Transcripts For KYW 60 Minutes 20150511

Expeditions, and as i look back upon my history, the most important discoveries were the ones that i didnt know were there. Logan bob ballard discovered the titanic in 1985, and as youll see tonight he hasnt stopped exploring. Oh, i love that. Logan when youre operating 2,000 feet beneath the sea, you never know what youll find. Oh, beautiful. Oh, wow. Holy cow. Wow. Logan or what will find you. Alfonsi Greg Glassman hardly looks like an exercise guru. Theres no hint of ripped muscle underneath his untucked shirt but hes widely considered the most powerful man in fitness today. If you like metrics you like money, were the Fastest Growing large chain on earth. We have broken all records. Alfonsi in just 15 years the king of crossfit has created the largest gym train in history. She was meant to look like that. Thats what nature would have carved from her a million years ago, or she would have been eaten. Im steve kroft. Im lesley stahl. Im anderson cooper. Im lara logan. Im bill whitaker. Im scott pelley. Those stories tonight on this special edition of 60 minutes. Ill you have enough money to live life on your terms . I sure hope so. With healthcare costs, who knows. Umm. Everyone has retirement questions. So ameriprise created the exclusive confident retirement approach. Now you and your ameripise advisor. Can get the real answers you need. Start building your confident retirement today. It may seem strange, but people really can love their laxative. Especially when its miralax. It hydrates, eases and softens to unblock your system naturally so you have peace of mind from start to finish. Love your laxative. Miralax. The world is filled with air. But for people with copd sometimes breathing air can be difficult. If you have copd, ask your doctor about oncedaily anoro ellipta. It helps people with copd breathe better for a full 24hours. Anoro ellipta is the first fdaapproved product containing two longacting bronchodilators in one inhaler. 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Cooper Michael Blutrich is not a name youll recognize, but the feds consider him to be one of the best civilian informants they ever had against the mob, as well as one of the unlikeliest. Blutrichs undercover work helped send dozens of mafia members and associates to prison, including john gotti jr. , whom the government considered acting boss of the gambino crime family. Risking his life by wearing an fbi wire, Michael Blutrich recorded about 1,000 hours of conversations with mobsters. But what happened to him after he cooperated with the fbi is as surprising as how his story began, which youll hear him tell in full for the first time. The secret to Michael Blutrichs success, aside from his brains may very well have been his appearance and personality. Street tough . Nerves of steel . Not exactly. It would be hard to find someone who looks less suited for the job of mafia informant than Michael Blutrich. Cooper when i first saw you walking down the street, i literally said, thats the guy . blutrich thank you very much. Cooper no, i mean, you were probably the unlikeliest informer. Blutrich and i think thats what worked in my favor. I didnt think i had the courage. I dont think they thought i had the courage. Unlike most informants, blutrich wasnt a member of any organized crime family; he was a welloff park avenue lawyer. Blutrich i was being. Running a law firm during the day. I was. I was going out at night with the fbi. Im dealing with mafia people. Im making up stories about where im going and why am i going. Cooper howd you keep all the lies straight . Blutrich lot of. Lot of lying. Because, you know, most of the stuff that we were telling the mafia were just invented stories to get them to talk. Cooper Michael Blutrich was in a unique position to inform on the mob because he was being extorted by them for money. Back in the 1990s, he owned a blockbuster strip club, scores a playground for bankers and businessmen with fat expense accounts. The mob demanded a share of the profits. How much money was the club making . Blutrich at its zenith, maybe, you know, 400,000 a week. Cooper 400. Almost half a million dollars. Blutrich right. Cooper thats a lot of money. Blutrich yes, sir. Cooper at scores, there were lines outside the door, and celebrities and professional athletes partying inside. Blutrich the new york rangers came to scores on the night they won the stanley cup filled the stanley cup with champagne and shared it with everybody, and then left the cup. Cooper they left the stanley cup there. Blutrich they. They got drunk, they left the cup. Cooper Michael Blutrich says the mafia showed up as he was opening scores on this block in new yorks Upper East Side neighborhood. Blutrich and its not one of these tough guy, thuggy approaches. Its more like a. A friendly approach. You know, i want to save you from having a problem. You know you got to be protected. Cooper so theyre doing you a favor . Blutrich thats exactly right. So i went along, not realizing that when you let the door open and the lion comes in, he doesnt settle for what he asks for. Cooper you gave them a finger and theyd take an arm. Blutrich no, they wouldnt have been happy with an arm, maybe an upper torso. Cooper this is Stephen Sergio who, according to the fbi, was an associate of the gambino crime family. He was the first extortionist to push his way