Eps 66 - Vern Gambetta (Director of Gambetta Sports Training Systems)

Matt talks with internationally recognized sports performance coach Vern Gambetta. Over the past 5 decades, Vern has worked with athletes in a variety of sports from around the globe and currently assisting with Canadian swimmer Summer McIntosh's historic run-up to the 2024 Olympic games.

Transcript

00:00:03 - Introduction 

This is the Your Sports Resource podcast where each week you'll learn actionable strategies that you can implement so the operations of your club support your coaching staff and the direction of your organization. We are committed to excellence in youth sports leadership. Let's get started. 

00:00:25 - Matt Bos 

Welcome to the Your Sports Resource podcast. I'm your host, Matt Boss. On today's podcast, I'm thrilled to be joined by Vern Gambetta. Vern is possibly the most well-rounded and one of the most sought-after coaches that I know of in the world when it comes to athletes reaching top level performance. Vern has over five decades of coaching and has worked with athletes from track and field to baseball to swimming.   

00:00:52 

He's worked with youth athletes to professional athletes, advises coaches and athletes around the globe to reach peak performance. For over 35 years, Vern has operated the GAIN Network, which is a global platform for education, innovation, and motivation, as well as the Gambetta Sports Training Systems. To put it simply, Vern is one of the utmost leaders in regards to human movement and peak performance. Vern, welcome to the Your Sports Resource podcast.  

00:01:24 - Vern Gambetta 

Thank you, Matt. I'm excited to be on and hopefully share some ideas and maybe raise some more questions and that. So, it's been a, for me, it's, you know, those intros make me think it's been a learning journey. I'm just finishing the last chapter, well, the key chapter in my latest book. And it's really, that's what you just said made me think about that. It is, it's a learning journey. And for me, it's not over, even though I'm 55 years into it and 77 years old. I'm going out at full bore. So mostly learning. Thank you.  

 00:02:03 - Matt Bos 

Yeah, that's awesome. It's amazing to have people with your background and your experience to be able to share those because as I get older as well, it's like you kind of reflect back in the things that I've learned now and still continue to grow and build upon. I think it's key, right? You never stop learning as long as you're willing to kind of keep pushing your knowledge.  

00:02:29 - Vern Gambetta 

Well, yeah, and that's a message I try to get out to everybody, whether you're 17 years old or 77 like me. You stop learning and stop trying to... Well, part of learning is getting better, isn't it? And challenging... I mean, you have your core beliefs, which you're not going to change, I hope. But challenging yourself to push the envelope in that, I think, is extremely important. Really important.  

00:02:58 - Matt Bos 

Yeah, yeah. So here at the sports, at Your Sports Resource, we focus on culture and club operations. So, it could be possibly a little bit different conversation than maybe you normally have, but I don't think it probably is. I think your wealth of experience at working with so many different athletes and coaches around the world will just, it's gonna lend a huge perspective to the people who listen to this.   

00:03:23 

So, to kind of get started, I think you correct me if I'm wrong, but started out as a track and cross-country coach. And I believe over the course of your career, you've worked with so many athletes, like I've said, in so many different sports. So how did you ever get involved or pulled into swimming? And then, as far as once you got involved with swimmers, what was the appeal with working with swimmers and coaches?  

00:03:49 - Vern Gambetta 

Yeah, well, started coaching in 1969. I was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California. And a friend of my wife's family, I got to know Eric Arneson, ran the pool, Los Banos del Mar, right down near the harbor. And Santa Barbara Aquatics Association was the club. And a guy came to be the coach of the club, a guy named Jack Simon. And Jack is a Hall of Fame.swim coach and that's when it all started.   

00:04:18 

Eric and Jack and I would run a couple of days a week. Jack would, we started talking about, I'd say, Jack, why do you do the stupid stuff you're doing while you're in the water so much? We'd go back and forth, and I said, why aren't you doing more stuff out of the water, more strength training? And then he finally was humiliated and had to come to me because he had a rash or shoulder problems. He said, why don't your pole vaulters, why don't your throwers have shoulder problems?  

