Life of the Stotans
Since 2004, the Fayetteville-Manlius cross country teams have been a dominate fixture on the national running scene. The girls team has won 6 consecutive Nike Cross Nationals (NXN), and the boys have been multiple time NY State Federation Champions and runners-up for NXN twice. Some may say that they are led by a "crazy" coach and are pushed too hard with mileage, but what it really comes down to is a philosophy. The Stotan Way.
The term Stotan (a mixture of Stoic and spartan) is credited to Australian coach Percy Cerutty, which he used to describe the training program of 1960's Olympic Gold Medalist Herb Elliot. "A Stotan", Cerutty says, "is one who hardens, strengthens, toughens and beautifies the body by consistent habits and regular exercises, which are consciously and irrevocably made part of the life plan of the individual, as well as consciously determining that the mind will be cultivated upon such abstractions as purity, beauty and logic."
In order to be a Stotan one must be able...
(a)… to withstand physical hardship, to accomplish feats of strength and endurance, to understand orderliness, and the true meaning of intelligence.
(b) To know himself as an organism and a personality
(c) To emerge, eventually emancipated, from all dogmas, creeds, and beliefs, as well as worldly and unworldly hopes and fears.
(d) To habitually function upon the highest planes of thought and physical effort.
(e) To place the objective of an alert, informed intelligence, and a perfected body, as primary in Life. And to arrive at the conclusion that all else will follow on.
(f) To learn that on this basis, the whole world, and all that it has to offer, opens out as a vision, splendid, normal and realizable.
(g) To understand that Past, Futures, Fates, Fears, Death, Selfishness, Egoism, Pride, Envy, Hate and Prejudice can be replaced by Intelligence that controls emotion, dominates destiny, manifests completeness and exults in Life.
(h) To understand that, in actuality, evolved man is a King, but without the trappings. That Kingship is his right and his destiny.That we can make ourselves, in time, all that we would. That we honor real men but are subservient to none.
The Stotans of Fayetteville-Manlius
While the fame of Percy Cerutty is a mixture of praise for his coaching success but also being eccentric, the story of FM and Bill Arisis humbled and a model for how we should exhibit leadership and establish a culture. His coaching philosophy is odd and clearly against cultural norms for most high schools because the model revolves around selflessness.
And the key word here: selflessness. Every one of those guys and coaches and parents did everything for everybody else. Not one time were the athletes thinking - or the coaches - thinking about themselves.-Bill Aris
Whether it be an athletic team or a business, the ideals espoused by the Stotan model provide an alternative to the winner takes all mentality that has overwhelmed high school athletics. Instead of focusing solely on results, the Stotans of FM believe in the process and take a holistic approach to their training. We can all learn something from this group of athletes and coaches in Upstate New York, and focus on pushing ourselves not simply for a reward but for a challenge.