Functional Path Training

2011 Books

These are my favorites of the 107 books that read in 2011. The first three are my top picks.

Great By Choice:  Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite them All By Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen

Challenging Beliefs: Memoirs of a Career By Tim Noakes

That Used To Be Us _ How America Fell Behind In The World It Invented and How We Can Come Back By Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum

Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights by Alex Hutchinson

Sway – The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori and Rom Braufman

The Mechanics of Sprinting and Hurdling by Ralph Mann

The Extra 2% - How Wall Street Strategies Took A Major League Baseball Team From Worst To First by Jonah Keri

The Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History  By S.C. Gwynne

I’M Here to Win: A World Champion’s Advice For Peak Performance by Chris McCormack

I Was A Horse in Bryansk by George V. Gemer

The Wave – In Pursuit of The Rouges, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey

Authentic Happiness By Martin E.P. Seligman

Heroes, Villains and Velodromes – Chris Hoy and The British Cycling Revolution By Richard Moore

Winning Matters by Frank Dick

Bossypants By Tina Fey

Los Angeles Stories by Ry Cooder (Fiction)

The Drop by Michael Connelly (Fiction)

The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly (Fiction)

Cutting For Stone By Abraham Verghese (Fiction)

Fire in Babylon

Last night I watched “Fire in Babylon” an excellent documentary film. To call this a documentary about the great West Indies cricket team of the 1970's and 80's does not do it justice. It is a classic example of sport as metaphor and also a window into society. In the West Indies in the 1960’s the former British colonies where all achieving their independence from Britain, it was a time of social and political ferment, sport, cricket was not isolated from this. The rise of the great Windies (The Windies comprise an all-star team of the best players from all the islands of the West Indies, hence the name Windies) team that eventually went undefeated in international test Cricket for fifteen years from 1980 to 1995 is chronicled in this excellent documentary. The vintage game action footage and the training were excellent. The Windies where were one of the first international squads to actually do conditioning, a fact that gave them a huge edge. I thought the interviews with the players on the team were outstanding. These guys were real class individuals who elevated their region, their race and the game to the status it enjoys today in spite of deep racial prejudice. This is a terrific insight in the culture of the region and the culture of the sport, a sport that is exploding in popularity worldwide. It is good to see them get the recognition they deserve as pioneers in their sport and as agents of social change.

Curt Gambetta’s Art Exhibit - Office Light

Parenting is much like coaching. You teach, you encourage, you guide, you get frustrated and then you turn them loose to spread their wings and fly. It was so cool to see my son Curt spread his wings and fly Friday night. Curt presented his art project at the Lawndale Art Center in Houston Texas. It was so neat to see his ideas come to fruition. From when he initially got the idea it was at least six years in the making. Curt is a 2002 graduate of Vassar College where he majored in Political Science. In 2009 he got his masters in Architecture from Rice University in Houston. He is now the Peter Reyner Banham Fellow at the University of Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning for the academic year 2011-12. This project  titled “Office Light” is an outgrowth of some initial work he did with light in 2005. Here are some pictures:

  

Memorial Day – A Time to Remember

This weekend may signify the start of summer and be a three-day weekend but we cannot lose sight of the fact that it is MEMORIAL DAY. It is a day to honor and remember those who gave their lives for our country. I must admit until a September Sunday morning 21 years ago Memorial  Day did not mean that much to me. On that day my wife and children went to visit the Vietnam Memorial. I knew it would be emotional but I was totally unprepared for the impact it had on me. Vietnam was my generation’s war. I never thought it was a just war or a war we should have been fighting. I had never served in the military but I had friends who were in Vietnam. Just walking up to that black stonewall and realizing the enormity of the sacrifice was overwhelming. Then I remembered that a high school classmate had been killed in Vietnam so I decided to look for his name. Even though we had a small class he was not more than an acquaintance certainly not a close friend. I found his name and I was unprepared for what I found. He was killed on Christmas Eve 1967. All I could do was cry; the tears were of sympathy and also a certain rage for a life taken. I couldn’t help but think of what I was doing that Christmas Eve.  I was exchanging presents and I was midway through my senior year in college preparing to get on with a career. He gave his life in a foreign land fighting for us. Ever since that day 21 years ago Memorial Day has had a new meaning for me. War is brutal and senseless, some wars are justified and some are not, but that does not diminish the sacrifice of those who have given their lives so that we can have the freedom and the opportunities that we have. Take a minute today in the midst of your picnic or day at the beach to thank those who sacrificed their lives for us to make the world a better place.