00:04:46 

I said, look, we use this funny thing even then called a med ball. It was leather then. And so, I've always stayed, been close to swimming. And the other thing is I quickly learned that with my middle distance and distance people, that was a, that was a resource. Now remember the 70s in swimming and in track and field were mega miles. I mean, it was, it was craziness and we had great success without that approach.   

00:05:12 

I mean, I'm talking national championship teams, it was postal teams, and really, really good times in California and that, and nationally. And then I became, and then at Stanford, when I was in grad school, Jim Gorin was, now it was a different era, so he was a swim coach and the water polo coach, and Marshall Clark was a cross country coach, and I was helping, I coached the jumpers, and decathletes and track and we would run together and Marshall picked up a lot, a lot of stuff from gym short rest intervals as I did.  

00:05:53  

And then I went back to Santa Barbara High School and then I got the job as women's track and cross-country coach at Cal and Jack Simon introduced me to North Thornton who became a lifelong friend. I miss him. I miss his phone calls. You know, I think about North quite often. I learned so much from him. So, there's so much synergy you know, in the training aspects, especially for your middle distance and distance people.   

00:06:20 

And then North began to use me a fair bit as a, you know, as, how would you say, as a sounding board about even when I, even in the late seventies, well, what do we do out of the water? What's better to do? You know, things like that. So, I've always had a connection in swimming. And then in 2003, Jim Richardson, I spoke at ASCA, quite a number of American Swim Coaches Association, quite a number of times, and Jim Richardson asked me to come in.   

  00:06:50 

He's a women's coach at University of Michigan and completely revamped his program, and I worked with them for four years. People noticed what we were doing and how the injuries reduced, how different the women looked in terms of body shape and composition, and that led to Carmel Swim Club, which led to Dynamo Swim Club.   

00:07:09 

And then you're never an expert in your own town, finally, in 2012, with the Sarasota Sharks. And so from 2012 until last June, with the Sarasota Sharks, I've been really pun intended immersed in swimming. I just, last June, I knew we knew we were moving. I just didn't feel it was right to, and I just, and some of your people can, it just was really hard.  

00:07:38 

It's the only time I've started to feel old getting up three mornings a week at 5:30 and you know and running, you know, I was going down there really quite often. So now while I'm here, I'm still working with Summer Macintosh two days a week and will advise in regard to her program. So probably not, that was a long answer but so I've always had a respect and a close association with swimming, and it made me a significantly better track coach and just a better coach hanging out with swim coaches.  

00:08:13 - Matt Bos 

Yeah. I wish, like I said, we, you know, stay on the operations lane, but man, I wish I could sit here and talk to you more about that because that training aspect, it's still, you know, that's still a debate with swim, you know, within the swimming world, as far as the, you know, it's like, we've got to do more is better or yeah. You know, it's like any alternate form of training is, I don't want to say it's frowned upon, but it is in some way, you know, in a lot of, um, you know, circles.  

00:08:38 - Vern Gambetta 

Yeah. Well, it's all over the place, isn't it? I mean, with GAIN swimming, we had 25% of the people that made the last Olympic team, men and women, had used the GAIN swimming program, which is quite different from a lot of, and there's people that won set world records and medals, it was diametrically opposed to what we did. 

00:08:55   

So who's to say what's right for you and the athletes you're working with, you know? And the operational part, don't minimize that. I mean, I'm spending more time consulting with various sports on organizational development and culture development as I am now on sets and reps and exercises because that's what ultimately determines the implementation of the program too, you know, so anyway.  

00:09:23 - Matt Bos 

Yeah. And that's something, like I said, as I've gotten older and grown and, you know, been in coaching that I've realized that culture aspect really drives everything, right? You can't have, you can't have top performers without that culture. So, and one of the things that we work with a lot of teams and coaches is on coach training, right?   

00:09:40 

So, what is your, you know, do you have, yeah, do you have a, you know, kind of some thoughts as far as, okay, if you're a head coach of a club program, you know, I think the key is bringing your staff along, right? And educating and future, you know, that's potentially the future you've got if you've got these coaches. So, what are your thoughts as far as with head coaches, what they could be doing to kind of help their, you know, assistants or younger coaches and kind of help with their long-term development?  