into scores. What was your job at the club . Stephen sergio i didnt do any accounting work. I didnt do any scheduling. I didnt do anything. But i was there to make sure everything went smoothly. Cooper you are an imposing guy, though. Sergio considered himself an entrepreneur. He didnt just take money from from almost everybody who worked at the club the dancers, the dj, the busboys, the janitor. His take added up. Sergio it was 1,000 a week, it became 20,000 a week. Cooper so how did it work . You go to the liquor salesman and say, you want to keep selling liquor to this club . Sergio very, very, very friendly. Cooper you give me a cut . Sergio yes. Cooper Stephen Sergio was such a strong presence at scores, he could hire and fire people at will. Take the case of the clubs accountant, who got in sergios way. Sergio he was trying to keep an accounting of me instead of keeping the account of the club. So sergio simply replaced him with someone he could control. Sergio a certain person applied for a busboy job, and i doctored it into making him the inhouse accountant. Cooper did he have any bookkeeping experience . Sergio absolutely none. He was. He was totally incompetent. Cooper in 1996, the fbi got a tip about the extortion and conducted a raid on scores. And thats when they made Michael Blutrich an offer he couldnt refuse. Blutrich i remember my reaction was, are you mistaking me for. For someone with courage . I mean, what are you talking about . You want me to wear a wire . Cooper but Michael Blutrich didnt have much choice. He wasnt just a clubowning lawyer being extorted by the mafia; he was also a crook, and the fbi knew it. He opened scores with money hed stolen from the National Heritage Life Insurance company in florida. Blutrich and a few partners bought the Insurance Company in 1990 by writing a bad check, and went on to bilk nearly 26,000 mostly elderly policyholders out of their life savings. Ultimately, it was a theft of 440 million, one of the biggest white collar crimes in u. S. History. Blutrich it was easy money and i can never have a greater regret than going down that road. I mean, how stupid could i be . Joe judge they got control of the Insurance Company. And they looted it. Cooper former fbi investigator joe judge and former assistant u. S. Attorney judy hunt had discovered the scam, and were building a case against blutrich and his partners in florida. Judy hunt i mean, they truly were new yorkers who believed were just too dumb to figure out the convoluted schemes they had put in place. Blutrich im not making excuses. Im not defending myself. I sometimes tell people i went to the dark side. Cooper you got greedy. Blutrich i got greedy. Cooper Michael Blutrich figured if he cooperated with the fbi against the mafia in new york, florida authorities would have to give him a break on his crimes there. Blutrich the whole inducement was come on board. Become part of the Governments Team and you will be redeemed. Bill ready you basically explain to michael, you have no choice. Theres no way out. Cooper new york fbi agent bill ready, who knew all about blutrichs problems in florida had him under surveillance for months before developing him as an informant against the mob. Ready he was nervous a lot. He always needed constant reassurance. Cooper would he call you a lot . Ready yeah. Cooper all day long, hed be calling you . Ready oh, yeah, yeah. And it would start in the morning and would continue throughout the day right until my head hit the pillow at night. Cooper in 1997, ready and the fbi used hidden cameras in blutrichs offices to record meetings with all manner of suspected mobsters. The cameras captured blutrich handing over envelopes of cash and alleged mob associates bragging about crimes. Cooper they also recorded some notsosubtle threats, here to blutrichs partner by alleged gambino associate michael sergio. Michael sergio take care of yourself, all right . And dont worry about your health, youll be fine. Cooper you look at the tapes, and some of the guys youre dealing with, i mean, it. Theyre out of central casting. Blutrich youre absolutely correct. Cooper i mean. Blutrich and sometimes i would just laugh inside, you know, to say what. Well, look what my life has become. They would come in with the jewelry, and the sweat suits and theyd sit down, hey, you know, its so good to see you, you know. Whats going on, man . Cooper but the office wasnt the only thing the fbi bugged for sound. Michael blutrich wore a wire for 11 months. It was a clunky audio recorder strapped to his inner thigh. Ready back in those days our equipment was archaic compared to what. Whats out there now. What we would use is. Wed call it an fbird, which stands for, you know, f. B. I. Recording device. Cooper fbird. Ready fbird, yeah. Blutrich and they ducttaped the fbird to my leg and. Cooper this is not exactly high tech. Blutrich well, no, im. Im saying, whats go. Whats going on here . This is how they do this . They dont do it in the movies this way. You dont see james bond, i mean, duct tape wrapped around his leg. So, this is how we do it . And the other problem is, the fbird gets really hot, so as im doing the first night, which was hours and hours and hours, my leg is like a skillet. I mean, its burning. You know, im trying to be pleasant and nice and natural, and its killing me. Cooper the first night he wore the wire, he went to dinner with alleged