Why Running shouldn't be a Form of Punishment with Olympic Track Coach Sue Humphrey

[00:00:00] John Boruk: Hello again, and welcome in to Raising a Champion. I'm your host, John Bork. It's the podcast that focuses on youth sports, the multi-billion dollar industry of youth sports, and how we can do it a little bit better for everybody involved, from parents, to kids, to administrators, coaches, you name it, on down the line if you've heard us before.

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In terms of the success of our podcast spent the past week on vacation, spring [00:01:00] break for the kids. Had a week out of school, went on a cruise. First time we'd ever been on a cruise before. Kids loved it. Always had something to do. There was no shortage of, it's hard to believe, but you're out on a cruise ship.

And there somehow they find that there's no shortage of things to do on a cruise ship. It was good to get away from the sports landscape. No practices, no games. You get away. Just have fun. Soak up the sun, listen to some music watch some shows. Just get away from everything. They forget where they are at times, but that was vacation.

And I think it's always important when you do have an a youth athlete that you step away, clear your mind, get out of the routine of going to practices, games and just being a family again. Being, just having that that, that whole family element of spending time together, good quality time, doing something fun that, that takes you out of the typical rhythm of what you normally do when your kid is in school.

So that was a good time and that was a fun [00:02:00] time, but, Good to be back. Good that we're cranking up the podcast yet again. My guest this week as the weather is starting to change, it's starting to get a little bit warmer. And it's reminiscent of track season when the boys and girls are out there and they're putting on they're running shoes and they're running around.

And so it's almost apropo that my guest this week is a three-time Olympic track in field coach among her resume. She has worked with. How about this? Jackie Joiner-Kersee, 1996 Olympic gold medalist, Charles Austin, who won the Olympic gold in the men's high jump. That was in 2004. She's also served as head coach of the US Olympics women's track in field team, and most recent, least, she's written a book, I want to run the Olympic Development Training and Nutritional Guide for Young and teamed Track Runners, ages 10 to 18. Sue Humphrey is my guest. She joins us from Austin, Texas. Sue, welcome to Raising a Champion. 

[00:02:55] Sue Humphrey: How are you? I'm doing real good. How I'm glad to be on the show.

[00:02:59] John Boruk: [00:03:00]. Yes. And I said, I dunno if I touched on it, but your coaching career and working with athletes of all ages is spans some 50 years.

And I, we could probably just take the bulk of this podcast and you could talk about how track and field and athletes and everything has changed just in that duration. But explain what you're doing now, because it sounds like you're, When I talked about all the Olympic athletes that you've worked with, you're now right back to the grassroots level of working with high school athletes and tell me a little bit about that and how really the dynamic of track and field has changed throughout your coaching career.

[00:03:38] Sue Humphrey: Okay. Yes, I've done a 360 back to my roots now working with age group athletes, or in this case, high school athlete. And I'm working with a variety of different schools as a private coach and jump areas. So I've got long jumpers, high jumpers, triple jumpers young men and young women, and was at a high [00:04:00] school meet here today.

So we're in full swing here in Texas into the championship season, ironically, and. I just find it very rewarding to give back and to again, go back to the basics because I think it's so important to teach the youngsters how to do things correctly the first time around, and that makes it so much easier for them and for their future coaches that the kid has some basics and knows how to handle the events, from the get-go.

They don't have to relearn every time they start with a new program. And over the years it sounds crazy to think I've been doing this over 50 years, but it's true. And I, the sport has changed. A variety of ways as far as, professionalism, money to athletes different opportunities.

And of course, with the whole political scene in the world, that we used to have meets with Russia, the USSR, and of course now that would [00:05:00] not happen. But, it's still, kids are kids and the sport is. Get to the finish line as fast as you can or jump as far as high as you can.

So a lot of the basics is still there, even though, science and technology have made considerable advances, which help us out in the coaching world.  

[00:05:18] John Boruk: I'm so glad that you brought up technique and how you're teaching technique. And how so many times, and you can look at a number of sports I hear it, and I've spoken to basketball coaches, for example, on this particular show about how they have to reteach very basic elements of basketball.

Footwork positioning using your body. Some of the things that should have been taught at an early age don't because maybe because we allow more freelancing and a lot of those just fundamental aspects of sport aren't there as it used to be. Do you find that now more so than what it was back in the eighties or [00:06:00] back in the nineties?