00:10:07 - Vern Gambetta 

Okay. I don't want this to sound like a sales presentation, but that's what GAIN swimming, a lot of GAIN swimming is about. Chris Webb runs that with my help now. But exactly that, I'll use Carmel's Swim Club as an example. They brought me in 2007 and three visits of four days each that year, and then subsequently two visits a year for the next three or four years. And now we just, it's less formal and Chris Webb is very, he's one of the coaches that brought me in.   

00:10:39 

It was with the whole staff. Okay, you guys, and immediately it comes up, okay, here's the dry land program. Right, where do we fit it? How do we put it? Where do we put it? On the balcony, we don't need a weight room. What do we do? No, it's my advice for the head coaches that are listening or the club administrators that are listening is try to set up situations where you have continuous professional development for your whole staff.   

00:11:07 

That's what we did with Mason Manta Rays. You know, I can mention a lot, you know, a lot of teams and that's where it works. That's where it works because you've got to dry land training is not in isolation. Water training is not in isolation. You know, you have, you have to schedule, you have to, it's, and, and we're in, it's a people sport is about people. It's about, it's about communicating.  

00:11:29 

And learning for me, a lot of this, just like this podcast, that's why I wanted to come on is sharing, you know, it's remember we are coaching people, not numbers. You know, it's not five, five hundreds in six minutes or whatever. No, no, it's who can you know, what, how are you going to communicate to the athlete? How are you going to motivate the athlete? What do you do if they if they can't finish the set?  

00:11:58 

You know, those are all things that nobody talks about. And it's good coaching. And this is what's changed from when I started coaching. And I will sound like an old man here, but most of the great swim coaches, the George Haines's, you name them, they were high school trained as teachers. And it was a foundation in pedagogy.   

00:12:22 

Most of the coaches today have no background in teaching their pedagogy. And so I find myself, that's what my emphasis is. The X's and O's are pretty easy to learn. The scientific foundations are pretty well defined. But how to teach and how to communicate, how to correct, you know, all of those things, that's gonna make or break your program.  

00:12:49 - Matt Bos 

Yeah. And I think, and it's almost like, and I don't want to say it's almost taboo, but it is what it is. Right. Where today's parents, I mean, I'm, I am, you know, I've got kids, I've got kids in youth sports and high school sports. They're different, right? Like there's a different perspective. There's a different, you know, the kids nowadays, like they're, they want to learn more. Right. I think that they want to have a better understanding of what, like when I was growing up, it was right. You just did. Coach said, we're going to do this. You just kind of did it. And which was fine.  

00:13:19 

But I think that there's a different education that comes along with coaching nowadays, and I think you hit something there that we've gotten with your sports resource and the conversations with a bunch of different, you know, these conversations happen with clubs and that topic has kind of come up where the coaches avenue is they kind of just get into coaching, right? There, there's not this training, like you said, like a teacher that you're going to go through.  

00:13:48 

Four years of courses and observation and student teaching. So. yeah, so I think it really is important for coaches to continue that and understand that. And that's one of the conversations we try to have with a lot of coaches is that's one of the good conversations to have with an assistant is how do you talk to the kids? How do you talk to the parents and kind of keep educating them on that? Because there's really no, as great as USA Swimming and ASCA, there's all these organizations out there that are geared more towards swim training, you kind of, that communications part. Yeah, is key. I'm really glad you touched on that.  

00:14:30 - Vern Gambetta 

Well, you know, you said something that really resonated with me, parents and swimming parents might be among the worst, you know, honestly, in terms of driving coaches nuts. And I've said to all the coaches, they're driving because you're not taking time to educate the parents.  

00:14:49 

Okay, and that's where the first education, it should be mandatory, mandatory for every club that you have and your son or daughter can't swim, you know, maybe after 11, I don't know, for, you know, eight, seven, eight, nine, ten. Well, even that should be maybe an hour of education. These are the things that you, but look, this is what we're doing. This is why we're doing it, you know and that kind of stuff.   