gambino family associate michael sergio. Blutrich successfully prompted him to boast about his mob connections, describe crimes and name names. Blutrich and hes talking about all these. All these different people, and at the end of it, we go back to the office for the debriefing. And the first words out of their mouth was, that was great except we got to do it again because the recording device failed. My. My initial impressions, again . You want us to do the same thing again . Dont you think hes going to find that a little odd . No, itll be fine. Itll be fine. Cooper blutrich did go out again. And again. In total, he recorded about 1,000 hours of conversations mostly in restaurants over long dinners. Blutrich the fbi had given us a password that, if we uttered and they heard, they would come crashing through the windows to save our lives. Cooper what was the password . Blutrich the password was, i think im going to puke, to which i said, what . laughs cooper that was the password the fbi decided to give you. Blutrich that. That was their. I said, listen. Cooper so if you said, i think im going to puke. Blutrich theyre coming in. Cooper it was dangerous work. There were several times mobsters surprised him and patted him down, nearly discovering his recording equipment. Blutrich i mean, i had guns taken out, brandished in front of me, put to my head, threatened all. You know, in every which way you could be threatened. Cooper what kept you motivated . Blutrich if i did all this for the government, the reward was. Was plain. I would not see the inside of a jail cell. Cooper with Michael Blutrichs help, in 1998, the department of justice was able to indict dozens of alleged members and associates of the mafia, including john gotti, jr. , who the fbi considered the acting boss of the gambino crime family. It was a huge success, and former prosecutor art leach says much of the credit goes to Michael Blutrich. In the pantheon of informants, where was Michael Blutrich . Art leach he would be in the scale of extraordinary. Cooper no one like Michael Blutrich. Leach ten times better than the best. Cooper art leach investigated organized crime for the u. S. Attorneys office in atlanta. Blutrich was his star witness against the mafia in a related case there. Leach he is a trained lawyer, and a good lawyer. He understood what kind of evidence was necessary in order to make these cases, and he just worked his way towards it. Cooper its easy to underestimate him but. Leach exactly. Cooper but he shouldnt be underestimated. Leach and they did underestimate him, and they paid mightily for it. Cooper but blutrichs hands were not completely clean, either. Before he began cooperating with the fbi, he also had committed crimes in new york. At the end of the investigation, federal authorities brought seven counts against him including racketeering, tax evasion, and receipt of obscene materials. Michael blutrich pleaded guilty, but did no prison time because of his cooperation. But in florida, when blutrich had to face the court in the Insurance Fraud case, it didnt go as he expected, despite efforts by federal authorities to help him. Fbi agent bill ready and former prosecutor art leach made statements to the florida judge on blutrichs behalf. And thenassistant attorney general Michael Chertoff wrote a letter praising his extremely valuable cooperation. But in the end, Michael Blutrich was sentenced to 16 years in prison, far more time than any of the mobsters he helped put away. When you heard the sentence. Blutrich i almost passed out. laughs i almost passed out. Cooper you know, you helped steal millions of dollars from an awful lot of people, from innocent people. 16 years in jail doesnt sound like a huge amount for the crime. Blutrich i couldnt disagree more. Cooper do you think you should have done any prison time . Blutrich i would have lived comfortably with zero to a year. Hunt arrogance. Arrogance. I think he thought that the cooperation against the mob was so significant and so powerful that it would essentially dispense him from any culpability or punishment in florida. Cooper former prosecutor judy hunt says blutrich could have fared as badly as his Co Conspirator sholam weiss, who was sentenced to prison for a record 845 years. But former prosecutor art leach sees it differently. You think he got a raw deal . Leach i dont think that the judge properly considered how important his cooperation was to the department of justice an how horrible his sentence was, in terms of developing cooperators like Michael Blutrich in the future. Cooper blutrich ended up serving 13 years in prison and was released two years ago. Despite betraying the mob and helping send a lot of wise guys to prison, Michael Blutrich is not in a witness protection program. Hes out on the streets, hiding in plain sight. Are you scared . Blutrich im fatalistic. If. If im going to sit and shiver, im not going to have a life. So, i forfeited my life 13 years in jail, im not going to forfeit the rest of it by. By being scared. Cooper do you believe his life is still in danger . Leach his life is absolutely in danger. He will be in danger for the rest of his life. Cooper from the mafia . Leach the mob takes retribution seriously. And it. It has a long memory and they will find an opportunity, if possible, and they will kill Michael Blutrich. Yoplait greek 100. The proteinpacked need something filling, taste bud loving, deliciously fruity, grabandgo, take on the world with 100 calories, snack. Yoplait greek 100. There are hundreds of reasons to snack on it. Why am i so awake . Did you know your brain has a wake system. And a sleep system . Science suggests when you have insomnia, the neurotransmitters in your wake system may be too strong, which may be preventing you from getting the sleep you need. Talk to your doctor about ways to manage your insomnia. Back by popular demand its steak and lobster at outback. Try our new coconut lobster or classic steamed lobster. Steak and lobster, starting at just 14. 