Waiting for Superman

This DVD was one of the most disturbing things I have seen a long time. If in fact our children and their education are the future it certainly paints a very dark picture of our future as a nation. What made this so disturbing was that all the arguments of what is wrong with education were gathered together in one place. He has nailed the problems and offered some solutions. The problem as I see it is that the solutions are incredibly uncomfortable. They demand creating a whole new paradigm. Children’s lives are at stake and the future of our nation, as we know it is also in grave jeopardy. We are failing our kids by allowing a substandard educational system! The system is not broken there is no longer a system! There is complete chaos with young lives being wasted. Watch “Waiting for Superman” now and do something. It has spurred me to look into what I can do.

It will be real progress when …

There has been much attention in the media regarding the Phoenix Suns executive who came out this past week. I believe that real progress will occur when he no longer has to “come out.” When he accepted for whom and what he is – a human being. It is the same with race and religion, another headline about so and so as the fifth XYZ category to be hired as a head coach is not progress in my eyes. Real progress will be when these things are not news. I guess I view the world differently, I have seen prejudice and known prejudice, but I do not judge people by their skin color, sexual persuasion, religion or political beliefs. We will have made real progress when all people are judged on their merits not some convenient category that allows us to pigeon hole them. As a certified idealist and dreamer that is a dream I would like to see come true in my lifetime, not just in sport but in society.

From Today's Writters Almanac

At the Berkeley Free Speech Cafe

by Thomas Moore

The students are seated,
one to a table,
at tables for two,
ears wired,
laptops humming,
cell phones buzzing,
fingers texting,
iPods thumping,
toes drumming,
email flashing,
lattés cooling,
textbooks open,
reading for an exam
in Issues in Contemporary Culture 102.

"At the Berkeley Free Speech Cafe" by Thomas R. Moore, from At the Berkeley Free Speech Cafe

Using the Past - Sage Advice from Ken Burns

Yesterday as I was doing some research for my new book and I rediscovered Ken Burns 2004Commencement address to the graduates of Georgetown University. I have always enjoyed his documentary films. As a student of history I appreciate what he has done to keep history alive for current generations. His words resonated with me in light of what I see and hear in the world today and in the smaller less significant world of athletic development. Burns words are in bold, italics and my comments are in regular font.

As you pursue your goals in life, that is to say your future, pursue your past. Let it be your guide. Insist on having a past and then you will have a future.

Be careful that you are not living in the past, learn from the past, use it as a reference point

Do not descend too deeply into specialism in your work. Educate all your parts. You will be healthier. Replace cynicism with its old-fashioned antidote, skepticism.

Be a generalist, follow your curiosity, go outside your field and see how others think and do.

Don’t confuse success with excellence. The poet Robert Penn Warren once told me that “careerism is death.”

The pursuit of excellence has it’s own rewards.

Insist on heroes. And be one.

Be the best you, you can be, regardless of other people’s judgments and expectations.

Read. The book is still the greatest manmade machine of all — not the car, not the TV, not the computer.

Get off the Internet and read real books, get familiar with the library and all it’s resources. Build your own library.

Write: write letters. Keep journals. Besides your children, there is no surer way of achieving immortality.

Writing a journal, a bloging even tweeting gives you a focus. Write for yourself, no one else needs to read it.

I hope Ken Burn’s thoughts and my comments will cause you to take a few moments to reflect, to slow down and appreciate where we have come from so that we can move forward in a positive direction with a true sense of purpose.