00:15:18 

And I just don't see very many people doing a good job of that. They're doing a better job of educating their coaches maybe, somewhat the athlete, but not the parents, you know. I've had, I'm not saying this to drop names. I mean, I've gotten to know Summer McIntosh's mom. She's not, she's an Olympic swimmer. She's not a typical swim parent. But she, obviously she's very interested. Her daughter's a multiple world record holder.  

00:15:44 

It's been fun talking to her and get to know because she's here. You know, it's a different environment, different club environment in Canada. And some of the things that she goes like, why are these parents even saying some of the stuff they're saying, you know? And, and, you know, so I think, you know, from your organization and maybe what I do and what I do with GAIN is because that's the universal problem in youth sports right now, you know, is a parent that might have swum, even swum in college or whatever, you know, and knows everything, you know, from their experience.   

00:16:24 

And, you know, they want to know why we're not doing more, why we're not doing less, why two a day, why 5:30. Well, you've got to be able to explain that very clearly, very clearly, you know.  

00:16:37 - Matt Bos 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The days where, you know, my parents, we had no swimming background or they had no swimming background. I started at six and it was like, you know, shoved me into the pool and that was it. You know, and it was, I think through, even through university, you know, through university, it was, was that a good, you know, they knew nothing and it was fantastic. And I've appreciated that with my own kids.  

00:16:56 - Vern Gambetta 

Yeah. Well, my parents, my parents were immigrants and thank God they knew nothing about sport, you know, but if I came home, I am, and one time at dinner, I might, and he's passed away, you know, my high school basketball coach was the third most influenced, influential person in my life besides my parents, but I came home one night, we're all sat down at dinner and I was saying something about my coaching at the look my dad gave me. You would have, I mean, I just go shut up, man. I mean, you know, that's your coach. He knows what he's doing. And that was it. He knew nothing about basketball. I was a different type of place.  

00:17:35 - Matt Bos 

Yeah. Well, yeah, no, it's, it's like looking back, it's like, okay. It was, it was, uh, it was nice environment where you didn't have to go home and talk about your sports, right? It was, did you have a good time? Yep. Okay. Good. Like you working hard. Yeah. Good. You know, it taught, it taught all the lessons, but it didn't, it didn't kind of overwhelm. Um, so something that's interesting, cause you've talked about like, you know, early the, the kind of crossover with different coaches and different sports and how that made you a better coach.   

00:18:03 

And noticing that, and you made the kind of comment about Summer Macintosh as far as like, this is different than Canada. And one of the things is you've worked with organizations and athletes and teams all over the world. Are there things culturally that from, whether it's swimming or other sports that you have seen overseas that you're like, okay, that's quite a bit of difference from you know, from what happens in the United States, whether it's good or bad.  

00:18:32 - Vern Gambetta 

Well, for a minute, let's stick with swimming. I work with Singapore swimming. And no, the parents there, the kids are driven both academically and swimming-wise because they want them to. It's maybe more intense than a lot of situations you see here. Indirectly with swimming in Australia, I don't, their structure is different. You know, the kids learn to swim in swim schools, which are non-competitive. 

00:19:06   

Their squads, once they achieve really a, you know, junior international level, are much smaller than ours. You know, that's a big difference, you know. You know, in other sports in Europe and that, the parents don't have as much, and it's all you know, other sports, team handball, track and field, basketball, soccer, are all club-based and they're based around, in Europe, a lot of community type of clubs. So there's a real social aspect to that too, you know.   

00:19:42 

But in the Western world, we're all suffering from the same sort of issues right now in which the kids are less active when they come into the sport. So they're not as ready and that's where I'd like to also educate the parents to say, look, kick them outside, you know, let's get them playing, get them physically literate, you know, and that's probably one of the biggest things.  

