The other day I was talking to a friend and we were reflecting back to 43 years ago to when I started coaching. The differences are quite pronounced. I hope you all realize that I am not living in the past, but we MUST learn from the past, not repeat it. Here are six areas where I think we could certainly learn from the past:
Sport was centered in the schools – Therefore teachers were the coaches. Whether they were knowledgeable in the particular sport they had a foundation in pedagogy. Today anyone can coach.
Elementary schools had after school sports – Kids stayed at their neighborhood schools and played. Sometimes it was organized and other times it was supervised. Today you pass an elementary school after school is out and it is a ghost town.
Liability was not an issue – Climbing Ropes, Tramps, Peg Boards were everywhere – All of this has been taken away for “safety” and liability reasons. We are not challenging the kids.
Coaches were the experts – The high school coach was the expert in his or her sport, there were no special QB schools, you were coached by your high school coach. Can this be a shortcoming if the coach is not knowledgeable, absolutely, but somehow we overcame this?
Daily Physical Education was mandatory K through 12 – Need I say more. These PE teachers were also the coaches. They knew how to teach skill and organize, because they did it all day!
Off season Football was track – if you were a football player and did not play baseball you were out for track. You became a better athlete and you learned how to compete.
Just a few ideas from an “OLD” coach; I would be interested in your comments on how we could get some of this back if you think it is important.
Rob Kirkland
Excellent post! I currently coach at the high school level for football and this year they added spring practice and its an absolute mess! We have coaches wanting to install offense and defense that these kids will forget in two weeks! I played football on every level and come from a time where my coach was the expert in high school, we ran track in the offseason and there were no velocity sports or qb schools!
Ken Vick
Agree with most everything here and hope we can bring it around. Unfortunately the current situation leaves kids without that PE experience, they don’t have enough free play and many schools have entirely unqualified people coaching. We have kids specializing too early and not just developing as athletes.
In this environment I think there is a place for programs and outside coaches that teach young athletes athletic fundamentals and give them the opportunity to develop throughout their athletic career.
We need to recover the many benefits of school based sports and PE, but until we do, there are some great private programs that can fulfill a positive role
James Marshall
Excellent blogs recently Vern. Keeping me sane in a world of foam rolling, puke workouts and sports scientists trying to tell me how to coach numbers not people!
Thanks
Paul A. Davis
Vern-
I think several factors have led to this besides those you have listed:
1) The “adultization” of youth sports, which you have mentioned before. Perhaps because of the SportsCenter culture, winning has replaced fun, and it is the adults’ motivation, not the kids’ that is driving this. Youth sports is all about playing on the “best” team and winning this week’s tournament (which will be 5 or 6 games over 3 days).
2) The highjacking of athletic development by “strength” coaches – who also are using the “adolescent as miniature adult” and “what do we need to do to win championships” models. So many of the students in my university coaching class speak in wonderment when I introduce o them the concept of….movement! No one – coaches or strength coaches – is speaking that language. It is all about get bigger!
The genie is out of the bottle, and I am not sure what will get him back in.
moocal
Great post Vern! The last time I saw a jungle gym at an elementary on the playground was 1989. Every elementary school playgrounds, today, have slides and swings; but that is on the way out as well. We are not challenging kids today because of people are too happy with suing someone.
nate
I coach with a large USA swimming club, and while I agree with the majority of your thoughts, having things go back to the schools isn’t the way to go. It may work with some programs (Carmel comes to mind) but the vast majority of swimmers participate in year round swimming which has to come from a club. In order to be competitive with the rest of the world in swimming (Olympics, world champs etc)we have to do year round training, and high schools would never allow this. Furthermore not just “anyone” can coach. I assure you the people who are hired at these clubs are far more suited towards coaching athletes than are most high school coaches. Finally in a sport like swimming knowledge of the technical aspects of the sport are what leads us to injury prevention, and coaches who aren’t knowledgeable will end up hurting the athletes.