99. And introducing lunch every bloomin day with over 70 combinations, starting at 6. 99. Its lunch at last every day at outback. Logan Robert Ballard has embarked on a new wave of american exploration, inspired by the epic journey of lewis and clark more than 200 years ago. This time, its not over land, but in a part of the country that lies in the deep sea. You may know ballard as the man who found the titanic. We first spent time with him a few years ago when he took us on a search for ancient shipwrecks in the aegean sea, but at the age of 72, hes changed course and come home. Why . Because the u. S. Has jurisdiction over more ocean than any other country on earth, and beneath the waves lies trillions of dollars in untapped Natural Resources and, as we saw on our journey, a wealth of american history. Robert ballard calls it the unknown america. We joined him about 100 miles off the coast of mississippi in the gulf of mexico. Robert ballard if you ask someone, how much of the United States do you think lies beneath the sea . They may say, 5 or 10 . And when you tell them that half of their country lies beneath the sea and is unexplored, they dont believe you. Logan does it have a special meaning for you because its home . Ballard yea, im 13th generation american. I love my country. And i served in the army. I served in the navy. Im a boy scout, yeah. Bob ballards unknown america stretches out to 200 nautical miles from all our coasts. This vast undersea area is called the u. S. Exclusive economic zone. And the United States has sovereign rights over all the Natural Resources that lie there, like this methane gas ballard filmed bubbling up from the seafloor off the coast of louisiana. Oh, look at that the zone was established by president Ronald Reagan in 1983, and few realized that it more than doubled the area within americas boundaries. Ballard reagan may have signed a sheet of paper, but he did not follow it up with a modernday version of a lewis and Clark Expedition to actually find out what we own. Logan and thats what youre doing . Ballard thats what were doing. Logan with technology not fathomable during president reagans time, ballard is exploring and mapping as much of these waters as he can aboard the nautilus, this 200foot stateoftheart ship of exploration. Ballard i mean, you cant manage something until you know what youve got. So, before you can exploit, you explore. And so thats what we are doing right now. Were trying to get a fundamental understanding of what we own. Logan his remotely operated vehicles can go down more than 13,000 feet. Hercules is armed with an array of cameras, ballards eyes under the sea. Argus hovers above, lighting up the depths with its powerful floodlights. Keep going, keep going. Logan on our first day at sea, ballards team was on a mission for archaeologists with the u. S. Government. Ballard oh, look at that. Logan how far away are we now . Ballard 40 meters a hundred and some feet. And were creeping up because we dont know what were walking into. Were going down a dark alley. Logan hed been given the coordinates for a mysterious object that had been picked up on sonar by shell oil, and he was asked to find out what it was. What do you think it could be . Ballard its a ship. Logan it is definitely . Ballard oh, yeah, look at that. Its a ship. Its just a question of whose ship and what ship, and its a big one. Its a big ship. Logan there it is. Ballard there we have it. We have visual. Logan out of the darkness, nearly 8,000 feet below, a tangled web of cables and rope. It was an enormous ship, nearly two football fields in length. Ballard oh, its in pretty good shape. Logan i know, its like it just landed there. Ballard searched the ghostly site for clues. Ballard theres an he. See that he . Logan yeah. Ballard its like battle ribbons or something. Im interested that all the windows are battened down. See all those windows . They prepared it. You dont have time in a disaster to do that. Was this something sunk purposely . Were going to find out. Logan its fascinating to. Trying to unravel the mystery of it. Ballard yeah, isnt it fun . Logan yeah. Bob ballard has been unraveling deep sea mysteries for 55 years, and none better known than the titanic, which he found in 1985 after others had tried and failed. And then you see neil armstrong. Logan we asked him to show us around the Explorers Club in new york city, where hes honored as one of the greatest explorers of the past century, and he told us hes committed the rest of his life to searching americas seas. What is down there that you think youre going to find . Ballard ive done close to 150 expeditions. And as i look back upon my history, the most important discoveries were the ones that i didnt know were there. I can only tell you that weve looked at so