00:20:10 

You know, we're seeing in the more developed countries versus the less developed countries, you know, so although I'll say, you know, we talked about New Zealand. I will say that having spent one of my best friends that is Canadian that lives down there now, I spent time with him four years ago in that, and I was down, brought down there for three weeks by a, Athletics New Zealand.   

00:20:34 

And I will say that my impression was that the kids are more active there, you know, on that. So that's, those are some of the differences that, and I'm biased because I look for that too, you know. So, you know, I mean, each, you know, each, I think each country, I'm a student of history too. I mean, each country has a bit of a national identity and that kind of stuff. I mean, I'm working with an Australian woman, Elise Perry, who's by probably the best, we met female cricket player ever best in the world, ever.   

00:21:09 

And she was here for 10 days last year and came down and did a couple of sessions, dry land sessions with Summer. And she stayed with us, and she says, Ariana Titmus or any of those other would never be swimming in the same environment that Summer is swimming here, where there's 12-year-olds, three lanes over and stuff like that, and 30 kids in the water. So, you know, and I think that, not I think, that's what you see. I saw that in Spain.   

00:21:40 

I've seen it in other countries, you know, in terms of swimming. Once the athlete gets to an elite, really elite junior level, they're treated differently. You know, in Singapore, we had, oh gosh, I think 20 total with five coaches, you know, junior and senior elites, you know, at the National Center. You know, it's very different. Very different.  

00:22:02 - Matt Bos 

Yeah. I think our university system probably plays some role in that as far as kids, you know, I mean, that's kind of the big goal. But it is interesting because I, when I coached in New Zealand, that was one of the things that I felt was we didn't have the numbers, right? It was, it's, you had your kids and if you had a kid with talent, you kind of needed to make sure that they stayed within the sport. To kind of, when they got to that 15, 16, you know, 17-year-old. That they were kind of actually developing and, and just honestly staying with staying within the sport.   

00:22:37 

Because if you lose that kid, there wasn't, there wasn't a line of kids like oftentimes here to kind of, yeah, to kind of take their place and, and there. Yeah. I mean, it was so common. I would have the boys, I mean, even the girls who played rugby, but they would come in from their Saturday or Sunday rugby games on Monday morning and you know, they're bruised up, cut up and you know, they'd get back in the pool. And, and so.  

00:22:59 

That brings me to another thought of, when I was growing up, I was in high school and then university in the 90s, and I felt like now looking back, I was at that tipping point of that specialization, where most kids I grew up with were still playing two or three sports year round, and then it slowly started to change where you know, your swimmers, your baseball players, whatever it is, it was like, no, we've got to be doing this, you know, all the time, specialize in that one sport from an early age. What are your thoughts as far as that, as far as that specialization within a sport at a young age?  

00:23:39 - Vern Gambetta 

Well, I'm very passionate about general multi-disciplinary development. There's a group that over in Holland that brought me over at ASM athletic. Wait, all my books are packed now. ASM athletic skills movement. And I'd show you the book. Wait a minute. Maybe. No, I don't. Yes, I do. Here it is. It's called the athletic skills model. I think we all ought to look at that.   

00:24:09 

I'd recommend your, recommend this to your swim clubs and that kind of stuff and they had me over and a lot of their work is reflective of some things that I've been saying too, but it's reflective of what if and this came up when I first went to Mason Manta Rays. One of the age group coaches says well a lot of my kids want to play soccer to her two days a week. Beautiful, let them play, you know, you're they’re 8-9 years old. Let them play, you know, and We had a group of boys here now six years ago with the Sharks.  

00:24:40

There was six of them and all those kids, one of them could have been, well, they were all really good all-around athletes, played baseball, played basketball until like eighth or ninth grade, you know, and then they specialized. And that's about the breakpoint, you know, right in there. I would like to see kids, not just girls, boys and girls do dance. And basically, what you're having to do is you're having to provide them with the education or the experience that used to be provided by school physical education.   

00:25:21 

So you have all around development. And then you can specialize, and I hesitate to use ages, but it's convenient. I know I'd say the boys 14, 15. The girls may be 12, 13, you know, but there's plenty of time before that to do, you know, multilateral development. Yeah, yeah. And I think Summer's an example. I mean, she was a figure skater. She did horseback riding. She did a lot of stuff. Now, you know, her sister's a world-class figure skater.  

