Author: Vernon Gambetta
Reading
I love to read. Last night I finished my 52nd book since August, I read for enjoyment and to learn. The following are the books that I read that were most notable. I did not include the fiction. I would be interested in hearing what books you are reading. The Genius – How Bill Walsh Reinvented Football and Created an NFL Dynasty by David Harris Moving to Higher Ground – How Jazz Can Change Your Life bv Wynton Marsalis and Geoffrey C. Ward Reality Check – The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition by Guy Kawasaki In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan Education of a Wandering Man by Louis-LAmour You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard – The Complete Book of Speaking in Business and In Life by Bert Decker Simplexity: Why Simple Things Become Complex and Why Complex Things can be Made Simple by Jeffrey Kluger Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently by Gregory Berns Do you matter? How great design will make people love your company by Robert Brunner and Stewart Emery with Russ Hall Living on the Black by John Feinstein Born Standing Up by Steve Martin Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb Mind Over Water by Craig Lambert Mindfulness by Ellen J. Langer Baghdad at Sunrise by Peter R. Mansoor The Last Campaign – Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days that Inspired America by Thurston Clark Information Dashboard Design – The Effective Visual Communication of Data by Stephen few Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essay (Complete Works of George Orwell) by George Orwell and George Packer The Wink of Zenith – The Shaping of a Writers Life by Floyd Skloot Hare Brain – Tortoise Mind How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less by Guy Claxton
1963 San Diego Chargers
This is a link to an article from the ESPN and the Outside the Lines report on ESPN. It is a good introduction to the beginnings of the drug culture that we have today in sport and serves a poignant reminder that those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=3866837The focus is on two people Sid Gillman, the head coach of the San Diego Chargers and Alvin Roy, the first strength coach in pro football and a person many acknowledge to be the first strength coach in football at LSU in 1958. Both were progressive thinkers and innovators. Unfortunately some of their innovation was centered on giving the players Dianabol to supplement their weight training, a practice I do not condone. Anabolic steroids were legal at that time. They were very prevalent in the power lifting community and just getting into track & field with the throwers. I think it is shame that the ESPN reporters did not balance out the story with the innovative training they were doing. Lifting weights was still considered taboo for athletes at the time, but they were lifting in training camp and in season. They had a systematic off season strength training program that would rival many of today’s programs. As football player in the sixties I tried to get my hands on anything Alvin Roy wrote. The lifting methods and his training methodology made sense to me. I certainly was naive about the drug aspect of the training until I began training and competing for the decathlon in 1969. If you have access to a copy of Gilman and Roys book – “The San Diego Chargers Strength Program In and Out of Season” it is worth reading. (It is out of print) I religiously followed one of the programs in the book that helped a player gain 50 pounds of muscle and I lost five pounds! I was missing one ingredient 15 mg a day of Dianabol. None the less as a young athlete interested in going into coaching the non drug lessons of the methodology were a big influence on my training ideas.
“the day the music died”
This is from Garrison Keillors Writers Almanac: It's "the day the music died," the day in 1959 when Buddy Holly was killed in a plane crash in Clear Lake, Iowa, along with Ritchie Valens (who sang "La Bamba") and J.P. Richardson (known as "The Big Bopper"). Buddy Holly's career as a rock star only lasted a year and a half, but he recorded "Peggy Sue," "Everyday," "That'll Be the Day," "Oh, Boy!" and many more hits. Buddy Holly was 22 years old when he died.
The Answer
As far as I know only the "great” Alan Iverson has the ANSWER. If I have learned one thing in my professional career, just about the time you think you have the answer, there will be more questions. Answers are hard to come by I love competing with opponents who have the answer; they are predictable and easy to defeat. Perhaps we need to focus on the question, what question(s) to ask that will help to direct us to our destination in the most direct and efficient manner. I know I have many questions, it makes life and coaching very exciting.
What does Combine Training Do?
Combine training makes the player highly adapted to a few movements that really have no impact on their ability to play the game. Furthermore the movements in the combine tests bear very little resemblance to what actually happens in the game. So what are they doing? Now every sport is going to testing combines. Rumor has it that even Major League Baseball will have a combine. Has anyone ever taken a moment to step back to assess what information is derived from the combine? After scouting players for four years what do you really learn from some artificial and contrived tests? I know one thing if I owned an NFL team or were the GM of a team we would not participate in the combine. We would evaluate our own potential draft picks with tests and medical exams that were revealing and indicative of their ability to play the game. I maintain that no one has the courage to do this, they are all sheepwalking, following the flock.
