Utah Jazz coach Will Hardy and Rob Long will race HYROX Salt Lake City to support ALS research and local families through the Will Hardy Foundation.
Utah Jazz head coach Will Hardy and lifelong friend Rob Long are lining up at HYROX Salt Lake City with more than a finishing time in mind, using the race to support ALS research and families affected by the disease.
For Hardy, the start line at HYROX Salt Lake City comes with a purpose that reaches well beyond the race itself.
The Utah Jazz head coach will compete alongside SURF co-founder and CEO Rob Long at the Salt Palace Convention Center on Friday, 18 September.
The lifelong best friends are entering the inaugural Salt Lake City event while raising support for the Will Hardy Foundation, which works on ALS awareness, research fundraising and assistance for affected families.
It makes an already demanding sporting commitment something rather more personal for Hardy. His father, Bill Hardy, died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2015.
A race with a personal reason behind it
The Will Hardy Foundation was established in Bill Hardy’s memory, with its work combining fundraising and awareness with practical help for families dealing with ALS.
Hardy and the foundation also work closely with the University of Utah. The organisation supports Salt Lake City families affected by the disease while helping to fund ALS research nationally.
That connection explains why Hardy is treating the HYROX appearance as more than another event in the diary.
“This race is tough, but it’s nothing compared to what ALS patients and their families face every day. Wherever I can help bring awareness to this cause and support people in the community, that’s exactly where I want to be.”
It is a comparison Hardy is careful to keep in proportion. The fitness challenge may be difficult by design, but his reason for entering comes from a much tougher experience his family already knows.
How the $100 HYROX pledge works
There is also a direct fundraising mechanism attached to race weekend.
For every registered HYROX Salt Lake City athlete who downloads SURF and adds the HYROX tag to their profile between 18 and 20 September, SURF will donate $100 to the Will Hardy Foundation.
That gives competitors a simple way to turn their participation into additional financial support without changing what they are already in Salt Lake City to do.
Long, who co-founded SURF in 2024, sees the link through the communities people build around shared interests.
“People connect over the things they actually care about,” he said. “That’s true when you’re dating and it’s true when you’re training for something like HYROX. We wanted to take all that energy and give back to a cause that’s incredibly important to us.”
The commercial tie-in is obvious, but so is the measurable part of the proposition: each qualifying athlete action carries a stated $100 donation.
The foundation’s work does not end with race day
HYROX is one part of a wider sporting fundraising effort around Hardy’s foundation.
Hardy and Long are also preparing for the second annual Show Love Shootout golf tournament this autumn, another event raising money for the foundation’s ALS work.
The foundation describes its remit as raising money and awareness for ALS while providing direct aid and support systems to affected families and caregivers. Community events, advocacy and charitable giving form the core of that work.
For supporters in Salt Lake City, that gives Friday’s race a fairly straightforward significance. Hardy is not presenting a fitness event as an answer to ALS. He is using the attention around one difficult physical challenge to help fund people dealing with a far more consequential one.
Why the HYROX appearance matters
Celebrity participation can easily become the story at events such as this. Here, Hardy’s involvement is more interesting because of what sits behind it.
There is the lifelong friendship with Long, the loss of his father, the foundation created in his memory and a fundraising model that gives fellow competitors a tangible way to contribute.
It also keeps the focus local. Hardy has spoken about the support his family and foundation have received from the Salt Lake community and the work taking place through the University of Utah ALS Clinic.
For one Friday in September, HYROX becomes another route into that work. The finishing position may matter on the floor of the Salt Palace. For Hardy, it is unlikely to be the most important result of the day.