[00:06:02] Sue Humphrey: Definitely. I think, kids and especially the sports that are on TV all the time, like basketball as to just the freelancing and the three point shot and just, it's crazy watching the pro players and then you go out to a basketball game. I go to a lot of my friends' kids games. And seeing these guys try to shoot, half court shots and three point and then trying to do some power slide move or whatever that they learned or they didn't learn, they watched it on tv and I think we're doing a great disservice to our youth to let that type of activity go.

And I think the coaches on the year level that are reinforcing basics and going back to, how to play the game, the rules of the game, and mastering those skills. If you're not doing that, you're really doing a disservice to the kids. It's [00:07:00] ironic, if you research back with John Wooden at UCLA, he would do, and several people.

Confirmed this, how to tie their shoes and how to put their socks on so that they wouldn't get blisters with their tennis shoes and stuff like that. Today, I'm sure coaches are not doing, and yet, who would argue with John Wooden's record. 

[00:07:23] John Boruk: Yeah, absolutely. It, it's interesting though because to me, when I think about track and field and li and really the pinnacle of the sport, to me it was almost and it's, I'm sure it's generational, right?

But I, I think back to 1984. When the Summer Olympics were held in Los Angeles and the United States just absolutely domi dominated, and there were so many unique performances at that obviously Carl Lewis winning four gold medals. And by the way, I mean he's, he has a connection here to the area having went to Willingboro High School in Willingboro New Jersey, but I think back to 1984.

And that to me was really [00:08:00] was the pinnacle of track and field as far as my generation. But when I look at it and when I grew up, there was so many different activities that lent itself or helped promote track and field type events because we were constantly running. We had field day where it was 50 yard dash, 100 yard dash.

We had the presidential fitness yeah, fitness award where you had to go through a number of different events to earn that particular patch. You even had Junior Olympics. All of these things. Are no longer part of the, I guess you could say the athletic curriculum that's in the school system anymore.

And so because of that, I feel like that it, that really track and field has become deemphasized at the youth level. 

[00:08:49] Sue Humphrey: It's definitely not as I counter that a little bit. It's not as active maybe in the school programs, but the Junior Olympics program is alive and well through that's good.

Track and [00:09:00] field. Yeah. And through the Amateur Athletic Union. So there's ways of participating. I think another area that I cringe on is when coaches of other sports use running as a punishment. And you're like, okay, you didn't show up on time, so run an extra lap or something like that.

That's not, why don't we tell a football coach or football player to go throw 10 extra passes or something, you never hear that. So I don't like it when they use a track event or running as a punishment. I think society right now, I agree with you that, we don't have running and go out and play.

Everybody's sitting on their video machines or video games and this type of stuff the whole physical fitness. Mentality of our generation now has decreased. Definitely. The programs are there, but there are a lot of different activities also. You've got soccer now that is just humongous.

And [00:10:00] I think when they did the recent study of high school athletes track and field is still the top number of participants in the high school sports. Whether it be with cross country or track, and. There's so much diversion with the field hockey, the lacrosse up, on the East coast more so even in Texas, we have lacrosse now and there's more opportunities for kids to do things other than just track and field.

So they might be running, they just might not be running to the same finish line that they used to be running too. 

[00:10:33] John Boruk: And harkening back to my days in junior high and high. The coaches promoted track and field. They want, if you played football in the fall or if you played a fall sport, they wanted you to participate in something track and field related come springtime.

Do you see that? Is that still the, the same formula now at high school sports? Or do they actually want them to play something that is. Team sports centric or something that, [00:11:00] like you, you mentioned and you threw out some of those other sports in there, whether it's a lacrosse or for girls field hockey or soccer.

That they don't I guess they're not wanting athletes or you're not seeing as much transitioning from the fall sports, the traditional fall sports to track and field in the. 

[00:11:17] Sue Humphrey: It depends on, I think, on the coach and the part of the country because unfortunately, a lot of these team sports have now become year round activities, whether it be AAU basketball or seven on seven football.

Or, they're just year round now. And so it isn't so much the by seasonal sports like it used to be. I think certain football coaches or football programs, very definitely promote having their athletes participate in track and field as a good alternative. But on the college level now, depending again at the level of program that you're at, you've got spring ball and heaven forbid that you miss spring ball.