little, there has to be huge new discoveries still waiting for us. Logan part of what inspired his american exploration is what he calls the battlefields of the deep. But right now, were in the gulf of mexico. Ballard yeah. Logan beneath us is a world war ii battlefield. Ballard yep, most people dont realize that, during world war ii, german uboats were right where were sitting right now, sinking american ships. And lots of americans were dying. Logan 56 allied ships were lost to the nazis in the gulf of mexico, part of a campaign hitler called operation drumbeat. He celebrated germanys uboat victories in wartime propaganda films like this one. Ballard okay, dead ahead. Get ready for a big baby. Logan one of those lost was an american passenger ship, the robert e. Lee. And there she was, appearing slowly out of the gloom. This is what she used to look like, in one of the few surviving photographs taken just months before she was hit by a single torpedo in july 1942. She went down by the stern in about 10 minutes, taking 25 people with her, and came to rest nearly 5000 feet below. Ballard there you can see the decks and the passageways. Logan now you can really see it. 72 years later, her windows were still intact, a bell still hanging in place, her gun still mounted to the stern. Ballard this is an underwater national park. Just like a civil war battlefield. Just like going to pearl harbor. Were just a little deeper. Logan whats remarkable is that the robert e. Lee shares her watery grave with the uboat that sank her, the u166, seen here during sea trials in this old german film. Now, she lies under 5,000 feet of water. For decades, no one knew these wrecks were just a few miles apart until b. P. And shell oil conducted a Pipeline Survey here in 2001. How many people died on here . Ballard the whole crew. Logan their bodies are still inside . Ballard theyre still inside. Thats a tomb. Logan bob ballards mission was to try to film both wrecks in ways they hadnt been seen before. Ballard so now you just go straight up and around like youre going to crawl up onto the deck. Look at that beautiful reveal. Oh, i love that. Logan as luck would have it, the seas were calm and the images he captured are considered some of the clearest views of these sites. Theyre featured in a Nova National geographic documentary. Ballard okeanos, thats really cool. Logan bob ballard is not alone in his american adventure. His ship, the nautilus, has joined forces with the okeanos explorer, operated by noaa, the National Oceanic and atmospheric administration. Ballard theyre the only two official ships of exploration that the federal government has. Id like to have 20, but ill go for two. Its better than zero, which was just a few years ago. Logan both the nautilus and the okeanos explorer are mapping the seafloor using Multibeam Sonar attached to their hulls, a capability so powerful, it used to be classified during the cold war. How important is mapping to you in what the nautilus is doing . Ballard people think, well, the. The oceans a big bathtub full of mud. Well, the largest mountain ranges on earth are under the ocean. There are canyons down there that make the grand canyon look like a ditch. The biggest features on our planet are beneath the sea. Logan ballard works closely with larry mayer, the director of the center for coastal and ocean mapping at the university of new hampshire, a world leader in creating 3d maps based on multibeam data. Larry mayer our goal is to get the whole ocean mapped at this. Logan to look like that. Mayer brilliant we can do it. We. Weve done it for the moon, weve done it for mars. Lets. Lets do it for our own planet. Logan this is what the seafloor looks like with multi beam data just 90 miles from new york city. You can see the Hudson Canyon with walls 3,000 feet high. And here, you are looking at the new england sea mounts far off the coast of massachusetts, some rising 10,000 feet from the bottom of the ocean. Mayer lets turn off the multibeam data and just see what these mountains looked like without the multibeam data. Logan look at that. Mayer thats all youd see. Yes, there was a bump and it would probably get close to getting the right height. But the difference is just something when we see what the Multibeam Sonar adds. Logan and what do you gain from this knowledge . Mayer its giving us an insight. Its like lifting a veil. You know, all weve seen is the top of the water. Now, we can see whats going on underneath. Logan bob ballard always travels with a team of scientists, and on our trip, they had come to take samples of the mussels living around this brine pool, an underwater lake with its own shoreline. With no sunlight and almost no food at this depth, the mussels have learned to live off metha gas rising up from below. Ballard and we want to understand how do they do that . Can we isolate them and use them . Its amazing what these organisms are processing and thriving in. Logan so when you look at that, do you think about all the secrets that theyre holding that we havent unlocked yet . Ballard exactly. How do you do this, and can we turn it to our advantage . Logan ballards team on the nautilus explores for about six months a year, sailing with a crew of 50. And everything they do is shared in real time on the internet which is how this rare encounter with a sperm whale nearly 2,000 feet down in the gulf of mexico was seen around