Yesterday, I was walking through a Dick’s Sporting Goods store, looking for their prices on iron plates (they’re pretty good, incidentally). As I was making my way to the corner of the store where they keep the weight training equipment, I happened to pass through the kids clothing section. I stopped for a couple of minutes as I strolled past the racks of t-shirts, shorts, sweaters, etc. because I noticed something that made me think. The store had several racks of t-shirts with all kinds of little tough-sounding motivational phrases on them. You’ve all seen the shirts I’m talking about somewhere before, nothing new. But the thing that caught my eye was the actual slogans and words that were on the shirts. I guess we’ve moved way past the days of shirts that say, “No Pain, No Gain” and other overused mottos like that. The shirts I saw yesterday said things like “I feel YOUR pain!” “Dare to take ME on?” and “If you see ME, get used to second place!” As I said, these were all in the kids section of the store, so the shirts were probably meant for ages 9-12, something like that.

After I left the store and started driving to the gym, I found myself thinking a lot about what I saw. All of the words on those shirts were designed to sound cocky, arrogant, self-absorbed and disrespectful towards other competitors. The store had several racks of them, so it’s obvious that these are big sellers. That means that we’re living in a culture where parents are putting their kids into sports programs and then buying them clothes that are specially constructed to demonstrate self-worship and insulting attitudes towards opponents. The more I thought about this, the more connection I began to see with much of the adult behavior we see in the sports world today. The NBA is a pretty good place to explain this connection because it’s one of the biggest sports venues in the world. Here we find situations where the sport’s top stars announce their decisions to switch teams by getting on television and saying things like, “I’ve decided to take my talents to South Beach.” And then when these stars get to South Beach, they hold outrageous spectacles at Miami’s American Airlines Arena where they get onstage with two of their teammates (ignoring the rest of their team), and declare themselves “arguably the best trio ever to play the game of basketball.” It doesn’t stop there, because they have to continue to run their mouths by predicting that they will win “not two, not three, not four” NBA championships. They label themselves as the newest sports dynasty before they’ve ever played a game together. Yes, I’m talking about LeBron James and the Miami Heat.

So, the process seems clear. Little kids are enrolled in youth basketball, football, soccer, etc. by their parents. Then, their parents buy them the shirts I saw at Dick’s so they can try to intimidate the competition. From there, the kids go through their sports careers and the most talented ones make it to the professional level, where they are given the highest possible pedestal to hold glorious celebrations of ME. Their self-absorption and disdain towards others is not only appreciated, but encouraged. Yeah, this sounds about right. Make no mistake about it; professional sports have become a public display stage for the absolute highest levels of selfishness and poor sportsmanship. And since you’re all wondering, let me tell you where I’m going with this.

Many of you are coaches, parents, gym owners, etc. In other words, you’re in positions where there are people under your instruction. You are an authority figure on some level. This means that you are responsible for teaching and administrating the people you work with. What I want to do with this month’s article is examine what kind of job you’re doing in these functions. I’m not talking about how you’re teaching technique or programming to your athletes or kids; I’m talking about how you’re teaching attitude. Let me make it clear right from the beginning that I’m going to be pushing my own personal opinion pretty hard with this one, because this is one area where I’m positive that I’m right. When it comes to training, exercise selection, snatch technique, etc., I’ve always tried to make it clear that I’m not the only one with the right answers. In this area, however, I think there’s a pretty strong distinction between what’s right and what’s wrong. I’ll try to explain my ideas as clearly as possible, and you should be able to find something in here that will make your gym, your home, and your life better.

Old School vs. New School

Everything about our culture has changed over the last hundred years. When people started competing in organized sports around the late 1800s and early 1900s, the personalities of the athletes were reflective of the general attitudes of society. People, for the most part, were much less boisterous and demonstrative than they are now. If you’ve ever had a chance to watch some of the earliest football, basketball, or weightlifting that was captured on film, you’ve probably noticed how the athletes acted during competition. There wasn’t much celebration or emotion involved. Sure, you would occasionally see athletes jump in the air or raise their hands to the crowd after a successful performance, but it was nothing like the environment today where the sport of football has actually had to invent rules to restrain the celebrations of athletes after they score touchdowns.