So [00:12:00] you know, the days of a Dion Sanders who back in the 90 would, go to the track meet and then a baseball game and then spring football. Those have pretty much diminished unless you are a true. In the program. And I know at Texas here, we used to have several other football players on the track team because I was working with the track team at that time.

And nowadays it's very few and far between, but that'll happen. And I think it's very unfortunate because track is a sport. The running and the fitness and all of that, it's bound to get you. It's bound to improve your speed. Ohio State, the, at least the coaches in there now, they do want the athletes to participate in track.

And according to the track coaches there, they have a good working relationship with the team and the coaches and, sharing athletes, if you will, at certain times of the season. So I think, again, it goes back to a philosophy and what kind of [00:13:00] program. Who's organizing things as to how important track is to the overall development, but unfortunately, it has been taken over by these year round concepts of sport.

[00:13:13] John Boruk: Yeah. We're talking with Sue Humphrey. She is a, she has a 50 year coaching career including coaching three time Olympia Olympics or being a coach in three different o Olympics. Some of the Olympians that she has. Jackie Joiner. Kersey, the Charles Austin, who was the 1996 Olympic gold medalist in the high jump.

And you have a book out. I wanna run the Olympic Development Training and Nutritional Guide for Young and Team Track Runners ages. 10 to 18. So talk a little bit about that. What, what does an Olympic developmental training and nutritional guide look like? 

[00:13:49] Sue Humphrey: What it looks like is for a beginning athlete who is interested in getting involved in track, or a parent who has a youngster, again, like a middle school.[00:14:00] 

Early high school age who's interested in the sport, a younger developing coach who is interested in the sport, and it's a beginner's guide. To the sport of track. It doesn't have the field events, it's just I wanna run. So all the different running events, there's a chapter on each running event from the hundred to the 10,000 and the steeplechase and the relays and hurdles and everything.

And it gives an overview of the technique, how to do it. Some training programs and some training workouts. Some also what I call off the track concepts that you're gonna need if you wanna really do well in almost any sport. And that would be the nutrition, the sleep part of it, the academic part of it, and just all the other taking care of your body when you're not at.

I also give a little history of the sport and of the Olympics because I think it's real important for youngsters and for our veteran athletes [00:15:00] to take more of an interest in the history of their sport and of their event. To learn a little bit about it, to learn who some of the pioneers were, and again, to see the kind of changes in the events.

In some cases they're quite drastic and others not. So it's a beginning book again. It's catered more for the first time or the beginning athlete coaching and parents of the kids that are getting. And it is on Amazon. 

[00:15:26] John Boruk: It, you can find it at amazon.com. So let me just correct, let me throw this out at it, out at you.

Could I give you a good athlete let's just say they're average to a good athlete, but they're very willing athlete in, in other words they're good listeners. They are someone who's very open to coaching somebody who is a sponge when it comes to learning. What could you do with that particular athlete in terms of pushing them and taking somebody and raising them to another level?

[00:15:56] Sue Humphrey: First of all, I try to get to know them a little bit more. [00:16:00] Not so much what their parents want for them, but what they have interest in. And of course, if you're dealing with a youngster, they're not fully cognizant of what they wanna do with the sport. Sometimes they're out there for fun.

Sometimes they're out there cuz their friends are out there. So it depends on the age and the maturity of the athlete. But a lot of what, again, working with high school youngsters now, I get to know them and to find. Is their dream to make the high school team? Is it to place at the district championship or just what their goals are and then to find an event for them and to give them a lot of experience or events?

A lot of experience, track and field has 18 different events. So if you can't find an event across. Across that spectrum. Chances are that you're not gonna be interested in the sport to begin with, you can run, you can jump, you can throw. The relays are fun and so there's a variety.

So much variety in there [00:17:00] that we try to give the kids an experience in all those different events, cuz you just never know, they might go out and suddenly be a good. And suddenly they might wanna throw something and then you're looking like Jackie Joyner was a multi-event athlete who can run, jump and throw.

It's learning this child as much as possible and giving 'em opportunities and not just pigeonholing them into an event from the get-go. They might come and say I wanna be a sprinter just cuz it's short. Maybe. A little more conditioned body-wise, genetically and so forth, to be a middle distance runner and to show them where they can have success because we all like to do well and we all like to find areas that we can be successful in.

