Athletic Development – Defining the Field
Athlete & Coaching Development Pathway
The past two days I was in meetings reviewing the USA Track & Coaching Education program. A discussion with my friend and mentor Dr. Joe Vigil got me thinking about the process of athlete a...
Reflections on Being a Coach
I have been thinking a lot about coaching recently in preparation for some projects I am working and as part of the process of continual self-improvement. It has made me realize how fortunate I am to ...
Teaching/Learning Skills – Creating Robots or Artists?
Specific sport skills are a combination of patterns of complex motor programs. They are patterns that can be reproduced when we tap into the wisdom of the body. Though experiencing a variety of differ...
The La Cumbre Effect
For four years starting in 1969 I taught at La Cumbre Junior High School in Santa Barbara California. My first year I taught history and geography and coached track and cross-country, the next year I ...
The Foundation – Fundamental Movement Skills (Part Two)
Most of movement awareness activities can be addressed daily as part of structured warm-up. Structured in the sense that the thought and planning should be put into the sequence and timing of the acti...
The Foundation – Fundamental Movement Skills (Part One)
Effective athletic development is based upon the principle of the development of fundamental movement skill before specific sport skill. In generations past this was something that everyone took for g...
This I Believe – An Athletic Development Manifesto
I not writing this to tell you how to train your athletes but I am asking you question what you do, why you do it, how you do it and when you do it. Think and question, seek answers. On whose a...
Training Sense and Nonsense
Each training session is a means to an end not an end unto itself. The goal of training is build and grow the athletes capabilities not to bury the athlete in every workout. There are a plethora of co...
Possibilities
Think about and focus on possibilities – what you can do, not what you can’t do. Use obstacles as opportunities. Take changes, risk, get out of your comfort zone, fail forward. Without risk there is n...