They say that kids today are soft. That too many of them want to be coddled and not enough want to put in the hard work necessary to become better at what they do.
That’s what they say. But Bill Hartz isn’t having it.
The long-time rec soccer coach isn’t one to coddle anybody. But he says that he has seen with his own eyes that if you challenge kids — motivate them to focus on building their willpower and self belief — they will respond.
That’s the basis for Hartz’ Spartan Bootcamp, a physical fitness training program that he has developed over the past decade working with young athletes on the soccer field and, now, on just about any field.
Hartz spent the summer working with 175 local children, ranging in age from 6 to 18, to help them build up their physical fitness as well as their mental toughness. Positive word of mouth from satisfied parents — and their kids — has helped the program take off.
Hartz is busy now preparing for the fall, hoping to build on the success of the summer program.
“We use the mentality from an athletic standpoint of never giving up belief in yourself, of making yourself better,” he says. “It really all starts from that, and has sort of built its way into this program, the culmination of a decade of Spartan evolution.”
Sixty percent of participants in the summer were boys, and 40 percent girls. They were split almost evenly among elementary, middle and high school ages.
“It was good representation of young, middle and older kids, boys and girls, a diverse group,” Hartz says. “It was really fantastic to see kids from all these sports, different ages, different genders.”
Typical training is up to three days a week for one hour per session and consists of exercises designed to build strength, endurance, agility and overall physical fitness. Plenty of Hartz’ trainees are young athletes who participate in local sports — recreational as well as travel. But Hartz stresses that his training programs are well suited to kids who don’t play a sport at all.
“We lean toward building an athletic base and then working your skills in. That’s always been my approach to coaching: we made sure we had athletes first, who could then perform in their chosen sport,” Hartz says. “Not a bunch of kids who were really skilled, but after five minutes had to come out of the game because they were exhausted.
“I see kids who can’t do a push up, can’t run a lap around the field, and I believe that’s backward. Kids should develop their overall fitness and athleticism, and then build skills on top of that.”
Even as he pushes kids to work harder and do better, he stresses that the focus is more on the effort than the results.
“We’re about personal growth. It doesn’t matter if you came in last, if your time is better than it was yesterday,” he says. “If you ran a bad race because you didn’t give effort, it’s a problem. But it’s more about the individual effort and what you accomplish. It’s more about racing and competing against yourself than it is about competing against other people.”
Hartz offers a flexible schedule for participants, saying that Spartan Bootcamp is a “get out what you put in” proposition. He claims a less than 5% dropout rate in the summer, and that a survey sent out after the summer sessions garned a strong response and largely positive feedback. A signal, in Hartz’ mind, that Spartan Bootcamp is on the right track.
“It’s how I raised my kids, and it’s something I apply to other kids, and parents have responded to it,” he says. “I just think it’s something that’s not around as much any more. It is a tricky line to walk. You have to be careful, you have to be conscious and aware. But kids are so much tougher than they are given credit for. They will rise to the occasion when given a chance.
“When a kid gives up, I find that most of the time, it was the parents who said, ‘OK, let’s give it up. Let’s stay home.’”
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Bill Hartz grew up in Hamilton. He went to Hamilton High West, where he played soccer and ran track. He characterizes the instruction he received as a young athlete as closer to what he practices at Spartan Bootcamp than perhaps what many kids are accustomed to today.
“My high school soccer coach was definitely a ‘rub some dirt on it’ kind of guy,” Hartz says. “When I came up, especially in travel soccer, the mentality was, ‘Get up and keep going. Save your tears for somebody else.’”
When the time came for Hartz to coach his son Joseph’s rec soccer team, in 2011, he wanted to give it his all. He was aware of the dichotomy in youth sports between travel and recreational leagues: travel sports athletes get well organized instruction, often from professional trainers; while rec athletes often get sporadic training from well-meaning, but busy and sometimes underprepared parents.
“Kids who are in rec sports sometimes become what they call ‘the leftovers,’” Hartz says. “I really leaned into it and gave the kids a lot of effort. Our team adopted the Spartan mentality and it sort of took on a life of its own.”
He coached Joseph for a number of years, and then it was time to coach his younger son, Collin. He used the same approach the second time around. Hartz says that he developed the Spartan philosophy with an emphasis on discipline, hard work, physical fitness and character.
To hear him openly declare that his life’s passion is “yelling at children,” one might get the idea that he is some kind of cruel taskmaster.
Humor is one tool that Hartz uses to ease that tension. He frequently lets wry, self-deprecating jokes poke through the drill sergeant facade to hint that his demeanor is at least on some level for show.
“His manner, yeah he yells and everything,” says parent Nancy Byrne, whose 11-year-old son, Finn Richardson, was a participant in boot camp over the summer. “But it’s softened by his sense of humor and the fact that he personalizes everyone’s instruction and gives you nicknames — and doesn’t forget it, by the way.”
Byrne says that another talent of Hartz’ is his ability to make kids feel like they belong to something. Participants get Spartan shirts to wear, sometimes with nicknames on them bestowed by Hartz. Finn’s nickname: Huckleberry.
“The first several weeks, the amount of pride that was instilled in [Finn], he wouldn’t take the Spartan shirt off. Everywhere he goes, he wants to wear the Spartan shirt,” she says.
Byrne said that most of the kids who take part are also members of a sports team. Not so with Finn. “Most kids already know this kind of pride and belonging. This is my kid’s first experience with it, and I could not be prouder of him for sticking with it,” she says.
