Functional Path Training

The Learning Journey – Clinics, Symposia & Other Resources

From the time I committed to be a track & field coach in January of 1968 I started the learning journey. Last post I talked about the books that were learning resources that influenced me. In this post I will talk about the Clinics, symposiums and other resources that were influences in my development, particularly in the first twelve years.

Theory of Track and Field class taught by Red Estes was the foundation for everything I have done since. We had to prepare a detailed notebook of each event. In addition, we had to show proficiency in each event so that we could demonstrate for our athletes. I continue to use the lessons learned in that class today. Good old-fashioned pedagogy never goes out of style.

In January of 1968 Red Estes, organized the first Fresno State track & Field Clinic. Red was a University of Oregon graduate, so he was able to bring in Bill Bowerman, who was the iconic coach at U of O. The other speaker was Ken Shannon, who was the field event coach at UCLA. Both were great. Terrific presentations with great information. I have to say it was Bowerman who sealed the deal on me becoming a track coach. He was so inspirational and passionate I decided that night that I wanted to be a track coach. I have never looked back! Each subsequent year I would go back to the Fresno Sate Clinic each January. Later in the seventies I was honored to be asked to speak at it. In February of 1970 I attended my first MTSAC Clinic where I first heard Tom Tellez. The MTSAC clinic became an annual event for me, there was always a great lineup of speakers willing to share. 1972 Olympic Trials Clinic was held in the morning during the trails. The presenters were top coaches, it was my first exposure to coaches from other regions of the US, up to that time my main exposure had been to coaches from the west. AAU Learn by Doing Clinic in July 1972 organized by Fred Wilt. This was five-day 12 hour a day clinic attended by every coach who did anything in track in the US for the next thirty years. The evening session with Tadeusz Starzynski, Joseph Schmidt’s coach was a highlight for me. A terrific insight into a system not dependent of heavy weights.1976 Olympic Trials Clinic was another experience much like 72 Trials clinic. This time I my depth of knowledge was a little greater and I could ask better questions.

Track Technique edited by Fred Wilt. Issues that I found particularly useful were: #33 Javelin Throwing Russian Style by V. Mazzalitis, detailing Janus Lusis training and #34 The high Jump by V.M. Dyahov detailing Brumels training. In 1978 I was honored to take over as Editor of Track Technique. Assuming that position gave me access to coaches and information worldwide that was amazing.

Meadowbank Convention notes from an annual seminar held in Edinburgh every year. It was put on by Scottish Athletics and organized by Frank Dick. Eventually I was able to obtain most of the notes from each annual convention. I found these notes really informative because they had speakers from the eastern bloc countries that I would not normally have access to. In fact, there are presentations from those notes that I go back to periodically.

Athletic Journal and Scholastic Coach were sent to our athletic department each month. Even though they were multisport journals they contained a wealth of information. There were tremendous sequence photos of technique in all sports that helped to understand athletic movement.

Athletics Coach was the technical of British Amateur Athletic Board. Tremendous articles by top British and European coaches. The BAAB also put out a series of instructional manuals that were indispensable to me, particularly because they all included teaching progressions

Modern Athlete and Coach published by the Australian Track Coaches Association. It was edited by Jess Jarver who was a native Russian speaker, so the translations published were very accurate. A great journal.

USTCA Association Journal which consisted mainly reprinted clinic notes.

Research Quarterly published by AAHPER. A good source for research articles in physical education.

8mm and Super 8 films sold my Ora McMurray were invaluable. There was no YouTube, so we depended on Ora and his network of contacts throughout the world for high quality film of the best in their respective events in action. In fact, with my first paycheck as a teacher I paid $495 for a Kodak M95 projector that allowed me to stop, start and reverse film so I could study technique films. In addition, there were sequence photos shot and developed by Phil Bath that came in rolls you could take them out to the track. They were of unbelievable high quality and invaluable for the athletes to see good technical models.

The 1976 Olympics were a great learning experience for me. I tried to be first at the practice track in the morning and last to leave in the evening. What an education, getting to see the top athletes in the world with their coaches training and warming up for competition was invaluable in my development as a coach. Finally attending the 1978 Commonwealth Scientific Congress in Edmonton was an eye opener for me and to what science could potentially do. Top scientists and coaching presenting were not only informative but inspirational.