the world. Wow awesome oh, wow logan scientists had been sampling seawater near the site of the b. P. Oil spill when this curious juvenile male circled hercules for 15 minutes. Ballard scientists dont normally share their data right away. We share it the minute we collect it because we want everyone to help. We cant wait to turn the corner and go, what in the world is that . And then immediately, reach off the ship and call someone, wake them up. Theyre in bed and say, turn on your laptop logan thats how ballards team identified that massive ship we saw earlier at the bottom of the gulf. Ballard yeah, what the heck is it . Its a. It looks like a naval vessel. You saw it work in a matter of minutes. We dont know what it is. And the archeologists and the maritime historian, they dont know what it is. And then people started coming in on the web and saying, you know, its a spruance class destroyer. Logan it was an american warship, the u. S. S. Peterson. One of the sailors who served on her gave us this footage of the night 14 tomahawk missiles were launched from her deck into baghdad in 1993, retaliation for an iraqi plan to assassinate former president george h. W. Bush. And just as ballard suspected, the ship was sunk intentionally. We got this video from the u. S. Navy, which shows them testing a new firefighting system aboard the peterson 11 years ago. The navy told us they sank her right afterwards, but they didnt share that information. And those archeologists in the u. S. Government who had turned to bob ballard had no idea the u. S. S. Peterson was down there. So that is one mystery solved . Ballard yep, chalk that one up. Next. Logan and therell be more. Ballard therell always be more. Thats whats the fun of it. Cant wait for the next mystery. Youre finally here. Long way from the sandlot. First game in the majors . You dont know aarp. Because this family is enjoying a crosscountry baseball stadium trip they planned online at aarp travel. Its where your journey begins with inspiration, planning, booking, and hot travel tips from real pros. If you dont think seize the trip when you think aarp then you dont know aarp. Find more surprising possibilities and get to know us at aarp. Org possibilities. Incredible ive been claritin clear for ten days. When your allergy symptoms start, doctors recommend taking one claritin every day of your allergy season for continuous relief. With powerful 24hour, nondrowsy claritin live claritin clear. Every day. Vo todays the day. More and more people with type 2 diabetes are learning about longacting levemir®. As my diabetes changed it got harder to control my blood sugar. Today, im asking about levemir®. Vo levemir® is an injectable insulin that can give you blood sugar control for up to 24 hours. And levemir® helps lower your a1c. Levemir® lasts 42 days without refrigeration. 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Get medical help right away if you have trouble breathing, sweating, extreme drowsiness swelling of your face, tongue, or throat, dizziness, or confusion. Todays the day to ask about levemir® flextouch®. Covered by most Health Insurance and medicare plans. And just like that the snow is gone. And parkas become jackets. And sweaters go down for a long nap. And off you go. And your backyard gets a whole lot bigger. And youre running. And climbing. And your gear gets lighter and trimmer, and fitter and smarter. And now every frozen second spent willing this day to come is just a warm fading memory. Pelley now Sharyn Alfonsi on assign. For 60 minutes. Alfonsi there are more alfonsi there are more gyms in america than ever before, but were more overweight than weve ever been. Lots of people have theories as to why, but were about to introduce you to a man who says hes figured it out. Greg glassman is the unlikely creator of the biggest fitness phenomenon in the world right now, called crossfit. Its a Workout Program thats unpredictable, uncompromising, and raw, a lot like the man who created it. Glassman likes to say he runs crossfit more like a biker gang than a business, but business is booming. In just 15 years, the king of crossfit has created the largest gym chain in history and turned fitness into a spectator sport. Its still a battle here in this heat. Alfonsi last summer, the finals of the Crossfit Games were broadcast on espn. 45,000 people showed up to watch contestants who looked like superheroes heave, jump, and lift until a champion was crowned. Rich froning is the fittest man in history alfonsi if this is the body that defines a new kind of fitness. Greg glassman i think well be all right. Alfonsi the brain that dreamt it all up belongs to Greg Glassman. Well before crossfit was a competition, he designed it as a new way to workout. He says it can transform anyone, and hes not just talking about bulging biceps and sixpack abs. Greg glassman ill deliver you to your genetic potential. Alfonsi your genetic potential . Glassman yeah, how do you like that . Alfonsi it sounds like youre creating a robot or something . Glassman look at her, she was meant to look like that. Thats what nature would have carved from her a million years ago. Or shed have been eaten. Alfonsi Greg Glassman hardly looks like an exercise guru. Theres no hint of ripped muscle underneath his untucked shirt, but he is widely considered the most powerful man in fitness today. Glassman is the architect of crossfit, a Workout