00:25:57  

She didn't like figure skating. She didn't, you know, and so around 12. You know, she started swimming a little bit more, you know, and I could, I keep sounding like I'm dropping names, but we had a silver medalist here, Emma Wyatt. And she was the opposite, you know. She didn't like anything but swimming. She was comfortable in the water, quiet kid, you know. It was perfect for her. So, you know, I think you've got to, I think you've got to really, I mean, we can make generalizations.  

00:26:29

Which I think are really important, but I think you have to look at the person. And I was one with my own children to give them choices. And I saw my daughter, I was a track coach. She's a gifted sprinter. It hurt me. I coached her in high school and after junior year, she said, dad, I'm not gonna run next year. I'm just gonna focus on soccer, you know? And I...  

00:26:53

She loves soccer, so what do you do? I mean, she was 16 years old then, which was probably late in the soccer environment as it is. So I hope my point is clear that look for opportunities for multiple sport, not just sport, multiple movement opportunities, and that's what we do with our GAIN Dryland program. I mean, basically what they're doing now.  

00:27:18 

I was down the other day because I don't go down always in the afternoon. I work with Summer in the mornings and I watch some of the age groupers, 9, 10, 11, 12. Basically it's 20 minutes of like a gym class, you know, they're moving, they're exploring their body. They're crawling, they're pulling, they're doing pull ups, things like that, you know, it's, it's a free play, but that's.  

 00:27:42 

Again, there's societal reasons now why we don't have free play. Who's gonna take a nine-year-old kid and take them to a park and say, see you later, Johnny? You may not even never see him again. I mean, our society, it's different. So we have to account for those differences and that's the reality of the world we live in. Yeah.  

00:28:03 - Matt Bos 

Yeah, yeah. So you said you're writing a new book, or you have a new book coming out? What is, what is that going to be about?  

00:28:12 - Vern Gambetta 

Yeah, yeah. Well, it's I have a looking for the title of it here. So the cover. I've written 8 books, but the most, the one that most people are aware of is athletic development book. And this one's good. Just call it.  

00:28:29

I guess in a sense it's my legacy. It's called A Complete Athlete, a guide for physical preparation for coaches and teachers. So it's reflective of, it's beyond the other book, more in depth in certain areas and better connections between the, I'm just trying to find the table of contents here to share a few things with you.   

00:28:53 

So, for example, there's, part one is going to be the art of coaching, part two the science of coaching, part three the application, and part four, you know, looking ahead, coaching the future, what we have to do. And it's been a fun process. It's hard. I thought we were going to have it done a year ago, and hopefully it will be done by May of this year. I got hung up on one chapter. It was terrible, and I let it sit. My colleague in Switzerland is helping me with it.  

00:29:25 

And I can't, I said to me the other day, I said, I'm embarrassed that I sent you that chapter. So I'm totally rewired. And it happens to be on strength, which is, which is, you know, and sharing a lot of lessons that I learned along the way, that's the, that's the purpose of it. So, and, and putting the science in perspective along with experience. And overall theme is we're coaching people not numbers, you know, so yeah, it's been an interesting process.   

00:29:54 

I think people will enjoy the book, hopefully. So put in a plug for them. Be available on I don't know where it's we're not selling it on Amazon, but we will just, I'll send you where we're selling it. So, you know, my site, the game network site and the Hammer Media site. Sorry. OK. Enough commercial announcements.  

00:30:16 - Matt Bos 

Nope, nope, that's fantastic. No, I think this is great, great resources for people. Personal question here for me, because I wanna know, how did you get into professional baseball? You know, like how did you go from a track and you're swimming? And I know you work for the White Sox, I'm a Cubs fan. I actually grew up in the South suburbs of Chicago, but my mom was always a Cubs fan. So that's how I got, you know, that's how I got in because the games were on, they were all day games when I was a kid, and my mom, I'd come home from school, and she'd always have the Cubs game on.  