The Passion Paradox (A wake up guide to using your passion)

I know Steve Magness and Brad Stulberg; they are two passionate people, so it seems appropriate that their new book is about the paradoxical nature of passion. I knew they were working on a new book but had no idea what it was about until it showed up in the mail. It was particularly timely as I am at the stage in career/life where I am transitioning and redirecting my passion. For fifty years my passion has driven me, most of the time it was good sometimes it was bad when I lost sight of true north. I am redirecting my passion away from day to day coaching and interaction with athletes to coaching coaches and consulting. It has been a struggle because my passion has been to see people grow and develop day to day and week to week.

I have always said passion is like a high-octane fuel, it is explosive if not handled correctly. Steve and Brad underscore this with meticulous research on the whole area of passion. They clearly portray the upside and the downside of passion, hence the title of the book: The Passion Paradox - A Guide to Going All In, Finding Success, And Discovering The Benefits Of An Unbalanced Life. Personally, I have struggled with colleagues and athletes who did not share my passion. After reading the book, it was comforting to learn that this is not uncommon and is often the cause of mental and physical breakdown and the demise of many relationships. By the way it also made me feel feel better that sometimes life balance is unrealistic and damn near impossible

This book is a user’s manual on how to use passion and what to do when it gets out of control. They have done a super job of weaving the psychological research with stories and personal anecdotes. This book is not a self-help book in the traditional sense of a self-help book, but instead it is a guide and I said earlier a user’s manual on handling that high octane fuel called passion. It sure would have been great to have this resource about fifty years ago. The path might have been a bit smoother, but never too late to learn. Get this, read it, digest it, and take it to heart and passion will be your fuel.

What Makes Coaching Special

Last week during my visit to Santa Barbara I connected with one of my former athletes from the Santa Barbara High School cross country and track team, Raul Gil. I had not seen Raul for close to forty years. He graduated in 1977 and was captain of the 1977 track team and a team leader on the 1976 cross country team that finished seventh in CIF Southern Section (There was no state cross country meet then). What a tremendous person and success story. He came to US from a small town in Mexico at age eleven not speaking a word of English, he was in ESL (English as a Second Language Class through his sophomore year in high school). Early on he maintained two paper routes, which he credits with teaching him business skills. In 1977 he was named paperboy of the year and won a trip to Europe. He graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a degree in business and because of being paperboy of the year got a job with the local newspaper on the business side where he worked for over thirty years. Now he is a team leader for an international company. It was so good sharing stories and catching up. He told me that when I named him captain of the track team that it was the first time he had to get up and speak to a group in English. His children have graduated from college as well a majority of his extended family. Just sitting down with Raul reminded me that coaching is about people, yes, he was a fast runner, yes, we won championships, but most importantly Raul is a champion in life. He is someone to look up to and emulate. Raul thanks for making me a better coach and person, you are in inspiration to me.

If you ever wonder why you coach, this is why – the possibility to be a factor in a person’s life. This elevates us all.

Living and Learning

Life is about learning, when you stop learning your stop living. My love of learning was instilled in me by my mother who had been denied an education but placed a high premium on it. It was exciting growing up discovering new worlds and expanding my horizon. There was always something new to learn and explore well beyond the confines of the classroom.

Learning is not a direct function of formal education. Formal education is just that, formal. In fact, deep learning is informal, messy and chaotic. To learn is to go where your passion and curiosity leads you is very Sherlockian, solving mysteries, not completing puzzles.

After fifty years on my professional journey I am more excited than ever to keep learning, growing and challenging myself to learn new ideas and challenge old ones. To always seek to understand why. It has taken me this long to learn what I don’t know and to make connections between disparate ideas. In today’s world there are opportunities to learn more and faster than ever before. We can now make instant connections that we were unable to do ten, twenty or thirty years ago.

The past few months have been a time of reflection and contemplation. My brothers passing only served to remind me that that time on this planet is limited and that I have more yesterdays than tomorrows. In that time my goal is to keep learning and sharing the lessons that I have learned.