And so you want to hopefully get them into situations where they will find some success initially to help keep that fire burning toward participating in the. 

[00:17:58] John Boruk: So can some of that be [00:18:00] determined? And you alluded to this some of that be determined by your genetics. By your genetic makeup, like I can tell you that I have, as an athlete, I had very quick twitch muscles and so I was able to have short bursts of speed really quickly.

But I know whenever I had to qualify when we were doing our mile run or two mile run, I was always at that cutoff because I genetically I don't think in, in my lung capacity, I know they do VO-2 testing and all of that, that I didn't have the ability to really long run longer distances at higher speeds.

So is that something that should be taken into account if you're a kid and to, to finding that right fit for a. 

[00:18:45] Sue Humphrey: I think, genetics play a major part. We laugh sometimes with some of our athletes as they get older and, become champions of Olympics or world championships and how did you do it?

You picked the right parents, you know that they gave you the good genetic [00:19:00] makeup to begin with, but a lot of things can be train. Also, and mental preparation and mental belief in yourself, and willingness, as you mentioned earlier, to be very coachable and to try things and to really dedicate yourself to that.

There's a lot of areas where you can take yourself from average to above average. You might not become Olympic champion. With certain physiological abilities or limitations, but you can definitely work your way up if the heart is there and the, the mental push with that.

So the mental preparation is a big area that I think we overlook. Quite often and desire, passion. I realized very quickly in my early high school days that, I was not gonna be a very talented athlete, but I loved the sport and that's where I switched over to the coaching because I liked working with kids and I liked teaching and I liked track.

So I shifted over [00:20:00] and began coaching an age group team of, 9, 10, 11, 12 year olds when I was 15. And that was, that's how I got the 50 year, the longevity part of it. So there's different ways of being involved in the sport too. And again, it's all depending on how much you're willing to commit your time, energy, and effort toward it.

[00:20:22] John Boruk: So you talk about passion, you talk about commitment, you talk about burning desire of the athletes that you coached. How much of that was internal? In other words, they had a level of that desire, of everything that I just mentioned, that it was internalized, and how much of that did they need to be pushed?

In other words, w with parents out there listening, they probably want to. How much of that passion do I, because I, and you see it all the time, that parents will have a little bit more passion than the kids who are participating. But how much can they transfer from [00:21:00] their passion into the child?

[00:21:03] Sue Humphrey: I think initially when the child is young, meaning middle school age to maybe 15 or so, the parent motivation and enthusiasm is definitely a. Because the kid has to get to and from practice and kids that age can't drive. So somehow they have to get to and from practice, whether it's a neighborhood carpool or the coach comes and picks 'em up or whatever.

There you can suddenly you can start to see whether the passion is from the family or whether the passion is in within the athlete himself or herself. And I think that's when you start to see. The difference is to, who really wants to be a good athlete, who really wants to be in the sport, whether it beat track or football or basketball or whatever it is.

If the parent wants it more than the kid, you've got a problem. [00:22:00] And you'll see this then as the student gets older, because meaning into high school and so forth, because they'll just turn it off. They're, like I say, these video games or I want to go do things with my friends and they just will not care to go to the sport anymore.

But then on the converse side of that, the ones that have that inner burning, They're, come on mom, let's go. It's time to go. I gotta be at this practice. I've got, I need to have new shoes, or I need to have special equipment of some sort. And then suddenly you'll see where the child is now the leader of the household as far as the motivation.

And the parents like, oh my god, another practice type of thing. But they will then, because when you have a kid that's living in a household, you'll need the parents' support because of all of this off the track or out of the practice venue support they need, whether it be with meals, whether it be with rest, equipment, and in some [00:23:00] cases some of these sports get pretty expensive.

And so is the family able to afford that or do you need to look for scholarships or fundraising? There's a lot to it and it does become a family operation to begin with. And as they're looking toward, collegiate programs possibly, and scholarships, and that's getting tighter and tighter because the foreign athletes are a major influx in the NCAA.

We're about at the end of the COVID. Extra eligibility timeframe, luckily, so that's phasing out here in the next year or so. So that'll be good. But it's really, it's a major program. Like you say, it's a multi-million dollar industry now, and you've gotta see where your ditch is and where you fit and are you willing to commit to it because it is a commitment on the family side, the siblings side, and not just with the.

