the industry for every woman athlete because
after Nike came around, the other companies came around and
then other sports, your different sports also came
around. So it really started a wave of
(10:43):
saying, you know what, women should be entitled to go have
their babies, keep their job. And I understand that it's this
is not a normal job. This is an athlete and and then
continue to allow them to train,come back to the sport if they
decide that that's what they want to do and then let them
pick up from there. So that's basically what the
(11:06):
argument was. You know, there was like 1/2 a
second, not that I sympathized with Nike, but you know, if you
just didn't really know all the details, it sounded like
somewhat reasonable if the if the person wasn't going to be
playing and you paid them all this money.
But then when you gave that turning point where she gave
(11:28):
them that ultimatum, OK, then take down my images and your ads
and. Yes, that made.
So much sense that that's convinced me and it's such a
good point. You know, Tom, that's.
Exactly. That's it's so interesting.
You, you, it's, it's complicated, right?
Because you say, well, why should they pay if she's not
(11:50):
delivering medals? Well, we can argue that from a,
from a, a, you know, a women's issue, a gender issue, but
you're absolutely right. Great.
If that's where you want to go, then take down the photos, take
down the ads, because I think that's exactly right.
(12:11):
That's that's so interesting. So tell me what it was it like
getting so closely involved in her life and getting to know her
family so that she would let youin to tell her personal journey?
It's funny, I joke with with Matt and with the Felix family
that in my next life, if you're looking for me, I will be a
(12:31):
Felix. They are truly time like they
are extraordinary and not, you know, as a complete aside,
Allison's family is religious. They pract their faith is very,
very important to them. And Marlene Felix, Allison's
mom, taught me something that isreally, really sits with me,
(12:55):
which is this notion of having grace and just being kinder to
yourself and kinder to those people around you.
And that's a take away from my time with them that has been
really impactful for me. Have grace.
And you'll see in the film that that's something that is, is
(13:17):
sort of a recurring theme is this notion of of of grace.
And the family is as delightful and wonderful as they come off
in the film. Allison and Wes, as I said, are
absolute best friends. Allison is the little sister.
Wes is the brother. Wes became her manager.
(13:37):
They live together in college. They are basically in
inseparable. And the father, Doctor Paul
Felix, is, is a pastor. And the mom, Marlene, is a
retired school teacher. And they are just as lovely a
family as people see the film. And they say to me, come on,
(14:01):
like, what didn't you include? And, yeah, like, tell us that.
Give us the real thing. And I swear to you, Tom, I'm
giving it to you. Like this is they just are like
this. And they welcomed, you know,
Allison and Wes ultimately decided to let us tell the
story, but their parents didn't necessarily right.
Like they didn't bargain for us coming.
(14:23):
And I remember the first day andyou'll appreciate this because,
you know, there's there's some the the big challenge about
telling a story in the past tense that much of it, which has
already happened is how do you tell that story visually?
So the first day we would that we interviewed Doctor Paul and
Marlene at the end of the interview, we said, you know,
(14:45):
what are you any, any family videos that you, you know, might
have and, you know, hoping that maybe they would have a couple
of things that they could pull out.
And Doctor Felix says, yeah, we we have some things disappears
into the basement, comes back with a like a carton filled with
with and I thought, and Matt andI were like, oh, this is great.
(15:07):
And he's like, this is great. Four hearts later, 367 hours of
archival family material and that's, you know, truthfully
from from my perspective, that'swhat made the film sing is
because we were really able to retell visually.
(15:29):
Now I knew we could do it editorially.
I knew we could tell that story,but I didn't know that we could
show it. And, you know, I can't tell you
how. Yeah, exactly.
That's all I have to say about that.
Exactly. Yeah.
So, Perry, a lot of times a filmmaker will have a personal
connection to a story. Was there anything that you saw
(15:52):
in her story that on a personal level you connected to?
It's interesting. So let me start by saying I am
not a runner. I am not an athlete.
So let's get that off. I am not a person of great
faith. I, I, I try every so now and
then to, to be. So I don't, I don't share that
(16:13):
with Allison, but I'm a woman. And while I can't relate
specifically to being an athleteand pregnant, I can relate to
being a person who grew up in the news world.
I wasn't in the doc world. I started out in television news
and felt very deeply. I remember I had my first child
(16:37):
and I got pregnant. My second child was born 14
months later. So I got pregnant pretty quickly
thereafter. And I remember the fear of
having to tell my boss and I waspanicked and did hide it for a
really long time. And I remember the day finally
(17:00):
that I felt like I had no choiceas I was being asked to do a
story that I really couldn't do because I was pregnant and
having to come clean and, and really fretting about it.
And it wasn't that I didn't havepregnancy protections.
I did much more so than Allison certainly didn't.
But I knew that it would change the way that they looked at me
(17:22):
or the kinds of stories that they assigned to me or what it
would mean long term. So I do there.
I can relate and I believe, Tom,that all women can relate in
some form or fashion to Allison,Allison's story.
And I, I want to stress Allison Felix, even as the most
(17:45):
decorated track and field athlete going up against Nike,
let's remember who Nike, you know, Nike was the the entity.
They paid her, they sponsor her.They were the biggest sponsor.
This was an enormous undertakingto go up against them.
And I don't think I mentioned that the way she ultimately did
(18:09):
is when they couldn't agree, Allison went public.
And Allison, as I said before, is a quiet person who says
without a doubt, all she wanted to do was run fast and win
medals. The rest of it, no interest.
