Adirondack Sports January 2024

HEALTH & FITNESS
Stotanism
“Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”
–UCLA football coach, Red Saunders (often attributed to Vince Lombardi)
By Tom Bulger
◀ 1982 TROY TURKEY TROT 10K WITH DAN
LARSON, QUEENSBURY (BOSTON MARATHON
“STREAKER” SINCE 1970 (DNF, FEVER 1975);
ATHLETE PROFILE, APRIL 2017) AND THE
AUTHOR, TOM BULGER (10K PR IN THIS
RACE, 31:47). TROY RECORD
There is a philosophy that has gained
more and more credence among
some coaches in a variety of sports.
It is not a new philosophy, but we’re in an
age where it has become more and more
prevalent. It is called “stotanism.”
The first usage of the word stotan
was by the eccentric Australian running
coach, Percy Cerutty, in the 1950s and
1960s. He uses the term to explain why
one of his top protégées, Herb Elliot, the
great Australian miler, was different from
other runners. Stotanism combines the
ability to endure pain (stoic) with the never-say-die
philosophy of Spartan soldiers.
At the heart of stotanism is the age-old
adage, “What doesn’t kill you makes you
stronger,” and its corollary, “No pain, no
gain.” More on the terrible fallacy of these
clichés later.
In the interest of public disclosure, I
must admit my running days were governed
by stotanesque principles. I ran too
hard, too long for years. This took a toll,
especially with very flat feet, so I incurred
lots of running injuries that required surgery.
I may have as many replacement
parts in my body as originals. But here is
the thing about my stotanism, I personally
chose to do it. No coach or team dictated
my behavior. The primary reason I chose it
is that distance running was the best antidote
I could find for dealing with my serious
depression. I knew what I was doing
to myself. From the time I spent with physical
therapist John Repsher, after my first
serious injury, he kept pointing me to a
sign taped on his desk: No pain = no gain
= no brain. I ignored this because of my
depression.
There are examples of stotanism in
most sports. The novel “Stotan!” written by
Chris Crutcher, 1986, is about a swimming
team that adopted this approach. In football,
it can be found in numerous instances.
One example is when Darryl Royal
coached at University at Texas. Practices
were often conducted in the intense summer
heat, and players were denied water
to make them tougher. Those that didn’t
make it were shoved aside. There are
many individual examples of this, including
Lance Armstrong in cycling.
But the sport I wish to concentrate
on is the sport of distance running, my
sport of choice. Probably the epitome of
stotanism in running was the great Czech
Olympic star, Emile Zatopek. He trained
and raced at levels that would seriously
injure or kill most runners. His training led
him to workouts on the track where he ran
20x200s, 40x400s and 20x200s, with “rest
laps” of 200 meters. At the 1952 Helsinki
Olympics, he won gold in the 5K, 10K and
the marathon, breaking Olympic records
in each event. At the start of the marathon,
he was quoted as telling his fellow
competitors, “Men, today we die a little.”
It shows that he would go to any lengths
to run his fastest.
It also demonstrates that Emile
Zatopek had a body that was anatomically
perfect for running. Very few human
bodies are capable of surviving the kinds
of strain that he endured. Many distance
runners keep pushing until they find the
limit their body imposes. No one knows
what their limits are until you go over the
edge and get seriously hurt. If an individual
chooses to do this, it’s a choice they
have made. It is quite another thing when
the stotan path is preached by a coach or
program. Then the runner is forced by
peer, team and coaching pressure to run
beyond their physiological limits.
If you look at win-loss records, there
are some successful teams that demand
stotanism from all their runners. One of
the most successful win-loss high school
running programs in New York has been
Fayetteville-Manlius, whose high school
mascot name is the Hornets – but their
cross-country team had adopted the
name stotans. That is their philosophy as a
team. What such a philosophy does is simple.
For those who survive the training,
they become the best runners they can be.
Those who don’t are on the injured runner’s
list and are replaceable. Many endup
with serious injuries or they abandon
running. Neither of these outcomes promotes
physical or psychological health.
What this does to the high school running
scene? It convinces other schools
to adopt versions of stotanism, in order
to compete for victory. It is analogous to
grade inflation, where some Ivy League
schools gave high grades to its students
because they had “the best” students. This
forced other schools to inflate grades so
non-Ivy league students could compete
with comparable grade-point averages.
Stotanism is not confined to high
schools. Read “Running with the Buffaloes”
by Chris Lear, 2000, which chronicles
the University of Colorado cross-country
team’s 1998 season, from late summer
practices to their men’s NCAA cross-country
championships. Though the word stotan
is never used in this book, it is painfully
obvious that coach Mark Wetmore revolved
his training around the stotan philosophy.
It records how the team attempts to
keep up with All-American (and uber-stotan)
Adam Goucher, resulting in a pile of
JANUARY 2024 37
injuries to many of the team’s runners.
Consider this quote in the book about the
coach, ‘[He] set about creating [a program]
where he and his athletes would ‘suffer as
much as we can to see how good we can be,
safety be damned.’’
It sounds a lot like the myth of Icarus
flying too close to the sun. As one chapter
leads to the next, injured runners
keep piling up, making the training room
resemble a MASH unit. These runners
are dismissed as collateral damage. The
chapter headings offer a brief summary of
this damage: “Edge City is a Scary Place;”
“Casualty;” “The Miracle Doctor;” and
“Another Casualty.” None of these chapters
are about the thrill of victory.
It needs to be said that coaches who
promote stotanism are poor teachers,
not helping all their athletes reach their
healthiest potential. The coaches seem to
be more concerned with win-loss records.
For the student athletes, they have to be
honest about what they can do, not worrying
that finish place and times will define
them. Pain is a clear warning signal, and
should be heeded. Otherwise, they will
spend away the body’s valuable resources.
Parents have to let go of pushing their
children to do things that might gain athletic
glory, but may ultimately hurt them.
I still remember a documentary on
Mark Spitz, where the interviewer asked
if he had the choice between his numerous
gold medals and the childhood he
missed by always training, he said without
any hesitation that he would take his
childhood. For educational administrators,
they must stop allowing the sports
tail to wag the academic dog. Sooner or
later, they will face the accountability that
Penn State’s administrators faced with
the decline and fall of football coach Joe
Paterno and members of his staff.
There has to be accountability. Coaches
would do well to heed the words of Vince
Lombardi, who said late in life about his
“winning is everything” message, “I wish
to hell I’d never said the damned thing. I
meant the effort… I meant having a goal.
I sure as hell didn’t mean for people to
crush human values and morality.” Stotan
coach proponents would do well to listen
to these words of wisdom.
Tom Bulger (tbulger@nycap.rr.com)
of Menands is retired from Siena
College’s English Dept. His first coaching
experience was two years under Bob
Reilly for Siena men’s cross-country, then
founder/coach of Siena women’s crosscountry,
and first coach of Willow Street
Athletic Club. Tom has run 20 marathons
with a 2:28 best time.