The Wizard of Foz – Dick Fosbury’s One-Man High Jump Revolution by Bob Welch with Dick Fosbury.

You can learn a lot from athletes’ biographies, especially from someone who innovated like Fosbury did. There are many lessons to be learned from this book both about sport and life through the chronicles of his rise to Olympic Champion and beyond. It is well framed in the context of growing up in the fifties and coming of age in the turbulent sixties. Fosbury developed his technique without coaching and in many ways in spite of coaching. This is a little pearl I go from the book regarding Fosbury’s in competition mental approach in preparation for a jump:

“First, the corrective. Fosbury would think: What if anything needs fixing from my previous jump? Often, for example, it was a reminder not to drift into the bar and instead, to jump vertically, not horizontally.” (P. 123)

“Second, the connective. Once he’d determined what needed to be fixed on this coming jump, he would connect the action to the particular part of the body responsible for making that happen, to feel it. To think that thought – more pronounced arch, for example – would help the body rehearse, or memorize, what it needed to do.” (P. 123)

“And, finally, the disconnective. In the final few seconds before the jump, he wanted nothing more on his mind regarding the past. All of his energy needed to feed his now. “I never started forward on my approach,” he said, until was absolutely convinced I was going over the bar.” (P. 124)

Enjoy the book it is an entertaining and informative read that brought back many memories from a bygone era in track and field.

So, You Want a Coaching Job?

In the course of my fifty years of coaching I have been fortunate to have had great mentors, influences and role models. I learned very early that I was not entitled to anything I had to pay my dues and earn the right to move forward. I constantly had to prove my competence and continue to improve.

In today’s world with increasing specialization and fast tracking I worry about the up and coming generation of coaches. This is an attempt to help guide this generation as to what matters in coaching. Start here with this as a self-evaluation exercise. Use this to create a profile of yourself beyond your resume’

Statement of Philosophy of Training and Coaching (Two Paragraphs Maximum)

Specific Short Term and Long-Term Goals

Education and relevant course work

All Coaching Experience – In any sport at any level

         Specifically, whom did you coach

         What were your actual coaching responsibilities?

Teaching Experience – Formal and informal (Sunday School counts)

Areas of Coaching Expertise – Be Specific & include examples

What are your Strengths? What makes you special and stand out from your peers?

What are your Weaknesses? Where do you need to improve? How do you plan to address your weaknesses?

Appearance – Do you look the part? Are you fit, and do you present yourself well?

Skill Proficiency – Do you have the ability to demonstrate what you are teaching?

Work Ethic – Are you willing to go the extra mile and work until the job is done? Give examples of how and when you have done this.

Certifications & Accreditations – List all in any field

List three books on Training or Athletic Enhancement that you have read in the past three months

List three books not related to sport or training that you have read in the last three months?

List three refereed journal articles that you have read in the last three months

What are you doing on a regular basis to improve your knowledge and ability as a coach? What is you action plan to improve your skills going forward?

What will you do that will be special?

Read this Book! The Playmakers Advantage

For the past fifteen years I have been focused on what to do to get better at getting better. I have explored cognitive neuroscience, recognizing that the brain and how we train the brain is the key to getting better at getting better. In that pursuit I have read numerous books, devoured research literature, attended seminars and talked to as many experts as possible. The deeper I got into the process I knew I was on the right path. This is why I am encouraging you to read The Playmakers Advantage – How to Raise Your Mental Game to The Next Level. Len Zaichkowsky AKA Dr. Z and Dan Peterson have done a masterful job of compiling the research and their extensive experience into a comprehensive informative guide to the latest information on training the brain to improve sports performance.

This is a terrific resource for coaches. They go into detail as to the what, the how and very importantly the why of training the brain. The material in Playmakers Advantage represents what we have to do as coaches to optimize what we are doing. It is not a simplistic self-help motivational work, there are too many of those and they are ineffective in changing behavior. This has breadth and depth reflecting the latest research and best practice. It is one of the most valuable books I have read in a long time. How often as coaches have we said it is all in your head. Playmakers Advantage shows how to use what’s in our head to our competitive advantage.

Current Reading

Since I last reported on my reading in April I have read fifty-one books. The topics represent a range of interests beyond sport. I find myself reading more history going back to my roots as a social science major. Here are some that stood out for me.