Intellectual Incest
One of my mentors, Dr Joe Vigil, coined that phrase many years ago. He used it describe coaches who pass around the same information, usually misinformation, in a small group and believe it to be gospel. They keep reinforcing their own misinformation. You need to ask yourself as a coach where do you get your information. Have you taken the time to go talk to a coach in another sport and learn how they train or how they organize practice? Have you read any technical journals in the last month? Have you read any scientific journals in the last month? Do you do the things you do because that is the way they have always been done? Does all your information come from the internet? If so you might consider going beyond the internet. Do you have a mentor that has had a variety of experiences? It is so easy to get caught up in intellectual incest while searching for the latest and greatest, the secret or the next big thing. I am convinced that the next big thing in coaching in general and athletic development in particular will come from a generalist who searches well beyond traditional fields in the coaching domain. Since August I have fifty books, only ten of those books were directly related to sport or training, most were well outside the field, some in cognitive neuroscience, some in communication, some biographies. What they all had in common is that they stimulated ideas that I think are helping to improve my coaching. I encourage you to do the same. This is one of the goals of the GAIN Apprentorship – to challenge people to get out of their comfort zone and search farther afield. All that being said remember the immortal words of Gertrude Stein “the answer is there no answer.”
Coach Hugh McCutcheon on Coaching
Hugh McCutcheon is now the coach of the US Women’s national team, he was the coach of the men’s Olympic team in Beijing that won a gold medal. I had the opportunity to have lunch with him in November at a conference at the USOC. I was very impressed with his ideas. In this piece he is obviously focused on volleyball, but you can tell he is grounded in principles that apply to any sport. I think in this country coaches have the attitude that each sport is unique and different, when in fact we can learn from other sports. Today the Scum coach for the New Zealand All Blacks is coming to watch out volleyball conditioning workout. He is in the states for professional development. He told me yesterday how important it is to learn from other sports. We can’t figure that out. There are S&C coaches that are trying to make their players faster who have NEVER walked across campus to talk to the track coach. Whats wrong with that picture. You have know what you don't know in order to learn. The following was taken from a blog by John Keseel of USA Volleyball, Apparently some people felt that I was representing this as something I have written. This was written by John Kessel. When asked about the differences between the men's and women's game, Hugh replied "What is the difference? Don't we live on planet Earth and the laws of physics apply? I am approaching it as volleyball, whether you are a woman or a man. The idea of 'women's vs. men's' volleyball is doing nothing but stereotyping. Guys have issues too. We are going to do everything we can to be great, based on science and principles." Later on Hugh and Peter Vint did a myth buster segment. There was some lively discussion on these, among others, which Peter used the science from the Biomechanics lab studies to dispel these… Myth: The wrist snap is important in attacking Myth: An athlete's ability to read the game/make correct decisions is unalterable Myth: Toed-in base positions are best for passers and defenders (and/or blockers) Myth: Starting a move on the balls of the feet results in faster movement times than starting flat footed Myth: Piking at the instant of ball contact is a good thing to do and a bunch more…. The closing session Hugh spoke about the need for "generalized specialists" who are good in all areas of the game but really good in 1-2 skill sets. He noted how we are specializing too early in volleyball. There is not rocket science, the way you get good at passing is by passing, and the way you get good at the game is by playing the game. Trying to teach the game from a generalized basis, you will be better at working together as a team, and win more of the little things that are being lost. "When you start teaching the game, the most important thing is to make it fun…for if at the end of the day if the game is not fun, it will be really hard to keep them around." Our opponents in other volleyball nations can 1. Execute all of the fundamentals at a very high level 2. Have correct technique and are biomechanically efficient 3. Make all the little plays – they cover, can set out of system, can dig, etc. 4. Make all the right choices about where to stand, who to set, where to block etc. If I am going to ask my kids to work hard, I need to work hard too. We should connect as best we can to our kids…they should not be berated to get good, we are service providers to facilitate the hours of each players live to something they enjoy, so when we do what we do, we need to ask if this is right by the team and the individuals. Coaching is a valued career in our nation amazingly, but it is something you earn, not something you require. We have to be into best practices from ourselves, making it a good and positive experience (not all rainbows and ponies), and not beating up on the kids, for ultimately we want to grow the game…positive reinforcement has longer effect on players than negative, so I want to catch them doing it right a lot, right Kess?
Communication
Clouseau: Does your dog bite? Hotel Clerk: No. Clouseau: [bowing down to pet the dog] Nice doggie. [Dog barks and bites Clouseau in the hand] Clouseau: I thought you said your dog did not bite! Hotel Clerk: That is not my dog.