Program that mixes elements of weightlifting, calisthenics, and gymnastics. The classes take place in what crossfitters call a box, a stripped down, willfully ugly space. Elbows, elbows, elbows. Up, up, up. There we go. Alfonsi the exercises range from simple to sadistic, and made Greg Glassman, a college dropout, a multimillionaire. You know, you didnt invent weightlifting. Glassman nope. Alfonsi you didnt invent calisthenics. Glassman nope. Alfonsi you didnt invent gymnastics. Glassman nope. Alfonsi so, whatd you do . Glassman i invented that doing lateral raises and curls while eating pretzels is dumb. Thats what i invented. Alfonsi he says, for decades, gym owners have ignored the importance of diet, and been all too happy to watch their members fall into a trance on the treadmill. Do you think people think theyre getting a workout and arent getting a workout . Glassman well, i mean, look, you get sweaty and you come home tired. I can appreciate that. But many people are much closer to doing nothing than they perhaps realize. Alfonsi is everything up till now been wrong in the Fitness Industry . Glassman yes. Yeah. As far as i can see. Logan crossfit classes usually dont take more than an hour. Athletes compete against each other and the clock. Good job. To keep their energy up, theyre encouraged to follow something called a paleo diet, heavy on meat and vegetables food fit for a caveman. I have heard you say that crossfit prepares athletes for the unknown and the unforeseen. Glassman its the. Alfonsi it sounds like youre getting ready to go to war. Glassman yeah, why not . Yeah. For getting ready for war, getting ready for earthquake getting ready for mugging, getting ready for the horrible news that you have leukemia. What awaits us all is. Is challenge, thats for sure. Alfonsi crossfit, he says, is creating a new super breed, and although some of their athletes appear to be carved out of marble, he says the focus isnt big muscles. Its simple, functional movements like squatting and lifting, whether youre 25 or 75. Glassman would i use dead lifts in both cases . Absolutely. Squatting in both cases . Absolutely. Alfonsi youd have a 75 yearold doing dead lifts . Glassman uhhuh. Yeah. To say no is to say that, if you drop your pen on the ground, youre not going to pick it up. Its a dead lift. Its picking something off the ground. It does not require a physicians okay. If your physician doesnt think you should dead lift, you need to get a new doctor is what you need. Alfonsi glassman started to teach people to lift, jump and sprint long before crossfit became a household name. He had polio as a child and used gymnastics to regain his strength. In high school, a bad dismount left him with a permanent limp. He became a personal trainer and started experimenting with some of the exercises that would become the backbone of his creation. His workouts were loud disruptive, and gym owners were not impressed. How many gyms did you get tossed out of . Glassman about five or six. Alfonsi five or six . Glassman seven. Alfonsi you dont like being told what to do. Glassman oh, i dont mind being told what to do. I just wont do it. Say anything you want. Alfonsi he opened his own gym in santa cruz in 2001. Today, there are 12,000 crossfit boxes around the world, each one defiantly barren. The company is private, but estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And Greg Glassman owns 100 of it. He has no board of directors and says he never had a business plan. This is awesome. Can i have a picture with you . Alfonsi but recently found himself at Harvard Business school. Glassman you like metrics . You like money . Were the Fastest Growing large chain on earth. We have broken all records. Where he was invited to share the secrets behind crossfits meteoric growth. Glassman im not trying to grow a business. Im doing the right things for the right people for the right reasons. Alfonsi one reason crossfits grown so fast is because just about anyone who wants to open a box can, after paying a 3,000 yearly fee and passing a twoday seminar. Its how the Company Makes most of its money. Two days to take a course, then i can open a gym . Glassman amazing, huh . Alfonsi i mean, to me, is that enough . Glassman well, the. Here was the alternative. Heres what it used to be all you had to have was the money. And you dont even have to take a test. Thats where every other chain came from, someone Just Launched them. Alfonsi and unlike most gym chains, glassman a diehard libertarian relinquishes nearly all control over his affiliates. They can open a box next door to another box if they want. Its probably not surprising glassman believes the strongest one will survive. You dont have an iron fist on them on how they do this. Glassman nope. Its not a franchise, its. Alfonsi they can do it any way they want to do it. Glassman this isnt Kentucky Fried Chicken or. Yeah, its crossfit. Alfonsi you let them do what they want to do once they. Glassman i do. Alfonsi although, he occasionally fires up the company plane, grabs the family dog, and drops in on an affiliate unannounced. So youre not going in there looking for trouble . Glassman not at all. But if i saw someone pulling with their arms or a rounded back, i think its inevitable that i would say something. Alfonsi at the companys media office in the silicon valley, they publish a different workout of the day every day and more