Bo Knows Cross-Training ... Do Young Athletes?

Three years ago I was the assistant coach of the Academy of Holy Angels boys varsity hockey team. The team was sitting in the airport waiting to go to Boston to play some of the top east coast teams. The players were sitting together reading their magazines and playing their handheld video games. I started talking to them about sports and for some reason I mentioned the name Bo Jackson.

I had 10 blank faces staring back at me.

“BO JACKSON guys, you don’t know Bo Jackson?” Again 10 blank faces were staring back at me. I knew my age was a factor but I was only older than them by 10 years, I was 27 years old at the time, so we’re not talking about a generational gap.

“Bo was a two sport professional athlete who was the face of Nike’s advertising campaigns, “Bo Knows.” “Bo knows football, Bo knows hockey, Bo knows tennis, etc… He was one of the best running-backs of all-time for the Raiders and by the way, he played pro baseball for the Kansas City Royals,” I explained to them. I then named some other great athletes I thought they should know and I was taken aback by their lack of knowledge of general sports history. The kids were amused but I was disappointed.

Two years later in October 2010, I am running a hockey practice and I bring up a few home town collegiate heroes that played for the Minnesota Golden Gophers men's hockey team, Mike Crowley and Brian Bonin, to a group of high-school hockey players from a local private high-school in the Twin Cities, Providence Academy. I brought up the names to help make my point regarding a specific style of hockey. Again, a bunch of blank faces stared back at me. I asked for a show of hands to see who had even heard of these two hometown heroes, who played in the mid-90’s mind you, and no hands went up.

“Nobody knows? You haven’t even heard of their names? Gentleman, these were All-Americans not too long ago from the college team in your backyard. They are two of the biggest names in Gopher hockey history.” I’m telling this to a group of kids who more than likely watch the Gophers just about every weekend on TV. Clearly, the history of their sport eludes them.

These two examples should be disturbing to the older sports generation which I am now joining as I head into my early 30s. I seem too young to be calling out the athletes just below me in age. In my opinion, these athletically narrow minds may be a reflection of the ultra focused athlete of today. Things have changed quickly in a short time span, the same change was already happening when I was in highschool (97-00).

Today’s athletes specialize into a specific sport at an earlier age and they begin sport specific training at an earlier age. They are taught the newest techniques by the trainer/coach who convinces the parents that the training is cutting edge and necessary to get to the next level. The training is expensive and time consuming. About 95 percent of kids don’t even have the genetic make-up to make it to the levels their parents have in mind for them despite what the trainer/coach/parent thinks, but that is a different topic for a different time.

“New is better” seems to be the mantra but what about what worked for the Bo Jacksons and the local sports legends like Mike Crowley and Brian Bonin of the Gophers? What did they do for training? I am willing to bet, for their "training," they played a lot of neighborhood and yards sports in addition to playing an array of organized sports growing up. They made the most of the open court down the road, the outdoor rink, the local field at the park, the big backyard, the flat driveway and the spacious basement. These places are where their youth “training” sessions were more than likely played out.  

I trained youth hockey players during the summer months of my college life at a high-tech training facility between 2003 and 2006. The training was great but I noticed one problem, a lot of 6 to 13 year olds were being dropped off to get top dollar training. These kids didn’t need a trainer; they needed a ball of any kind, a few friends and four to six good hours of playtime. My friends and I use to go knock on neighbor’s doors, call friends and try to get a big game of the flavor sport of the month going albeit baseball, roller hockey, knee hockey, football, laser tag, tennis, basketball, golf, soccer, bike races or anything we could think of that might be fun and competitive. We’d play all afternoon. That is the best “training” kids can get. Heck, that’s the best training you can at any time during your sports career as long as you play hard!

Larry Fitzgerald, a future hall of fame receiver for the Arizona Cardinals, runs a summer football camp in Minneapolis that attracts the top NFL players. They play pick-up basketball for hours on end a few times a week as part of their getting in shape. It’s fun, hard work and involves a lot of athleticism.

Now let’s tie back in Bo Jackson. The “Bo Knows” commercials promoted cross-training sneakers. That means the sneaker was designed for the athlete that wanted to play baseball on Tuesday, football on Wednesday and maybe tennis on Thursday. The shoe was designed wider so your ankle didn’t roll as you moved laterally, with traction that worked on many types of surfaces like grass, the street and even the court, and it was higher than a normal shoe on your foot but lower than a basketball shoe to give increased support while having the flexibility for running.

Yes, these shoes still exist but not in the amounts they use to. When you go into Footlocker, you see a lot of narrow running shoes, a lot of high-top basketball shoes, some casual kicks and a tiny little section of cross-trainers. What happened? Don’t our young athletes need cross-trainers anymore? Don’t they need that shoe that can do it all because they do it all?

Apparently not.

This article is a call out to both the parents and athletes of today. Take time to learn about the athletes of your sport that are 5, 10 or 20 years older than you. Ask your coaches what they use to do to train and get better in their spare time. Ask your coaches who were the best athletes they knew, ask them how they trained and what sports they played. You might find out something interesting like Paul Martin, a local US Hockey Olympian from Elk River, was one of the best wide receivers in Minnesota high school football in the late 90's. Ask your friends to get together and go play a sport you don't usually play for an afternoon.  Play at least two organized sports during the year, maybe even three or four.

Go on the Internet and research athletes older than you, find videos, stats and interviews of them. You will learn little things that you can take with you and add to your physical and mental approach to your game. And finally, go to your local shoe store and buy a pair of cross-trainers.

Anyone want a game of Squash?

Bo Knows Squash.