Pace Setter : October 2023

Us v. Them 2.0

by Russ Ebbets, DC, USATF Level 3 Coach

Made with Bing AI

Originally, I wrote this piece as a cheeky editorial companion to an interview I did with Greg Haff, one of the leading training theorists in the world (Track Coach #243). He had mentioned the promise of artificial intelligence (AI) and how it might be able to be harnessed for coaching, to make a more comprehensive assessment of an athlete’s development and management or at the very least help to provide a rudimentary path forward in terms of training planning, including periodization models.

That was a short 9 months ago.

The influences of AI continue to expand exponentially. ChatGPT is ruining the critical thinking abilities of a generation of college students. Google’s contributions to humankind are being questioned as their data harvesting efforts have blown past “invasion of privacy” concerns to an effective end to them. And there are now legal concerns regarding cell phone addiction with the absolute necessity cells have come to be in modern life.

Pundits are now calling for limits to AI, regulations regulating the growth of the technology. But in our current political climate, with knuckleheads who can’t see past the next Gallup Poll, it leaves little doubt that any legislative response will be closer to the Sorcerer’s Apprentice than something from General Patton. Pandora’s Box has been opened or the genie is out of the bottle. Pick whichever analogy works for you, but make a choice, while you still have the chance.

Us or Them?

When I was in my early 20’s I had five interviews in one day for work with the New York State government. They were bureaucratic jobs that paid about double what I was making as a teacher/coach. They offered job security, benefits and the opportunity to spend the rest of my life in a 4x6 cubicle.

The last interview of the day was for a computer science position. This was the mid-seventies and the nerdy were just beginning to trade their slide rulers for pocket calculators. All the interviews asked the same questions for the first 10 minutes. By #5 I was tired, so I decided to ask and answer the standard questions in my initial statement on “Why I wanted this job.”

It was late in the afternoon, and I could see my interviewers were taken aback by this, like, “How does he know what we were going to ask?” When they asked, “But why computers?” I told them, “Computers are the next link in the evolutionary chain.”

I went from wise guy to Wise Guy in one sentence. I had read that tidbit somewhere and thought it would be an appropriate response. This became the focal point of the remainder of the interview. I scrambled to support the thought, referencing Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, smart machines and how science fiction has often forecasted the future. I think I went 2-for-5 for the jobs but in the end stuck with teaching.

Today, calling computers ubiquitous is an understatement. Our cell phones contain more technology than NASA had when they sent Neil Armstrong to the moon. The quantity of information, literally at our fingertips, is staggering. The quality of information can be equally mystifying.

Various predictions have postulated that cell phones will be smarter than humans as soon as 2025, certainly by 2035. Hmmm, politicians, maybe 2010?[D1]  Computerized algorithms already have the ability to predict our needs, wants and desires. Our personal calendars remind us what we have to do – is it such a stretch to think our little buddy will soon start to tell us simply what to do?

Analytics are all the rage in professional sport. Moneyball details how the use of statistics and projections were used to revolutionize baseball. But this revolution (or evolution?) has reduced the game to home runs, strikeouts and the pull hitter’s shift. The more we rely on data, hard cold facts, to drive decisions, the further and further we get away from the human element.

I always laugh when I remember the story frequently told by an older football/track coach in the league where I got started. His team was on the 10 yard line, 4^th quarter, five points down and only enough time for one more play. As he walked to the huddle for his last timeout, he decided to use a trick play, with players running this way and that, using illusion and confusion to get the final score.

His star tight end jogged up to him and said, “Throw me the ball.” The coach walked to the huddle and proceeded to diagram his trick play. The tight end interrupted again, “Throw me the ball.” Angered and ready to erupt, he looked the kid in the eyes and once again the kid said, “Throw me the ball.” For an eternal second the coach stood there, then turned to his quarterback and said, “Throw him the ball.” The kid caught the ball.

Joe Paterno said that great athletes make great plays. Sometimes you have to trust the person. Algorithms, tendencies and artificial intelligence are all well and good but greatness is not a “central tendency,” it is the act of an outlier.

What does all this mean for coaching? The scientifically generated data of analytics can be helpful but also can be very rigid. If the plan calls for the athlete to run 10 quarters and they show up with a sore foot, better to change the plan than to ruin the foot. The reality of the real world is that things that don’t bend, break. Flexibility is one of the biomotor skills for a reason, and it is also an important part of the art.

No doubt the day will come when robots can run, jump and throw better than humans. I have no doubt these competitions will be entertaining and exciting, showcasing the abilities of the gifted engineers who created these technological marvels. And no doubt one day the technological marvels will probably create the  self-same technological marvels. Will that spectacle supersede the competitions of human models? I guess it depends on who is making the decisions. Is it us, or is it the “next link?”

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Russ Ebbets, DC is a USATF Level 3 Coach and lectures nationally on sport and health related topics. He serves as editor of  Track Coach, the technical journal for USATF. He is the author of the novel Supernova on the famed running program at Villanova University and the sequel Time and Chance. His book, A Runner’s Guide, a collection of training tips and running articles was a 2019 Track and Field Writers of America Book of the Year finalist. His Runner’s Guide 2 was published in February 2023. Books are available from Amazon.com. His USATF Niagara High Performance presentation on Career Longevity and the Masters Athlete can be found at – USATF Niagara HP Zoom. He can be contacted at spinedoctor229@hotmail.com.

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