I had the opportunity the past two days to speak at the Michigan Interscholastic Track Coaches Association. It was a wonderful experience. It is always great to be able to interact with high school coaches and teachers. They are on the firing line everyday. This group was eager to learn and share. What did strike me though was the almost complete lack of a historical context. I know this is a recurrent theme that I keep hammering on, but how do you know where are going if you do not know where you have been. I think you must know of and read and study the great coaches of the past, study the training and results of their athletes to learn, not just from their successes but from their failures.
On another note, there was an elderly gentleman that sat in the front row during all of my talks I spoke to him before each talk but did really know who was until I was leaving. His name is Kermit Ambrose, he is 96 years old! He was listening and a couple of times even wrote a couple of notes. It turns out that Kermit was the founder of the Coaches Association and a legend in high school coaching in Michigan. I was honored to have him present. My only hope is that the young coaches pick his brain, I am sure he has seen it all before. When I mentioned that today we are doing too much static stretching instead of warming he applauded. What an honor to have someone like that present.
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