This is what we’re going to call “old school attitude.” An old school attitude was what you saw when athletes just shut their mouths and did their job. If they won, they would probably show a little excitement and appreciation to the spectators, but there was definitely a sense of restraint and modesty. If they lost, they shook the hands of their competitors and blamed only themselves for their failure. There was no end zone dancing, choreographed celebration that lasted two minutes, or whining about bad referees after a loss. These types of behaviors were simply not part of the picture because they were considered undignified and self-indulgent.

Smack talking was often part of the picture with old school athletes, but it was done between the competitors and away from the public. There’s no doubt that many great athletes from the days of yore, like Babe Ruth, Jack Johnson, and Norb Schemansky, engaged in some trash talk with their competitors. However, it was different then than it is now. Even if modern technology would have been present beck in 1948, I seriously doubt if you would have ever seen Tommy Kono getting on television and bragging that he was going to win “not two, not three, not four” Olympic medals. The attitude was simply different in those days. You just didn’t do stuff like that.

However, fast-forward to 2011 and we’ve got the disgraceful type of narcissistic circus we see in so many modern sports. We’ll call it the “new school attitude,” where athletes brag as loudly as possible to as many people as they can, ridicule and insult their competitors, value themselves more than their teams, and refuse to take personal responsibility when they fail. If you watch ESPN long enough, you’ll get a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about. Now, let me make it clear that not every athlete in the modern era has been contaminated by the new school attitude. I was just watching a Grand Slam tennis tournament last month where Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer for the championship. The behavior of both these men was a pretty classy demonstration of old school behavior, as Nadal complimented Federer after the match by saying, “I respect Roger because he acts the same whether he wins or loses.” These guys are clear examples of positive athletic behavior, and they’re not the only ones in contemporary sports that act right. But the fact still remains that you can’t watch sports for very long these days without seeing something that just makes you want to vomit because of how immature and negative it is.

When did everything change? When did we go from old school to new school? It’s not something that happed instantaneously or because of one person, but I do personally believe that Muhammad Ali had a lot to do with changing the sports culture in this country. Ali was one of the greatest athletes in history, and his accomplishments in boxing were equaled only by his incredible personality. Ali’s trash talking, disrespect towards his opponents, and self-promotion were done at a level that had never been seen in sports before. His image was so larger-than-life that he heavily influenced generations of young athletes that have grown up in his wake. Kids have actually moved through their athletic careers wanting to embody the same showmanship and bravado that Ali had. He is the point of origin for much of the new school attitude. Please understand, though, that I’m not committing the sacrilege of dumping on Muhammad Ali here. As an athlete, I hold Ali on a pedestal as one of the supreme competitors I’ve ever seen. I never liked his behavior and I still don’t, but I would never deny his greatness as an athlete.

Therefore, we have a stark contrast between two very different methods. Based on how I’ve described all of this, you can probably guess where I stand in the evaluation of old school vs. new school. I am very much an old school personality, I require my athletes to be the same way, and I reject new school attitude as being childish, irresponsible, and shameful. Got it? Hopefully I made that clear enough. But then that leaves us with you. What kind of personality are you, and what are you doing to make sure your athletes, children, etc. are developing in the right direction? Let’s take a look at this, and I’ll give you a few handy dandy tips to make sure you’re not contributing to the ramming of modern sports into the toilet.

The basic blueprint for not becoming a jerkoff

How do you represent yourself in the strength world? Because one thing you better believe is that when you’re a coach, your personality will filter down into your athletes. Even if you’re not a coach, your personality still will filter down to the other lifters in your gym, your children, friends who admire you, etc. There’s a sense of accountability that has to be there. If you’re in any position of authority or responsibility, the people around you will often act the way you act.

I’ve used the word “selfishness” quite a few times in this article, and obviously there’s been a negative connotation with it. However, I should mention that being selfish is very important to an elite athlete. If you’re in a position where you’re competing at the top of your sport, you have to have a certain element of self-centeredness to be successful. High-level athletes have to see their training and their performance as the most important things in the universe. These aren’t always the most endearing people to be around because they basically expect the whole world to stop and revolve around their workouts. For better or worse, this just comes with the territory. Championship athletes usually aren’t very giving personalities. Hopefully, that all changes after retirement or once age sets in and real life gets started. Most elite athletes go through a lot of attitude changes when they make the transition to civilian life, and that’s a good thing.