[00:23:59] John Boruk: So you, [00:24:00] one of the things that you brought up was the pursuit of an athletic scholarship and how much that has changed. And it's, it doesn't seem like that colleges are granting them as much, or sometimes the money's not nearly as much. The full ride, the full scholarship's not there.

So are is it becoming, And more far-fetched or is it only reserved now for the elite athletes and some of the more high profile sports to attain that athletic scholarship? 

[00:24:35] Sue Humphrey: The monies are still there. I think there's certain, unfortunately the colleges, universities have developed a tier system, if you will, or a power five and the haves and the have nots, and then the middle child, so to speak, as far as what their overall athletic budgets are.

And so their scholarship maximums, in other words, like for a male [00:25:00] track and field program they can offer 12 and a half scholarships. So whatever that dollar amount is, if the school is willing to that's how much that they can offer. They can't give out 20 and 30 scholarships. Now, if the athletic department at let's say a mid-major, a middle of the road school as far as economics and population, meaning student body and so forth.

If they can't fund that amount of scholarships, then maybe they only tell the coach, you've got six scholarships, six full ride scholarships to give out. So see, there's inequality to begin with based on what the college's financial situation is. The other part that I feel is even more of a problem right now is the NCAA’s ruling or lack of ruling with foreign athletes.

Because the foreign athletes in many cases [00:26:00] are a year or two older and a little more experienced through the European system in many cases of sport, where they have club systems and not so much the high school scholarship. Scholastic programs like we do, it's more of a club program that they've been in since they were a middle school age.

And so a lot of colleges now will recruit that level of athlete because their performances are a little better, and in some cases they only come for a year or two. Now, luckily, the NCAA has put in some academic requirements, and so if a student does start with you, you have to follow 'em through to make sure they graduate.

So that's helping as to these one and done athletes that have been prevalent over the years in many sports. But I feel that the development part for our young men in track [00:27:00] and field, the USA citizens is definitely taking a hit right now. And I've had three athletes, three male athletes that have been ranked in.

Five of their top five in the country of their events. And I have had to go beg, borrow steel so much. Not really, to even get them scholarship looks because they were not as developed yet. They were young, 17, 18 year old high school seniors and they have come along in normal progression and not already advanced and already participating in world juniors and, world type of level competition.

So I'm concerned about where we stand when the Olympics come back to LA in 2028. If we don't get a little more balance, especially on the men's side. Now you could look at men's track and field on the results and say, oh, we're doing. Then you look for that little asterisk next to the athlete's name, which means [00:28:00] they're a foreign athlete.

And the thing that's crazy is the Olympic Committee, the US Olympic Committee pays USA track and field our governing body, four Olympic medals. In other words, the number of Olympic medals that we win every quadron. That is money toward our development programs for our young athletes. And if we are coaching athletes from other countries that are going out and winning the medals in place of us, we're losing that money from the Olympic Committee.

So it's a vicious cycle that I don't think people outside of the sport really see or care to see. And the NCAA is the leading proponent of this, which I feel is a problem. But I'm one person and I, I'm not in a college program right now, but I do have college potential athletes that.

Are trying to get scholarships and it's hard right now for the male athlete. Yeah. 

[00:28:58] John Boruk: And that's hard to believe when you talk about [00:29:00] if you're part of that 1% or you're some of the best athlete high school athletes in the country and you may not be getting a sniff by some of the top collegiate programs.

So when you look at it and you talk about what some of these other, is there a model country out. That you look at their athletes or you look at their, the structure of their programs and you should say maybe the US should start modeling how those athletes are performing or how they're training and start incorporating some of that at maybe more of an early age like they're doing 

[00:29:32] Sue Humphrey: Well, no, I think ultimately if you take everything outta all the idiosyncrasies of every country, I think the.

Athletes, the US programs as coaches are still the strongest in the world. The issue is when it gets diluted by, Other outliers from other countries and that all of a sudden they become in the mix. And so they are, maybe somebody from South Africa here, maybe somebody from [00:30:00] Germany there, they're from all over the world.

They're not just from one particular area type of training program. It used to be the African countries had the distance runners and it was. The stereotype that, you know, if you wanted to be a distance runner and you weren't from Africa, you were in trouble. The US has caught up in many cases there.

