The Definitive Old School Vs. New School Post

I've had my minions working on this for awhile. (Actually you know there hasn't been a post for 2 1/2 days, so it has been me trying to compile this all by my lonesome in between patients and my other work duties!)

An old post was picked up by other award-winning blogs when I first reposted it recently, so here I am reposting it for a third time!   Am I running out of things to say? Is the blog nearing an end?   (No.)

Anyway, here is the definitive post compiling all New School/Old School submissions in all the various iterations no matter where the source.

Old School (1970s): Practice right after school.
New School (2012): Practice at 5:30PM, just 1 1/2 hours after they get home from school.

Old School: Practice lasts 1 1/2 hours, team meeting included. Ends on time.
New School: Practice lasts 2 1/2 hours, followed by a team meeting. Never on time.

Old School: Practice at high school, trip home by school bus.
New School:  Practice at numerous variable sites, transportation necessary both to and from.

Old School: Dual Meets twice weekly.
New School: Quad or Quintuple Meets once weekly.

Old School: Tattoos only on a spectating ex-Marine Uncle from out of town.
New School: Neck tattoos on Freshman runners.

Old School: No sunglasses.
New School: Sunglasses on an overcast day as essential running equipment.

Old School: Nike Waffles.
New School: "Barefoot" Shoes.

Old School:  Winner at about 16:00 for boys 18:00 for girls.
New School: Winner at about 16:00 for boys 18:00 for girls.

Old School:  No idea what friends are up to during practice.
New School: Tweets and Facebook updates during practice to know that friends are "chillin".

Old School: Coach is basketball coach and high school math teacher.
New School: Coach is 6-time All-American and stay-at-home-dad.

Old School: 0 assistant coaches.
New School: 6 assistant coaches.

Old School: 1 Newspaper article a year, with many facts wrong.
New School:  Blog with daily updates on minutiae of every runner's life.

Old School: Quarter mile or half mile repeats a staple.
New School: Don't know what a quarter is.

Old School: One runner with a VW van on its last legs takes a few people home.
New School: Each runner over 16 drives their own BMW, Lexus or Mercedes home.

Old School:  Cotton
New School: Lycra

Old School: Stretch
New School: Core

Old School: Fartlek
New School: Lactate-Threshold or Tempo

Old School: 10-year old school-owned-and-loaned spikes which were painted each year to freshen them up.
New School: A personal aresenal.

New School: Screen-printed singlet logo.
Old School: Embroidered ones. Woo-Hoo! The old-timers win one!

 Old School: Coach would pile whole team (boys only back then) into Plymouth Fury (Big boat car) and drive 10 miles out of town and drop off team, following team all way back to school. No one would bat an eye.
New School: Coach mentions a 5 mile run and whole team rolls eyes, AD forbids team from going off campus (school board lawyer says liability), and coach drives a Mini Cooper anyway. No one has any endurance.

Old School: Kids did things without critique of "how it used to be"
New School: Adults blog about how kids aren't tough anymore.

 Old School- Barney Ewell    New School- Usain Bolt

Old School- Nike Waffles    New School- Vibram 5 Fingers

Old School- New Zealand Splits  New School- Compression Shorts

Old School- ERG    New School- G2

Old School- Cinders    New School- Mondo

Old School- Lydiard    New School- Salazar (Coach)

Old School- Salazar (Runner)   New School- Meb

Old School- Salazar (Champion)  New School-  Salazar (Heart Rehab Patient) or New school Coach - Schumacher


Old School- Amateur    New School- Professional

Old School- Squinting, warming up   New School- Running Sunglasses, arm warmers, breathe-rite strips, running "zorro" masks

Old School- Track and Field News   New School- Track and Field News or New school (for better or worse)- Letsrun.com or New School: Flotrak.org

Old School- Steve Prefontaine   New School- Galen Rupp or New school - Solinsky
  
Old School- Rec Hall/Ice Palace    New School- Horace Ashenfelter III Indoor Track

Old School- Coach Lucas    Old School- Coach Groves
 
Old School- "Wait an Hour" Health Center  New School- Ritenour Health Center

Old School- Gentle Thursday    New School- Earth Day

Old School- 2 cups of coffee (50 cents for both)   New School- Energy drink ($3.99)

Old School- Steve Balkey    New School- Ryan Foster 

Old School:  In most of my years at UC I would go around in a van and give people mile splits, just to get a sense of pace. 

 

New School:  Toward the end they would correct me as to where the mile split actually was based on their GPS.  I began to wonder why I was even out there.  The same was true for bus trips where I formally enjoyed talking with team members on the bus.  Toward the end they were all texting and there was essentially nobody to talk with.  Once again I began to wonder why I was even on the bus. Courtesy of Bill Schnier

 

Old School:  Running comes first , so drop a class so as not to miss practice.

New School: School comes first, so skip practice so as not to miss class. Courtesy of Phil Scott

 

Old School: Start a run down any country road or trail and run for 60-90 minutes, guesstimating the distance and pace.

New School: GPS tells you exactly where you are, how far and how fast your pace. 

Courtesy of Susan Abuasba

Old School:  Cross Country was Blue Collar kids of factory workers, living in the city.

New School: Cross Country is Upper Class kids of college grads, living in the suburbs.

Old School: Cross Country team was mainly basketball players getting in shape before their season, lucky if there were 8 or 9 kids on the team. Many ran in Converse All-Stars high tops.

New School: Cross Country team has 5-10 serious runners and 30-50 kids trying to boost their resumes for getting accepted to college.  George Brose