Finn knew what he was getting into, Byrne says, because some of his friends had done it. “They warned him about the ‘10 minutes of hell’ at the end,” she says. “But the thing is, they’re all doing it together. They’re in it, like a little family. It’s a lot different, I think, when you’re with peers and it’s something you’re going through together.”
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Ah, yes. The 10 minutes of hell.
As Byrne says, Hartz takes pains to tailor each participant’s program to their individual abilities and needs. But everyone is expected to endure the 10 minutes of hell at the end of each session.
“The best way to describe it is, it’s Simon Says, but it sucks,” Hartz says. “Suicide runs, burpees, jumping jacks — we don’t stop for 10 minutes straight. They don’t finish until everyone finishes. That’s where we get into the mental toughness piece, where it’s hot and thirsty and they’ve got to dig deep. I tell them it’s really eight minutes of hell and two minutes of heart. Thats where these kids see things that they really didn’t think they could do. A lot of kids take a lot of pride in that.”
For many years, Hartz’ primary experience as an athletic trainer came from his time as his sons’ soccer coach. During the day, he worked as a general manager for a number of area retail stores.
After the pandemic, the Bordentown Soccer Association was having some trouble getting kids to register for seasonal sports on time. Hartz offered to run a summer physical training camp as a way to entice kids to sign up earlier.
At first, he had just 15 kids — the team that he coached. A year later, there were 56 participants, many of whom first heard about the training from their friends and neighbors.
It wasn’t until Hartz was laid off from his full-time job, in January, that he seriously started thinking about turning Spartan Bootcamp into something bigger.
“This is one of those things that has sort of floated around in the back of my mind for years, but not something I deemed as realistic,” Hartz says. “You don’t walk away from a job where you’re making good money to try something like that. But once it’s beyond your control, you have to explore other options, and this really is my passion.”
Hartz says his ultimate goal would be to devise a full-fledged youth program that goes beyond physical training. “Like a more inclusive version of Boy Scouts,” he says. “My goal is to have boys and girls, and any group is welcome. We don’t get into religion or politics, some of the stuff that can weigh down Boy Scouts a little bit. We focus on a mindset of determination and respect. It’s almost a martial arts mindset.”
While Hartz is certified in youth fitness by the National Academy of Sports Medicine, as well as by the Red Cross, he has come by all of his training methods by developing them right there on the fields.
“I’ve coached soccer for a really long time, I’ve done some martial arts in my life. My children were doing martial arts training at a location in Hamilton, I was assistant instructor there, I’ve helped out as a kids’ wrestling coach,” Hartz says. “But I didn’t go to school for it, and I never claim to be a professional trainer. That’s really not my approach. We make physical gains through mental toughness. I know how to work kids, how to motivate them. I know how to keep them going when they quit on themselves, and we take them to a place they didn’t think they could get to.”
The process, Hartz says, has a “remarkable” effect on kids.
“These days, kids don’t tend to get put in uncomfortable places,” he says. “Our mentality is legitimately, ‘Nobody cares. Work harder.’ Obviously with safety in mind. But there’s a big difference between injured and hurt.”
Byrne admitted that it was tough at first to watch on as her son learned to endure the Spartan Bootcamp experience.
“I literally had to turn my back to the field, because I was like, ‘Oh my God, either I’m going to cry or he’s going to cry or he’s going to get frustrated and walk off,’” she says. “But something about the coach’s manner just made him stay.”
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As he builds Spartan Bootcamp into a full-time affair, Hartz is focusing on more than just the physical training. He also wants to instill in his trainees a sense of community and of community service.
“One of the main things I’m trying to do is build community support by working with different organizations, different businesses, looking to build those relationships,” Hartz says. “The idea is to offer kids and their families a more holistic organization, rather just they bring their kids to me and I’ll make them run a bit.”
With that in mind, he has partnered with a number of Bordentown businesses to further establish the Spartan brand. People can now get Spartan Shakes at the Ice Cream Boutique by 1892 Chocolates, Spartan Bracelets from Bordentown Bracelets, and Spartan Specs at the Eye Care Center of Bordentown. Palermo’s Restaurant and Pizzeria honors one student each month as the Palermo’s Spartan Athlete of the Month.
Hartz has also engaged his students in community service projects, like the July 29 Cleanup of Bordentown.
Hartz says more than 85 people took part in the four-hour cleanup project. Hartz worked with Deputy Mayor Joe Meyers to coordinate and Jim Heupel as site manager to facilitate the cleanup.
Areas cleaned included Veterans Memorial, John Bull Monument, Hilltop Park, 2nd Street Park, the boat ramp, the pollinator gardens, the butterfly gardens, the flower gardens by Old Town Pub, Crosswicks Street Island, the old town hall, Crosswicks Street sidewalks, and Farnsworth from Crosswicks to the river.
Though thrice-weekly hourlong sessions are Spartan Bootcamp’s core offering, they are by no means its only offerings. Hartz also offers one-to-one training as well as seasonal programs for members of a single sports team.
The fall program is set to begin the first week in September, but Hartz says he will welcome new members at any time. Details on signing up, as well as information on a variety of promotions on offer, are available online.
Spartan Bootcamp. Phone: (609) 481-7540.
Finn Richardson of Bordentown wearing a Spartan Bootcamp shirt with his nickname, “Huckleberry,” on it.,