The negative aspect of selfishness that I’m describing here is the point where selfishness makes the transition to blatant punk behavior. It’s fine to be totally focused on your athletic priorities, but we need to make sure that we don’t cross over into the bragging, impertinence, and whining. Hell, I’ll make this easy for you. Here are four simple things you can do that will keep you from looking like a turd:

1) Show a lot of interest, enthusiasm, and support for others. Simplest thing in the world, right? Just start caring and getting excited about the people around you. You will absolutely never go wrong if you cheer for others during their workouts, congratulate them after they’re successful, and throw them a little encouragement when they’re down. This is 100% guaranteed stuff and it takes very little energy.

2) Don’t talk about your accomplishments unless somebody asks you about them. The quickest way to make a bad first impression is to start throwing your resume in somebody’s face without any reason. If you’re a stud, people will either already know it when they meet you or they’ll figure it out pretty quickly. You don’t need to wave your gold medals around your head. It looks insecure and arrogant.

3) Don’t coach people in the gym unless they ask for it. Let’s say you’re in a gym training and you see somebody who’s clearly doing something wrong. If the person has a coach who is working with them, you need to just stay out of it. It’s none of your business, so don’t turn into to Butty McButtinstein. Now, if the person doesn’t have a coach and they’re doing something wrong, just ask them, “Do you mind if I give you a suggestion?” You’ll know pretty fast if they want to listen to you or not, and then you can proceed accordingly. If it’s obvious that they want you to keep your comments to yourself, then do it. You asked politely, so you’re in the clear.

4) Don’t get on the internet and talk @%*!. Ooohhh, I think I’m probably ruffling some feathers with this one. Look, the internet is the greatest medium in the history of civilization for people who want to unleash their anger and disgust over how stupid everybody else in the world is. But even if you’re right and your opponent is wrong, you’ll both still come away from the argument looking stupid. Just don’t do it, baby.

Quick confession- Just so nobody calls me a hypocrite or thinks I’m sitting on my high horse, I’ll openly admit that I’ve violated every one of these suggestions at some point in my life. Nobody’s perfect.

In Conclusion…

A lot of the mistakes that come with new school attitude are connected with youth. It’s pretty easy to act like a dork when you’re young. We’ve all done it. It’s part of growing up. And you coaches need to remember this, because most kids literally don’t know how they’re supposed to act. We sometimes make the mistake of telling ourselves, “Dammit, they should know better than that!” Well, maybe they DON’T know better than that. Maybe nobody has ever told them the difference between acting right and acting wrong. Remember, some of these kids you work with have been practically raised by wolves. They need some guidance.

And as always, I know there’s the possibility that some of you might think everything I’ve just said is all wrong. If you just got back from Dick’s Sporting Goods and you’re excited to give little ten year-old Tyler a shirt you just bought him that says, “I’m number one and everybody can lick my butthole” so he can wear it to youth wrestling practice tomorrow, then I guess we probably have a difference in opinion. But here’s some food for thought. What if Tyler shows up to wrestling practice with his cocky new shirt, and then he gets pinned in sixteen seconds by some tough little Mormon kid? At that point, we can safely say that Tyler is NOT number one, and that shirt is gonna look pretty stupid. Don’t humiliate your kids.

Look, I’m not telling you to be boring. I’m not telling you that you have to be an emotionless robot as an athlete, and I’m certainly not telling you that you can’t have a colorful personality. We don’t have to stay stuck in the Stone Age; we couldn’t even if we wanted to. Times change, and you have to be able to keep up with the changes. But not all changes are good. The shift we’ve seen towards total self-absorption and egotism is not good. Whining is not good. Insulting your competitors is not good. So do society a favor and take a stand against those things. Make your athletes take a stand against them, too, and maybe we’ll all have a better experience in our sports lives. Let’s give it a try.