00:30:49 - Vern Gambetta 

My best friend growing up was a baseball player. And they used to play over the line at Harding School. Eddie Matthews, who's a Hall of Fame third baseman from the Milwaukee Braves, went to that school. And John O'Malley was my friend's name. And I just did not like baseball. It was boring and I was afraid of the ball. It just scared the hell out of me. So even, so I, I just, I'd go over there and play bat, shoot baskets for the hour and they'd be, they'd be playing over the line.   

00:31:22 

And, and I never in my, and I went to Fresno State, which had a great baseball program. I was friends with some of the guys on the team. I used to really enjoy going to the games. It was quite a happening there the way it was set up and I played football in college and then did track after but so I go along and I got to know this guy. He was with the 49ers. He was with the high school there in the Bay Area and he got a job doing the conditioning for the Bulls and the White Sox. 

00:31:57   

And so, he asked me to move back to Chicago with him. I left a teaching job. We went big move to the Midwest. And after two years, the White Sox saw me doing all the work and they were paying him a fair bit of money. And they offered me a position as they didn't know what. So I director of conditioning. And I saw it as, cause I'd seen for two years what could and couldn't be done. I got to know the people, had a good rapport. And that's how I ended up in it.   

00:32:26 

And I did it for nine years, but I say this in my book. My whole goal there was you run, jump and throw, right? And we had great success with our pitchers. I know your better success at that time than the Cubs did. You were in elementary school then probably or not even born then, but, you know, Cy Young, award winner, and Jack McDowell and a lot of all-star pitchers and kept them healthy and develop pitchers. And my goal was to develop a program that transcended baseball.   

00:32:58 

So, you know, it was, we tested, we did a generic. I mean, it was it was for baseball, right? But immediately the day after I resigned my job with the White Sox, it was leap year tooth at 1996, I went to work, was the first conditioning coach in the MLS in major league soccer. People say, what did you do? Well, I did a lot of the same stuff I did with the White Sox because we're training athletes, not baseball players. We're training athletes, not soccer players. So it was a fortuitous moment. I was teaching in coaching high school, back teaching and coaching high school in Orange County.   

00:33:36 

I could have been happy staying there the rest of my life. I had some international class athletes that I was also coaching. But, you know, it's like the movie Jerry Maguire. You know, the money, and that was just too good to pass up, you know, and it enabled us to do some things we wouldn't have been able to do had I stayed a high school teacher. So, I don't know if that all makes sense, but it was an interesting experience.  

00:34:08 - Matt Bos 

No, that's fantastic. I'll just yeah. But I think what it brings me back to is sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead.  

00:34:16 - Vern Gambetta 

I got to work with great people. My former boss is 81 now. We're going over to his house for dinner Saturday night. I kept in touch with him. A lot of the players, you know, they're now in their fifties, mid-fifties, you know, and it's just been really neat to see that. Can you send me that program you used? My son's 15 years old. I got to use it.  

00:34:41 - Matt Bos 

That's great. But again, I think what I was gonna bring that back to is it shows you that you're able to do from a training standpoint, whether it's a soccer player, a professional baseball player, a track athlete, a swimmer, that the training that you're doing is similar, but what I think it brings, comes back to is, like you said, you're coaching people, right? And I'm assuming that a lot of this comes back to what's that relationship like? How are you communicating with those athletes? That's probably the key, right?  

00:35:13 - Vern Gambetta 

Well, look here, this is Elise Perry's training program. What's it, I don't know if you can read it, what's it say? First an athlete, then a cricket player. And her career has been revived. They gave up on her two years ago. And she's back, you know, historically she's, but the interesting thing is, she also played in the World Cup in soccer. So, but as time went on, you get away from that. And that's what we did with White Sox. We had some great athletes, you know? And you're not a baseball player, you're an athlete first, you know?   

00:35:53 

And that's what's happened today with the game. They're too concerned about load management and all this kind of stuff. They're not training to prepare for the game, in my opinion. And that's why you see the injuries you have. So anyway, we don't need to get into that.  