If you watch on the world scene that the training programs and the athletes staying with it after college, so that we are. Giving the Africans a run for their money, if you will, in many of the events now. So it's not so much that it's a matter again, of giving the opportunities to the USA athletes.

And keeping the monies the brain thrust, the science research and so forth, keeping that at home and not letting, not sharing it with the world so they get all the insights of how to train and things. We need to be a little more selfish, I think, to perpetuate our claim as the world's number [00:31:00] one track team.

[00:31:01] John Boruk: Yeah, and that's a good point. You look at some of the athletes that, that you have coached and you have come. And share some of your insight in that in terms of, whether it was a Jackie Joiner Kersee type or a Charles Austin. When you think back to some of these athletes that you have had these personal relationships with and you have crossed paths and helped in their guidance and coaching what traits, what qualities, what characteristics may be outside of being the obvious, which is tremendous.

But what was it? And maybe you, there's a specific example that comes to mind that they had, that you wish you could almost instill in any athlete. 

[00:31:41] Sue Humphrey: A tough mental attitude. A tough mental, just tough mentally. In other words, being able to work through disappointments, not getting too excited over big moments.

And just that competitiveness, that fight, [00:32:00] that, that inner drive that by golly, I'm gonna get there and I'm gonna do it. Because Charles, for example, both, both Charles and Jackie have come from. Poor low economic backgrounds. So they had to work for things to achieve, and athletics was a way out, if you will, for them.

And in and for many athletes in track and field. That's the case. But not all I, there are a lot of track and field athletes that come from a very comfortable and affluent background, but it's that inner drive, that competitiveness to achieve and to become the very best that they can be. And then they're gifted with, various physical traits, whether it be, with Jackie as the multi-event.

Charles is only six feet, half inch. Charles is a very short high jumper if you wanna look at it that way, he can go out there and some of the women high jumpers are taller than he is, and yet he's been, again, [00:33:00] very competitive and he. He'll go and in practices, he would, we'd have little contests, I bet you can't do this.

I bet you couldn't do this. Or I bet you Gatorade bet you I can't jump this high in practice. He could go out and jump 7’7”, 7’8” in practice and with nobody there and the only motivation is an orange or red Gatorade for him, and he would be able to do that because he could put himself in that competitive.

Of him in the bar, competing. And not everybody can do that, and some athletes are more gifted than he was athletically, even though his mid-50s or whatever. He is still very talented and very fit. I'm not sure he could go out and jump a whole lot. He did set the master's record though, several years ago of seven feet, one inch I think it was.

So he, his goal in life was to jump. Seven feet when he was 40. And he did do that and we did, have a little [00:34:00] competition, set it up and had it recorded and sanctioned and all. How many people have that kind of an inner drive and that inner competitiveness? Jackie, the same thing that, she was, she'd be your friend off the track, friendly goofing around, playing around, but when she walked on the track, it was all.

And she was out there for one purpose, and she might be out there five to seven hours a day given the number of events that she had to train with. But she did it and she committed herself to that. And she would, I, one summer, I was fortunate enough to basically live with the Courtes during a training segment, so I lived with them for about three.

And our days were get up, eat breakfast, go to UCLA track, be at UCLA track from maybe nine o'clock to five o'clock in the evening, maybe get a sandwich at the The little store there at UCLA [00:35:00] campus, the, the food court, then head home, get something to eat on the way home, and then Jackie went up to the bed and was up.

She, she was doing things up, but she was in the bed off her feet and Bobby and I were downstairs watching DVDs or videos or movies or whatever. So she knew that her extracurricular time, if you. Would be spent resting. It wasn't going out to the mall and it wasn't doing a variety of things, but it was taking care of her body and rehabbing anything or being proactive with medical so that she didn't get hurt.

[00:35:41] John Boruk: You talked about the one thing that separated those athletes from the next tier down was the mental approach, the mental toughness, the mental. The ability to approach what I call the grind, because it is, yes. When you get into it, it's a grind. And I've had other coaches on this particular podcast talk [00:36:00] about how it's becoming more and more scarce.

The young athletes who have that mental ability, that mental toughness. So two part question. A-how did it get lost over the years? And how do we reinstall or reimplement or or help today's youth regain that mental toughness?  

[00:36:23] Sue Humphrey: I'm probably wanting to be real popular to say this, but I think we've gotten soft and lazy the expectations of our youth.