Giant – The Making of a Legendary American Film by Don Graham

The Performance Cortex – How Neuroscience is Refining Athletic Genius by Zach Schonbrun

The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything – A Spiritual Guide for Real Life by James Martin. SJ

Masters of Modern Soccer – How the World’s Best Play the Twenty-First Century Game by Grant Wahl

Jerusalem – The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore

The Hope Circuit – A Psychologists Journey from Helplessness to Optimism by Martin E. P. Seligman

Heroic Leadership – Best Practices From a 450-Year-Old Company That Changed the World by Chris Lowney

On Grand Strategy by John Lewis Gaddis

Fact Fullness – Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World and Why Things are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling, with Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Ronnlund

Human Movement – An Integrated Approach by Joseph R. Higgins

The Mirage Factory – Illusion, Imagination and the Invention of Los Angeles by Gary Kirst

The Comeback – Greg LeMond, the True King of American Cycling and The Legendary Tour de France by Daniel De Vise’

Boyd – The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram

Bad Blood – Secrets and Lies in Silicon Valley by John Carreyrow

Sevens Heaven – The Beautiful Chaos of Fiji’s Olympic Dream by Ben Ryan

TAILSPIN – The People and Forces Behind America’s Fifty Year Fall and Those Fighting to Reverse it by Steven Brill

The Square and the Tower – Networks and Power from the Freemasons to Facebook by Nial Ferguson

Who We Are and How We Got There – Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past by David Reich

Measure What Matters – OKRs The Simple Idea That Drives 10X Growth by John Doerr

The Age of Eisenhower – America and the World in the 1950’s by William I. Hitchcock

Franklin D. Roosevelt – A Political Life by Robert Dallek

Our Towns – A 100,000 Mile Journey into the Heart of America By James and Deborah Fallows

2018 Current Readings

So far in 2018 I have read 39 books. Here are the books that particularly stood out:

Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

When – The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel Pink

The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle

A Bright Shining Lie – John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam

By Neil Sheehan

Endure – Mind, Body and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance by Alex Hutchinson

The Geography of Thought by Richard Nisbett

Directorate S – The CIA and Americas Secret Wars in Afghanistan & Pakistan by Steve Coll

The Away Game – The Epic Search for Soccer’s Next Superstars by Sebastian Abbot

The Dawn Watch – Joseph Conrad in a Global World by Maya Jasanoff

The Last Man Who Knew Everything – The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age By David N. Schwartz

Fascism – A Warning by Madeline Albright (I highly recommend this book as particularly relevant given the state of the world today.)

My Favorite Books for 2017

Below is a list of the books that I most enjoyed in 2017. It is a varied list. It should be noted that i did not include any fiction, not that I did not have any favorites I just thought the readers would be interested in the non-fiction choices. So far in 2017 I have read 136 books and I am currently reading five of which I will probably finish three before the end of the year. I love to read, I read as a hobby and I read to learn. When I read I just follow my muse and let it take to varied subjects and topics although as you can see by the list I probably come most often to history and biography. Please note I do hyperlink the books to Amazon or any other book seller because I feel that would be profiting from love and passion for reading learning. Read and enjoy!

Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen

Deep Work – Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

By Cal Newport

How to Support a Champion by Steve Ingham

Truman by David McCullough

The Talent Lab – The Secret to Creating & Sustaining Success by Owen Slot with Simon Timpson and Chelsea Warr

Peak Performance by Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness

Churchill and Orwell – The Fight for Freedom  By Thomas E. Ricks

Pep Guardiola – The Evolution by Marti’ Perarnau

Hue’ 1968 – The Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam by Mark Bowden

The Cubs Way by Tom Verducci

Sapiens – A Brief History of Human Kind by Yuval Noah Harari

The Pursuit of Power – Europe 1815 -1914 by Richard Evans

Behave – The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky

The Long Haul – A Truckers Tales of Life on the Road by Finn Murphy

Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson

To Hell and Back – Europe 1914 – 1949 by Ian Kershaw

The Push – A Climbers Journey of Endurance, Risk, and Going Beyond Limits by Tommy Caldwell