00:36:07 - Matt Bos 

Yeah, that's interesting. No, that's interesting though. So before we wrap up, is there anything else that you feel would be pertinent to share with anybody as far as your experience or just what you've witnessed as far as running teams, working with athletes?  

00:36:23 - Vern Gambetta (36:02.474)  

Yeah, yeah. Well, all you folks that are associated with teams, whether you're an administrator, whether a coach, you know, you have a tremendous responsibility and opportunity because you're shaping, you're shaping young people. And for every, I mean, you're not going to have every club isn't going to have a Summer Macintosh or a Kate Ledecky or somebody like that, you know.   

00:36:50 

And I think that the focus needs to be on giving them, the kids and the coaches, the best experience that you can have. You know, and it's, to me, all the other, the medals, the winning, all of that is an outcome of a process of constantly looking for self-improvement and learning, you know, day by day.  

 00:37:22 

And that's what the cool thing about you talking about swimming because you're that the cool thing about swimming that I love is there's no. The stopwatch doesn't lie. You know, if you're grabbing the lane line always on your backstroke sets, you know, and you're a backstroke swimmer, it's going to show up, you know. And I'm not afraid to tell that to an 11, 12-year-old. So learn how to hold yourself in a good way. Learn how to hold yourself accountable, how to goal set.  

 00:37:51

The biggest thing that I would recommend to all the coaches listening is teach your athletes how to keep a good training log, okay, what that entails so they keep track of what they're doing in training. I mean, that's one of the biggest things. I'll toot Summer's horn. She's great at that. And so when I ask, well, you know, you write that down, at least is the same way. Every great athlete that I've worked with, a training log is crucial.   
00:38:22 

You know, whether they aspire to be the Olympian or whether they aspire to just, you know, make the high school state finals, it doesn't matter because it's part of a process and they learn themselves. And that's what we want to do. We want the athletes we work with to learn themselves. It's an opportunity to learn. That's the biggest thing. I'm just adamant, passionate about that. You know, it's very important.  

00:38:47 - Matt Bos 

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for, we're all so much better in, you know, whether it's like athletes, coaches for people like you who are passionate and, you know, sharing your experience and, you know, you've got a wealth of it. And, you know, we're super appreciative of you coming on here and sharing with our audience. Um, yeah, this was, this was fantastic and keep up, you know, keep up that work, right? It's awesome. We're, we're going to keep it. We'll, we'll try to.  

00:39:11 - Vern Gambetta 

Will do, well, yeah, it's gonna be, I'll have a little different relationship with the sport of swimming probably out in California. I won't, I know, help me, I won't be coached last, what's his name? I don't, why do I have so much trouble? Anyway, he's helping coach at Cali. He says, we need to get you over here, we need to get you over here. Now I'll come and visit, but I'm not gonna get immersed in it again.  

 00:39:34  

First of all, I'm doing some consulting overseas and that. So there's two great swimming programs. One of them, I went to grad school at Stanford, so I'm there and I coached at Cal. And the legacy of North Thorton, I'll go over there just to honor North's legacy. But anyway, so looking forward to it. Well, thank you for having me on. It's really a neat opportunity.   

 00:39:57 

And if anybody wants to contact me, you can put my email up. And it's gonna be a little crazy answering in the next 3 weeks. I think finally the moving date is last three or four days in February, first three or four days in March. So that's been an interesting experience. I thought we were going to be out there three months ago. So anyway.  

00:40:21 - Matt Bos 

Yeah, yeah. Well, best of luck with the move. Um, yeah. And I'm sure you'll, I'm sure you'll find yourself, you know, getting, getting immersed in something new, you know, as you, as you move out there. Um, yeah, that's fantastic. So, um, well, thank you. Thank you for being on. Thank you for the listeners.   

00:40:40

Uh, please subscribe, rate, review this podcast so we can reach a bigger audience, such as people like yourself. And don't forget to visit our website, yoursportsresource.com, where you can find articles and tools, and a bunch more information that will hopefully help you and your organization. Everybody be well. Thank you.