I just spent a long weekend in Bradenton, Florida at the 300-acre IMG Academies. The amazing campus contains a par 72 golf course, two pools, two baseball diamonds, soccer fields, NBA-regulation basketball courts, an outrageous weight room, and 56 tennis courts where the likes of Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Maria Sharapova, and the Williams sisters honed their game.
But I wasn’t visiting the sports academies for any of those amenities.
I was a guest on the premises as the Commissioner of Slamball. I love that title. As I mentioned in a previous blog (Slamball is Back), we are re-launching Slamball with IMG as our new global partner. The partnership, not only provides us with national and international broadcasting and sponsorship muscle, but it also affords us the unique opportunity to utilize their Florida sports Mecca for eight weeks of training camp. By the way, we converted one of the enclosed basketball courts into a Slamball court - four 18-wheelers transported our specialized court from LA.
It was great reuniting with Slamball athletes that I haven’t seen since our league last appeared on Spike TV in 2004. I enjoyed watching the architect of the action sport, Mason Gordon, put the players through their vigorous two-a-day workouts. And it was a most special pleasure to reunite with my old friend Nick Bollettieri.
I use the word “old” affectionately - in terms of our long-term relationship as opposed to his chronological age. Yes, Nick may be 77 years old according to the Gregorian calendar, but he’s damn near 20-years old in terms of physique and energy level.
The name of Nick Bollettieri is synonymous with tennis. He was a pioneer in developing world-class tennis players via his disciplined, intense, multi-faceted training approach. In 1978 he founded the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy which became the dominant tennis training camp in the world. A decade later, he joined forces with IMG and continued to strengthen its international tennis presence.
So I’m strolling through the 10,000-square foot weight room to do a reconnaissance for my early morning workouts to come; when suddenly, out through the office door springs Nick to give me a loving embrace. The guy looks great! He’s as hard as a rock and his patter bounces off your eardrums with the passion of Bono.
Now I know as a physical therapist/athletic trainer from my past life that your body begins its steady decline around the age of 30. Maximum heart rate decreases six to 10 beats per decade, muscles start to lose their tonicity, intramuscular fat increases, lung function decreases, and cardiovascular performance (VO2 max) drops off about 10% per decade.
But don’t you dare think that this physiological decline applies to everyone. Nick is a living, breathing, motivating example that proper physical conditioning – combined with the art of taking action on your passion - can work wonders to help ward off the degenerative effects of aging.
Nick regularly starts his day at 4:00am and invests the next dozen hours personally training athletes 60 years his junior. And I thought I was an early riser. In fact, I got up early on Saturday morning to be in the gym when it opened at 6:00am. I wanted to get my workout in so I could then observe the first group of Slamball players who were scheduled to hit the “springs” at 7:30. As I maneuvered my way across the dark campus I passed the indoor tennis facility, which was lit up like the aura borealis, and where I heard the unmistakable raspy voice of Coach Bollettieri.
I peaked inside to witness one of the IMG Academies’ instructors hitting balls toward the net. As I emerged further into the building I saw on the opposite end of the court a 15-year old practicing his return strokes with his old coach providing helpful observations – before most of the world got out of bed.
This entry was posted
on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 8:09 am by Pat Croce
Leave a Reply
April 16th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Can’t wait for Slamball, commish. When will the games start to air and When can we see some live Slamball in Philly?
April 17th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Thanks Mike. We’re filming the games this summer and hopefully we’ll see Slamball in Philly next year when we franchise the league!
April 17th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Pat, You da man! When will you be putting some of your powerful, positive speeches on audio for purchase? I would love a daily dose of you. Keep up the good work and can’t wait for your movie to come out.
April 18th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Coincidentally, I’m looking at creating an audio series as we speak!
April 18th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Pat, What does your work out regimen consist of? Do you lift weights? How many days a week and duration. Diet? Ya look good brother-I’m always looking for something new and different with my workout. Thanks for the feedback-Brian
April 20th, 2008 at 9:50 am
My workout secrets with be portrayed in a future blog. Stay tuned!
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Pat, when you put your workout regimen on your blog. let us know what you do with cardio. I just turned 50 & years of b-ball have taken a toll on the knees (5 scopes) I look pretty good, but the knees hurt. We need guys like you to continue to be our poster child for the 50 over group.