Focus On Solutions, Not Problems

In course of numerous conversations over the past several days at the track coach’s convention the conversation inevitably turned to the problems in the sport of Track & Field and sport in general. Invariably for those of us who have been coaching over thirty-five years it then turned to the “good old days” and what made them special. No question the good old days in Track & Field were special, seeing 75,000 people in the stands at the LA coliseum for the Coliseum Relays was special, Ryan versus Snell on the front page of the sports page and on and on.  Some of us were very fortunate to have experienced that, but and it is very big but, those days are over and will never be back. Literally and figuratively we are in a new century. As coaches young and old, experienced and inexperienced we must turn our full attention to contemporary challenges and orient ourselves to finding solutions. Problems are very clear, we know them, but we need to focus on finding and implementing solutions, we must do it with a laser like focus and a great sense of urgency.

Some solutions are simple and relatively easy to implement and other are uncomfortable. I believe in starting with small steps, achieving little wins and the big wins will fall into place. We need to reverse the trends of declining physical fitness and the alarming rise in obesity across all ages. Start simple, motivate yourself and those around you to start with vigorous physical activity for fifteen minutes a day. If you are a school teacher institute the “Five in Five” program originated by Greg Thompson in the Farmington school district in Michigan, five exercises in five minutes to start the class, each class history, math, and english not just physical education. If you own a business get your employees doing “Five in Five in the morning and mid afternoon, you will see productivity rise and medical expense reduced. The positive benefits will be quickly evident. As coaches we have to set the example. How can you lead if you don’t lead by example? Get out and get yourself fit!

“Five in Five” should be a relatively simple win, and then we have to start a massive effort to reinstitute mandatory daily physical education in the schools. That is going to take a massive reallocation of resources. It will force colleges and universities to train teachers again, not pseudo sport scientists that have no jobs upon graduation. It demands an effort like the President Kennedy’s mandate for the Peace Corps in the1960’s. Everyone must get behind this. When I say everyone I mean big business, intellectual thought leaders, politicians, the medical industrial complex, the military, all concerned with the future health and well being of the nation. The curriculum must be physical and educational. We will have to unclog those unused showers in the schools because the kids will actually sweat. It can be done; I hope to see this in my lifetime.

We need to get elementary, middle school and high school sports back under the control of the schools. Youth sport should be an educational experience not trophy hunting expeditions to satisfy adult egos or mini farm teams for colleges and pro’s. This solution might be tougher than reinstituting mandatory physical education, but it must be done. It is going to be tough because youth sport is a big money industry. We need trained coaches teaching and coaching our youth, coaches who understand growth and development, sportsmanship, skill teaching and training progressions.

Certainly as professionals we can focus our efforts and we can get it done. I am a realist; I have seen things in my 63 years that no one would ever have believed would happen. We need to rededicate and reenergize ourselves and focus on solutions. Join my colleagues and me, lets go out and get it done. Look for smal wins in your community. The “good old days” are past; it is up to each and every one of us involved in sport to do our part to reverse the alarming trends that are occurring. I am going to do my part will you do yours?

George Packer

Last night I attended an outstanding presentation by George Packer, staff writer for the New Yorker. The topic was: Is America In Decline? It was quite a wide-ranging discussion in a Q&A format. I went for two reasons 1) The topic appealed to me 2) I wanted to see George after 36 years. I knew George when he was 14 years old. Kenny Kring, a decathlete I had coached and trained with at Stanford lived with the Packer family. The summer after I got my masters George used to come out to the track with us when we trained. We taught him to hurdle. At the same time I was working on my first book (Actually a booklet) Hurdling and Steeplechasing for Runners World. I needed a young athlete to demo the “sticks and bricks” teaching progression so George was the model. It sure was great to see him. I am a big fan of his writing. After all he has accomplished it was neat that he remembered that summer when I went up to him after the presentation. If you get a chance check out his writing, it is thought provoking and informative.