My name is Cooper Napoli, and I hate school.
I dropped out of college in 2017 and never went back.
Also, I love education, and I love making sure coaches have the best possible education in their hands.
I know that’s an insane way to start a blog titled, Education = Freedom. But I ended up achieving my dreams in the field without any formal education – I coached and trained alongside war fighters, pros, executives, ballers, and some salt-of-the-earth normal folk from across the world. I still work with small contingents of bad asses, but I’m fulfilled and proud of what I’ve done. I feel a great sense of pride about what I've achieved.
Most coaches seek a similar fulfillment and healthy pride in their coaching careers, but they struggle to find the path toward such a state-of-being.
Education can be that path. It’s never straight. It’s rarely fast. However, education can set you on the straightest, fastest path to where you want to be. All that being said, education is a vague term, and it means something different to everyone.
I’ll start by defining what education means by citing two dictionaries say:
Education(noun) The process of teaching or learning, especially in a school or college. — Cambridge Dictionary
Education(noun)The act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life. — Dictionary.com
I don’t like the Cambridge one. I don’t like it because it’s vague in the first half. I don’t like it especially because it emphasizes ‘school or college’. Education can include school or college (no shit), but I don’t think it’s a radical idea for me to suggest that’s a limited definition.
I dig what the Dictionary.comdefinition says a bit more, but I’m not satisfied. Preparing for an intellectually mature life sounds awesome. I dig the verbs ‘imparting or acquiring’ in the context of knowledge. Raising my powers of reasoning and judgement sounds like a winning formula. The words sound hollow when I speak them in my head though. They read a press release from a mega-corporation; vague generalizations and platitudes.
And that’s because they are purely definitions, and thus, a very flawed frame of reference.
Yet, so much of education is just that – definitions with limited scope vomited into the next set of ears in line, regurgitated over and over until the plot is lost, the people aren’t getting any better, and the words become rot itself.
I aim to end that cycle for those open to joining UNRACKED’s mission-first approach.
John Dewey, an American educator and philosopher born in the mid-1800s, shared his approach to education in philosophical terms I’m satisfied with.
Take a look at this quote from an article:
Education is a process of inviting truth and possibility, of encouraging and giving time to discovery. It is, as John Dewey (1916) put it, a social process – ‘a process of living and not a preparation for future living’. In this view educators look to learning and being with others rather than acting upon them. Their task is to educe (related to the Greek notion of educere), to bring out or develop potential both in themselves and others.
So what does any of this have to do with freedom, coaching, and UNRACKED?
The coaches I’ve seen struggle did so because their education didn’t result in knowledge they could act on. They lacked confidence. Confidence to execute. Confidence to evolve. Confidence to strive. Fear underpinned a lot of important decisions, often sowing the seeds of failure. They weren't free.
Freedom comes when you know your craft deeply. Your confidence overrides your fears. You strive. You evolve. You execute. The coaches I’ve seen succeed did so because their education equipped them with the right plays, and a diversity of plays, to run in the face of adversity.
That’s where UNRACKED comes in. The team behind UNRACKED built this because we’ve lived the struggle. We know what it feels like to be knowledgeable but not confident. UNRACKED is a social-driven effort designed to build the informational highways between those figuring out their craft and the experts who’ve walked the road.
Format matters. As such, we deliver in every format we can: live events, blog posts (like this one), newsletters, YouTube videos, and social media. We don’t know where, when, or what idea will spark you in the right moment. What we know is that the information alone isn’t enough. Our content is for coaches, personal trainers, physical therapists, fitness enthusiasts, and everyone between pursuing human health and performance, and it’s designed to be digested in the presence of one-another.
Education is not a credential. It's not a degree hanging on a wall or a certificate stuffed in a drawer. It's not a classroom, a professor, or a tuition bill.
Education is what happens when people commit to getting better together. It's the question asked mid-conversation that changes the direction of an entire room. It's the coach who learns something from their athlete. It's the expert who leaves a discussion with a perspective they didn't walk in with.
That's what UNRACKED is built for.
So if you've made it this far, you already understand something important: you're not looking for someone to hand you the answers. You're looking for the right conversations. The right people. The right environment to grow.
Now show up.
We're going to have follow-up posts to this one, diving into how you might start to think about education in your coaching career!
Read More
Across the first year of the UNRACKED conversation series, top coaches from the NFL, Special Operations, collegiate athletics, and the private sector have shared the philosophies driving human performance at the highest levels. These experts work with wildly different populations. But from elite powerlifters to sleep-deprived firefighters and high school freshmen, their methodologies share striking similarities applicable to any training practice.
Read More
Exercise is not only vital for physical health but also plays a transformative role in mental well-being. The relationship between fitness and mental health is backed by robust scientific principles and research, highlighting exercise as a powerful tool to combat stress, anxiety, depression, and more. Below, we explore the key mental health benefits of exercise, the mechanisms behind these benefits, and the types of exercise that yield the best results for each area, including recommendations for frequency, duration, and intensity.
Read More.png)
BridgeAthletic is proud to announce a new partnership with Excelsior Rotterdam, a distinguished club competing in the Keuken Kampioen Divisie, one of the most competitive and highly-regarded leagues in Dutch football. This collaboration will empower Excelsior’s performance staff to streamline their training processes and deliver cutting-edge, individualized performance programming using BridgeAthletic.
Read More
The holiday season offers a unique opportunity for personal trainers to reach more clients and boost revenue. But other commitments over the holiday season can make it difficult to find the time to create programs, promote them, and ultimately deliver them to clients. The reality is that creating and launching a new program doesn’t have to be time-consuming or complicated. With Bridge, you can build a high-quality, 4-week holiday fitness program in just one day and have it ready to sell directly through the Bridge online store—fast, efficient, and completely hassle-free.
In this guide, we’ll show you just how easy it is to design a program that appeals to clients looking to stay active during the holidays.
Standing out in the competitive world of personal training and fitness coaching requires more than just skill—it takes the right strategies. Between managing your current clients, designing programs, and marketing your services, finding the time to grow your business can feel overwhelming. But what if there was a way to attract more clients and drive sales without adding hours to your already-packed schedule?
In this guide, we’ll share five proven offers that personal trainers can use to bring in new clients, boost revenue, and take their business to the next level. These strategies are designed to help you maximize your impact while keeping your workload manageable, so you can focus on what you do best—helping people achieve their fitness goals.
.png)
BridgeAthletic, the industry’s leading high-performance training software for strength coaches and personal trainers, is proud to announce a new partnership with the Charlotte Hornets. The Hornets’ Athletic Performance Staff, as well as the medical staff will now use Bridge to build, track and monitor all athlete strength and recovery programs.
Read More
Retro-walking (RW), or walking backward, is a therapeutic exercise used in resistance training and physical therapy to alleviate knee and lower back pain, particularly in conditions like osteoarthritis. By engaging muscles differently from forward walking, RW can improve balance, coordination, and functional abilities, making it an effective non-pharmacological treatment for chronic pain and rehabilitation.
What is Retro-Walking (RW)?
As someone who owns exactly one suit, this topic may seem significantly outside of my wheelhouse. And it is. However, my interest in learning about the most random things I come across led me to notice a point of comparison between the world of custom-made suits and my experience programming in the Tactical sector.
Read More