Elmhurst University embodies tradition. Historic brick buildings dating as far back as the Reconstruction era, refined tree-lined walkways, and nostalgic classrooms with old school ceiling panel lights and periodic tables posted on the walls. In this rarefied air, the December 2024 running of the Track Football Consortium teetered on a fulcrum of convention and disruption.
Fitting—that’s also the pivot point of sport.
Well-drilled technical skills and tactical pattern recognition veering into bursts of dynamic how you like me now creativity. Discipline, preparation, and standards offset by the untamed will to throw caution to the wind and let it effing rip.
How do you know what to do in the moment? How do you know what impact that decision will make? When should you stay conservative and “fall to the level of your systems” and when do you burn the boats and go with your gut?
Coaching is problem-solving and Problem #1 for those in attendance at TFC 2024 was choosing which speakers to see in the first place, with 18 presentations spread across six time blocks in three separate buildings. For me? Start with a well-thought-out plan and be prepared to audible.
I don’t mind admitting: very little went according to plan. And, like every other coach in attendance, due to the realities of time and space, I automatically missed twice as much as I saw… yet here I am, compiling takeaways and preparing to act based on a busted scheme and what is, from the outset, incomplete information.
Which may in fact be the meaning of it all.
Question #1. Are You Capable of Managing Uncertainty? Are You Sure?
“When you run, you do anything you can to seek a horizon.”
First—Orientation. Chris Korfist identifies this as the brain’s primal directive. In the chaos of an explosive sports action—before setting off an entire chain of events—you begin by creating order. Locate a horizon, then seek stability.
Korfist says that the fastest accelerators harness speed itself to create that stability—speed can be an organizing principle. Korfist now focuses intently on that moment when the foot first hits the ground, with an athlete’s ability to be the fastest in their first 3 steps a crucial differentiating skill (“how can we get more players to 6.0 m/s by step three?”). For everyone else, though, finding stability is what then leads to the next propulsive step forward.