As the Chargers battle through a seemingly “uphill” season, the post game chatter on the wires is amuck with camparisons of the Chargers’ new coach, Norv Turner, and the former Marty Schottenheimer.  “Marty was an old-school guy, discipline, emotion, expectations, authority”.  I have to ask myself if I’m alone when I wonder “If those attributes are “old school”, what does “new school” mean?”  In my opinion, if my coaching style was described as any form of antitheses to these above attributes, I would consider it a significant slander.  When did themes of respect, authority, hard work, discipline, honesty, accountability, and fundamentals get cataloged into “sport history” under the genre “old school”?

     In my profession, I work with a lot of today’s youth.  I really have taken a passion and interest with this demographic.  These youth are our “future prospects”.  They are being molded to someday contribute to society, making it better as a whole.  At Fitness Quest 10, we view our responsibility with these youth as far beyond showing them exercises to do.  Our curriculum of “creating greatness” goes well beyond what happens on the field.  Our mission is to mentor these youth, creating character, work ethic, and accountability.  I guess you would have to call that part of our program “old school”.  I find it almost laughable that these things fall under that category.  I mean, I’m not a Texas-born, square jawed veteran that thinks tattoos are for sailors and roughnecks, and rock and roll is the kiss of Satan.  Anyone who knows me wouldn’t think of me and my demeanor as “old school.”  I just can’t imagine, however, coaching or teaching without making the above attributes the foundation of my program.

     When the media looks at “the problem with today’s youth” (cut and paste headline for nearly every generation), they turn to things like suggestive music, violent video games, and poor role models.  Although I would agree that these are definitely the “candy” of youth’s societal nutrition, we have to look a little deeper than that.  I would say about 1 out of 10 youths I meet at our facility actually look me in the eye and are able to offer any degree of handshake and greeting.  This has actually become part of our “old school” curriculum, teaching kids to do this.  The “new school” “what’s up” head nod followed by the presentation of a limp wrist the Queen herself would be ashamed of, is no way for a youth to learn to present themselves to an adult, or anyone!  Are they going to carry those habits into a job interview?  Terms like “sir, mam, mr. blank, mrs. blank, etc. appear to be catalogued as history as well.  Youth seem to be on automatic first-name basis with just about everyone.  I cringe to think what one of my high school or college coaches would do to me, and subsequently the entire team, if I referred to them by their first name on the field.  Our athletes refer to their mentors as “coach”.   

     Promptness and accountability are pillars of our youth program as well.  Any team or individual we work with clearly knows our expectations of them, which are often quite high.  When these aren’t met, we don’t follow with a barrage of screaming and insults, we make honest observations and provide the appropriate corrections, (another “old school” concept of teaching pedagogy).  Being late to a training session or not coming with assignments such as post-workout nutrition is not acceptable.  Athletes know this ahead of time in very clear writing, and when they don’t meet this expectation, we provide “memory tools” so they don’t forget. No prolonged rants or insults, just a very concise “cause and effect” relationship.  Usually, in a team of 30, someone will forget about 1 time is 8 weeks.  Our “memory tools” are very effective.  No excuses are accepted, no consolations made.   Both men and women are subject to our expectations.  Yes sir, sounds a lot like the real world, hugh?

     From college kids looking for jobs, we get “cutesy” answering machine messages (“This is Tom, I’m hung over, call back”), unprofessional email addresses ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ), inappropriate Myspace pages, and email correspondence lacking capital letters, punctuation, and basic spelling.  I can’t speak for the entire corporate world, but if any of the above apply to work at our company, that’s as far as they’ll get.  Who is not telling these youth that this is unacceptable?  Well, I guess I am right now.  But I’m pretty “old school” when it comes to that.   

     I may be mistaken, but “new school” appears to suggest “anything, anyone, anytime, whatever, and it’s nobody’s fault.”  Point blank, this is a failed approach with our youth.  They won’t come out and say it, but youth thrive on structure.  The more they know what is clearly and realistically expected of them, and these expectations are enforced, the more they will thrive.  Much progression has occurred over the years in regards to teaching and coaching pedagogies, improved communication styles, and training methods.  These “new school” concepts can be highly effective when they use the “old school” as their foundation.

     As a parent, teacher, coach, or mentor, challenge yourself to go “old school” with your children, students, and athletes.  In turn, we’ll produce a generation of confident, fulfilled leaders that are ready to change the world!