But she wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, and it was
actually the turning point because so many people, it
(18:33):
created this viral sensation of like, wait, what are you talking
about? This is so wrong.
We need to fix this. Yeah, that was powerful.
I, I think everybody knows that athletes have endorsement deals,
but I think your film did a really great job of sort of
(18:53):
explaining the situation that particularly like in track and
and probably some other sports, for many athletes, that
endorsement deal becomes like they were major source of
income. And as a result, they're,
they're really, really tied downto that contract.
And I was wondering if you can just like elaborate on that a
(19:17):
little bit because I could, I could imagine for her that was
really just incredibly difficultwhen she went up against them
because that was her major source of income.
At least that's the way it seemed in, in.
Oh no. No, no, Tom, there's no question
that was her absolute absolutely100%.
(19:38):
And, and what we didn't talk about, because while all of this
was going on, Allison's contractwas up for negotiation.
She had just won several gold medals, not only in the
Olympics, but also in the, you know, in the national
championships here in the UnitedStates.
(19:59):
And in Allison's case, Nike offered her a 70% pay cut when
her contract came up for renewal.
And you know, she was getting. Older, I think at the time, Tom,
she was 31 and 32. And as I said, that sword of
beginning to get to be the end. But Allison said she fully
(20:21):
expected that there would be another renewal.
She was still winning lots and lots of medals.
She also had gotten to that level where usually they offer
some kind of lifetime commitment, but that that didn't
happen. So that's my point, to walk away
from something. And the reason that Wes and
(20:41):
Allison made that decision, well, first and foremost,
because they felt it was the right thing to do, but they also
assumed that somebody else wouldcome and sign them right away.
But what happens when Nike, you have a dispute with Nike, No one
will touch you. And that's what happened with
Allison, Wes says. And you see it in the film.
(21:01):
Wes said, you know, he started calling around and saying,
Allison's available and everybody no, like people just
said, absolutely not too hot. So that and that really.
And there's a moment where Allison talks about have I
worked this hard my whole life? And everybody.
I want to tell all of your your listeners, Tom, working hard is
(21:25):
just like you cannot imagine what, what, how hard and how
difficult all of this was to achieve what Allison achieved,
but she gave it. She gave it all up and
eventually, as I said, Nike comes around, but and she
(21:45):
decided to, to, to go her, to goher own way.
And she, you know, as I said, she was pregnant.
She had a very, very, very difficult pregnancy.
She gave birth at 32 weeks, 8 weeks ahead of schedule.
The baby almost died. Allison almost died.
She had preeclampsia. You know, what's the
(22:08):
relationship between the stress of running and, you know, doing
everything that she was doing inpreeclampsia?
I can't say that I'm not a doctor, but it's very possible
that that was that that was partof what led to this.
And it was, you know, it was an extraordinary moment that all of
(22:29):
a sudden she realized, you know,she had this very, very sick
baby who was in the NICU for a long time and then trying to
come back from AC section and trying to.
And at the time, she was still under contract with, with Nike
and had to get back on the on the on the podium.
And that's really where everything fell apart.
(22:49):
She decided to go her own way and she needed to, she had no
other sponsor. And so she decided to make her
own sneaker, and I don't know how much you want to get into
that, Tom, 'cause that's obviously it's own story.
Well, I think people can see that in the film.
It is an incredible story. One of the things I want to say
(23:09):
'cause we we don't have too muchmore time though, is that she's
an incredible person. Her story is remarkable and she
got involved in a very important'cause and it it's all in the
movie. But on top of all that, this
film is incredibly entertaining.It's just a great documentary
and it's a great drama. And I was just wondering how
(23:33):
you, as a film maker used music and editing and all the
different skills that you have as a director to really make the
story come to life. Oh, first of all, Tom, thank you
for your your lovely comments. We are really grateful for them.
(23:53):
I said to you before we went on the air that, and I'll say it
now, I I never ever, ever say things that are self laudatory
about a film. And I don't say this about us as
much as I say it about Allison. I love Allison's story so much
and I love watching it in with with audiences because at at its
(24:17):
surface, I'm telling you all of these things and it sounds like,
you know, there was the contractNico, like all of these things
happen and she had this terriblepregnancy and all of these.
But it's Allison's story is delightful and her ability to
take control and fight for women's rights and to do what
she did. You just at the end, at least I
(24:39):
and cheering for her and when she runs in that final Olympics.
And I'm not going to say what what happened you I find every
time I see it and I I could recite the film to you because
obviously I was in the edit all the time, but I was sitting
there biting my nails every single time about what what
(24:59):
happened. So I'm so grateful for for your
comments. Well, I, I do want to say, not
that it matters, but I'm personally not a real major
sports documentary kind of person.
And that's why for me to really have enjoyed this movie as much
as I did, it's surprising. And that's really on you.
(25:23):
You just made a very entertaining film, as I said
before, and she's a great subject and I learned so much
about her and it's a thoughtful documentary and her story is so
inspiring, so great job. I want to highly recommend this
movie to everyone. We've been speaking about She
Runs the world. It's featured at the Port
(25:43):
Jefferson documentary film series here locally.
People are listening outside of the area too.
Where else can people go online to learn about where this film
is going to be shown in the future?
I would suggest to everybody that they please visit
ourwebsite@sherunstheworldfilm.comand we are going to keep
(26:04):
everybody update. We're we're trying to find a
great home for She Runs the world and please check out the
website. And Tom, thank you.
Thank you so much for the time to talk about Allison and her
incredible story. We are really grateful.
Thank you, Perry.
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