I feel like a voice crying out in the dark again. I have
never been one to hold my thoughts in, so here goes. Where have all the coaches
gone? I see a plethora of Exercise Science, Human Movement Science, Sport
Science, and Kinesiology graduates, but where are the coaches. No one wants to
sweat, no one wants to get dirty and rake the long jump pit. I am definitely
not anti sport science; I think my record speaks for itself in that regard, but
who is training coaches? What happened to the good old fashioned coaching methods
classes taught by coaches who were coaching? I really don’t care if you can
diagram the Krebs cycle foreword and backward or any other scientific minutiae.
Can you teach? Can you coach? Can your demonstrate the activity you are
teaching? We need to get way back to basics here. When I watch sports at every
level I see poor coaching running rampant, poor basic movement fundamentals,
poor sport skills, poor practice organization and on and on. A huge reason why
is that we no longer have coaches who are trained as teachers. They don’t know
how to teach, because they were never taught how to teach. (same thing in the
classroom, but that is another topic for another time) You should never
criticize without offering a solution. Unfortunately the solutions are somewhat
expensive and complex. With all the cutbacks in education it would be tough to
require coaches to be trained, right now. Many sports, schools and clubs will
take anyone they can get for low wages or for free. It is going to take time to
rectify this situation. Certainly USOC and the various sport governing bodies
could play a much more active role, but I am not sure they recognize the
problem. You can’t go to the cause of the problem for a solution. Over the next
few weeks and months I will post some of my and my colleagues solutions for
this crisis.
Here is a challenge – food for thought – You want to start a
track program, but you don’t have a track. You have an asphalt area with twelve
basketball courts. You have a large grass field that is big enough for a track
but it is on two tiers with the upper tier around three feet higher than the
lower tier. What would you do? By the way track practice starts next Monday. Have
at it.
Mark Day
I am 44 yoa and none of the schools in my 11 school conference in high school had a track. They rented out a 300 meter 2+ lane cinder track with a drainage ditch in 1 turn for the conference meet. More than 1 runner was a college all-american in track from those schools. Over 1/2 of my senior year track team ran or threw in college. You are making it too easy Vern. No schools around me even have that much green space or blacktop to run.
jeremiah
I wouldn’t want the athletes running on the asphalt area if I had my choice (never have been a fan on running on that surface). The grass would be so much nicer to have them do workouts on.
Vernon Gambetta
What would you do on the asphalt? Remember it is Track & Field.
phillip bazzini
Mark makes a good point. St. Anthony’s HS basketball team in NJ is always nationally ranked and they dont have a basketball court. As Coyle points out with Russian tennis and the other hotbeds of talent, perhaps some adversity brings out the best, gets them to work harder.
I agree with Mark, maybe the lack of a track may be an asset, just make sure the hurdles are properly spaced apart.
Lance Neubauer
How big is the parking lot? I’m heading to the store to pick up some paint, cones, a few sheets of plywood for shot put and discus rings. I’m painting some lanes in the parking lot, with know distances so I can start training. Will also paint up the markings for hurdles, and exchange zones. The parking lot sounds like an excellent area for dynamic warm up, working on starts, running known distances for speed work. Maybe we are lucky enough to have the parking lot butt up the grass areas so we can paint some circles in the parking lot and throw shot put and discus onto the grass field. Easy to setup sector lines. Otherwise we can build plywood rings. Setting up a high jump pit on the parking lot is simple, the PV pit will need an elevated runway. LJ and TJ we can do all the speed, tech, and plyo work. Jump work can be done onto the HJ pit pads. Distance folks – hit the roads while I measure some know distances onto the grass field for pace and speed training. These kids are lucky. they have a coach who cares and will train them the best way possible with the resources available. Our facility might not be the best, yet we will be well trained physically and mentally for competition.