information about crossfit than you could read in a lifetime. And what does it cost for people to access the stuff that youre putting online . Glassman there is no cost. Alfonsi how does that make sense . Its free. Glassman yeah. It. It didnt until we did it you know, the more video we give away, the more money we make. Alfonsi crossfitters created a huge Virtual Community posting videos of workouts and wipeouts, and spreading glassmans gospel around the world, in africa, siberia, and on the frontlines of afghanistan and iraq. Whether soldiers or soccer moms, the evangelical enthusiasm of glassmans disciples. One, two, three, heck yeah. Alfonsi . Has led to criticism. When you hear people describe crossfit as a cult, what do you say . Glassman oh, i dont mind that. What if someone led a cult and they didnt know they were . I mean, that would be messed up, right . So i started to kind of try to think what makes us a cult and what would define a cult. One is recruiting, and i aint recruiting anybody. I dont. You know what, you guys. People call me up, hey, i was thinking about joining crossfit. Well, then call back when youve decided to, you know . Alfonsi so the doors are open, youre not recruiting. Glassman yeah, were not recruiting, were not barring the doors. I mean, it really is an open house. Alfonsi glassman says he spends most of his time defending the crossfit brand with an iron fist. Glassman if you dont defend it, you wont have a brand for long. We are in sharkinfested waters and ive got sharkrepellent attorneys. Alfonsi how many attorneys do you have working for you now . Glassman dozens. Theyre everywhere. Theyre everywhere. Like freaking leprechauns. Alfonsi the most exercised muscle at crossfit may be this man, their general counsel. He oversees a legal staff of 12, but glassman has hired another 80 eight, zero outside law firms to defend its reputation and its trademark. Theyve gone after a Company Selling bogus crossfitbranded jump ropes, taken on gyms in puerto rico and germany who used their name without permission, and are suing the publishers of a study that allegedly contained madeup information about crossfits safety record. Glassman i love my lawyers. I love my lawyers. Alfonsi very few people say that. Glassman i know. Its weird. Alfonsi so how many lawsuits have you been involved in . Glassman 30 or 40. More . 50 . Yeah. Alfonsi have you lost any . Glassman no, won every single one of them. Alfonsi you like the fight . Glassman i do. Yeah. Alfonsi his most tenacious fight revolves around headlines that crossfit could be dangerous or worse, deadly. Some journalists have questioned how the regimen might be bad for ones back, shoulders, or even kidneys. Because its such a new phenomenon, there arent many studies about the overall safety of crossfit. The few that exist found it to be about as safe as gymnastics or weightlifting, and less likely to cause an injury than running. Greg glassman is so sure its safe, the father of six allowed his future seventh child to be part of this class. Alfonsi to that person whos sitting in their living room saying, this all sounds interesting, but i. You know ive heard things and i dont want to get hurt . Glassman stay in your chair where youre sure to get hurt, and youll become one of the 300,000 people that will die next year from sitting in their chair doing nothing. He is speedroping up. Alfonsi another reason glassmans been so good at getting people out of their chairs is the success of the Crossfit Games. This year, 273,000 people around the world competed for a chance to be featured in the finals. It is a spectacle part olympic games, part hunger games. And the winner is crowned the fittest man or woman on earth. Announcer Camille Leblanc bazinet alfonsi . A title youll be shocked to learn Greg Glassman had his lawyers trademark. He told usbetter shape than the games top athletes. You bet the mortgage, not the rent, on. On the. Glassman i bet everything on it. Youre going to come and. And best the games athletes out of nowhere, the same way youre going to walk out here on the street and put together a stanley cup challenge out of morons walking by. It aint going to happen. Crossfit games title within reach. Alfonsi the games are sponsored by reebok. Crossfit is credited with re energizing the reebok brand and boosting sales. Glassman fitness apparel should be technical apparel. Alfonsi but five years into a tenyear deal that may be crossfits most important commercial partnership, glassman has developed some strong opinions about reeboks owners the German Company adidas, and he wasnt shy about sharing them on 60 minutes. Glassman id like to see reebok sold. Alfonsi to who . Glassman someone young fresh, excited, and willing to enter into the modern era of. Of things. Alfonsi thats a pretty bold thing. Glassman isnt it . Alfonsi . For you to say. Glassman yeah. Alfonsi does anyone ever say to you, greg, like, you shouldnt say that . Glassman yeah. Ive had people tell me, boy, i. Hes stark raving mad, but he sure is sincere, you know . Like, okay, good. You know i believe it. You know i believe it. If you think Greg Glassman is outrageous, wait until you meet his corporate mascot. Go to 60minutesovertime. Com. May be too strong, which may be preventing you from getting the sleep you need. Talk to your doctor about ways to manage your insomnia. 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