A bunch of us talk about this at times, saying the athletes back in the eighties and early nineties when the last. The tough, the toughness group. It, and again, there's outlier athletes that are not in this category.

Not taking it seriously, we are just our society nowadays. We have participation. Everybody gets a trophy. There's no [00:37:00] incentive to, to work hard, to be the very. Every, some places they don't even keep score, so there's no winner or loser, and yet shouldn't. Now, if it's a little 40 year old, that's one thing, but if it's a 12 year old, they need to realize that there are winners and losers in life.

And how do you move from one category to the other? I think the expectation the breakup of the family, traditional family structure over the years has not helped, and. Jackie came from a two-parent family, was a single parent family. Some of my other athletes, most of my athletes did not do come from single parent.

It's when the kids are having to raise themselves in some cases. The expectations of schools are. Maybe as much because the kids don't do things there. In other words, I was a middle school teacher or administrator for 20 some years while I was coaching. And [00:38:00] what I noticed was you would assign homework.

Kids won't do it. There's no either incentive to do it from home or there's no penalty if you don't do it. And so teachers would just quit assigning homework. It was a wasted moment because nobody would do it. Or you'd have two or three people that would do it. And so I think our whole society structure has taken a big hit.

And as far as do we get it back or how do we get it back, man, I don't know. It's scary to me. I would not wanna be a young kid coming up today's. I really wouldn't. And yet I'm able to see, through my coaching, I still see that there is hope for the future. There are good kids out there, there are responsible young men and women coming up through the ranks, but I don't see the numbers that I used to see back in the eighties and, eighties and nineties.

[00:39:00] So I think, it's just a whole expectation and again, the fact. We don't require kids to be the best anymore. It doesn't seem, without giving 'em some kind of reward. And I think that's a major flaw as to everybody is treated the same. And yet you and I both know in life everybody is not treated the same.

And that, and you've gotta get used to being, in a, behind the eight bowl, you have to get used to fighting back and knowing how to over. Negative situations. You can't just always get patted on the back, it'll be okay, honey, everything's fine because everything isn't fine. And you've gotta learn how to work through that.

And I don't feel that the kids are given those opportunities now. I think they're coddled along. 

[00:39:47] John Boruk: And I think that's perfectly said. And that's what happens, is that if we don't you don't show them or you don't give. The opportunity to see failure for what it is, and they are.

They, they're protected. [00:40:00] And you, you find ways to make sure that they, they don't fail a particular class even though they didn't do the work or that there, there's no, I guess there's no lesson in, there's no learning implementation in that. No because you're right. No.

Once you're out on your own, everything goes out the window. And Phil, you will come quickly and it will come often if you're not equipped and you don't have the right tools to handle that. So I think what you just said perfectly sums it up. The other thing as we do have a couple more minutes here is title IXs been a big part of your coaching career, the enactment and you've seen obviously from the time it was implemented to where we are.

The effects that it's had on women's athletics and women's programming and trying to root out discrimination throughout the course of collegiate sports and throughout history. So where are we as it applies to Title ix? And has it been everything that we thought it was gonna be, as it pertains to women in athletics?

Or is there still work that [00:41:00] needs to be. 

[00:41:02] Sue Humphrey: I think it definitely has made a difference. When you look back at what was or was not offered in the mid-70s and earlier, the programs now are 180 degrees different as far as opportunities and scholarship opportunities. And in fact, because of Title IX and the way the equation works with male sports versus female sports. As I mentioned earlier, the men in track and field have 12 and a half scholarships. The women have 18 full ride scholarships, and this is because of the football numbers. In other words, male, football, when a school has football, that's 85 spots, 85 scholarships.

And so now with Title IX, you have to make that up on the women's side, and that's why sometimes you'll see the campus and they'll see maybe five or six male sports and maybe 12 women's sports. And it's because of the numbers the balancing of the numbers. [00:42:00] So the women do have more opportunities than we did, obviously.

I think the the opportunities for competition have now balanced out pretty much as far as number of events, type of events that are offered, especially in track. The latest thing that's hitting the news now, and I don't know if you even want to get into it, is the whole transgender dilemma and what to do there.

But I think that's gonna be the next big hurdle that we have to go over and work through, because if. If the transgender athletes are suddenly allowed to be on the women's side only, I feel that's gonna be a major setback and a major problem. Just from physiological studies that I've seen and heard from doctors and sports scientists.

 [00:42:52] John Boruk: Yeah, I try to steer away from politics, but when it comes to that, I mean it, it's just basic biology. I think when you have physical men who in the, [00:43:00] in, in the event of the University of Pennsylvania swimmer who has moved from the men's side to the women's side and where I don't know where, I think they're ranked 260th or 300 to being number one on the women's side.

Show me a world, show me a world record in a particular event where the, for the and it's look it's not, I'm not, I'm just stating basic facts, but just No, you're right. You're a hundred percent state, a world record where the women's time is faster than the men's time. It just doesn't happen.

Correct. I think we know that men are just biologically just faster, stronger. And look, I, so the question's not so much. I think we all. That, that transgender women are gonna be superior athletes. I think the bigger question is finding a place for them to compete that don't take away from the naturally born women who shouldn't have to Exactly. Shouldn't have to deal with that. That to me is exactly, yeah. 

[00:43:58] Sue Humphrey: So that's, that's my thing, [00:44:00] is create another grouping, if you will, for these people the same way we did with the Paralympians. When the disabled athletes wanted to be more active and have a voice, we created a whole separate program for them.

They have Olympics now. They have world championships. They have more funding in some cases than our normal bodied able-bodied athletes do. So it's easy. You just create another governing body or another group for this in the trans group and let them compete, but let them compete against themselves.

And like you say, don't take away from the natural female who even though estrogen and hormone treatment and all of that is still gonna be at a. And that's gonna be the next pitfall as far as women's sports. And if we don't think so, we're blind. 

[00:44:52] John Boruk: The unfortunate thing is I think that if it gets to a level where there's such a bias involved, you're just gonna see women [00:45:00] drop out cuz they don't want to have to deal with that.

And that, that, that's where you, that's where you're really going to it it's where the state of affairs is really gonna reach a sad level is when women who train so hard. That there's such an inherent bias out there that it's not even worth their time. And they don't want us sit, have they, they know that they're the best in the world.

Like the Gaines swimmer at Kentucky, who's now who's gone across the country and speaking out about this. But she knows that she's the best at her particular. Her event, and yet she's come up second because of this very thing. And look you can identify as a woman all you want, but your muscle mass doesn't identify as a woman at all.

So Exactly. What you want to project on the outside does not correlate to who you are on the inside. So I, to me, it's very simple. I hope that eventually. We will, we'll find a way so that yeah, you people, inclusion is still part of it, but fairness and integrity has all [00:46:00] will reign Supreme is as I think where I, where I hope this all plays out so well.  

[00:46:04] Sue Humphrey: And the national governing bodies for National USA Swimming and USA Track and Field have already ruled that transgender athletes will not compete as women on the international.

So they have already taken that because the swimmer from UPenn was saying she wanted to be on the Olympics. USA Swimming came back and said, no, you will not ever represent the US as a female swimmer. So the national governing bodies are taking somewhat of a stance, and I think it's still, again, very early in this whole progression, but hopefully people will see what you're saying as.

Let's keep it fair for the young women because they have come all this way in the past 50 years with Title ix. Don't throw it out now. Yeah. 

[00:46:54] John Boruk: And we, yeah. We've made so many steps forward in the right direction. Let's not take three steps [00:47:00] back. So Sue Humphrey. Yep. She has a book I wanna run the Olympic developmental training and nutritional guide for Young and Teen Track athletes ages 10 to 18.

You talk about nutrition, you talk about sleep, you talk about all the essential. To really to push the body and to get the absolute most out of potential athletes. You can find that book on amazon.com. So much wisdom always like to bring people on here who have been in this sport for as long as you have, because I, as I said, there's so much information and guidance and wisdom that, that I think that you can impart to our listeners that it is so good.

Sue Humphrey, thank you so much for joining us here on raising a. 

[00:47:41] Sue Humphrey: Thanks a lot for the opportunity. I really enjoy it.  

[00:47:42] John Boruk: All right, thanks a lot, Sue. And as we do on every show, we like to close things out with our quote of the week. It's quote, if you, if your path is difficult, it is because your purpose is bigger than you thought.

So want to thank all of you for listening to this episode and we'll hopefully you'll join us next [00:48:00] time.