Stazza's Stable
Arete Scholarship Program
ABOUT
For years, John Starrett of Tralee Ireland has coached numerous runners with a direct, thoughtful approach tailored to each individual's specific goals. Starrett, fondly known as Stazza among the "stable" of runners he coaches, provides cutting-edge training programs and extensive training knowledge with a unique and personal touch, helping each athlete achieve their full running potential.
Stazza's Stable comprises runners from across the world (mostly Ireland, UK, and USA) who train under Starrett.
The Stablemates range from beginners to elites and compete in all distances - from 5000m to marathons to 24-hour ultras. The private Stable groups on Strava and Facebook provide athletes with a platform for discussion on all aspects of training, as well as a forum for crowdsourcing information and sharing accomplishments.
Stazza's Stable is now expanding beyond coaching relationships with the introduction of a sustainable scholarship program. Based in Iten, Kenya, the program aims to help young Kenyan athletes fulfill their athletic and personal potential. Stazza works on the ground in Iten, nurturing and managing the program as a whole while also hand-selecting athletes based on talent, potential, attitude, and personal circumstances. Once recruits join the Arete Scholarship program, they are billeted in comfortable accommodation at the Stazza’s Stable Training Camp in Iten, where they receive a weekly allowance to cover basic needs and essentials, and a longterm training strategy is established to develop each runner.
Stazza will monitor each scholarship athlete's progress, and enable them to reap the rewards of their hard work through racing in Europe and the USA. All race-related fees and travel expenses will come at no cost to the scholarship athletes. Though they will be asked to donate 10% of their winnings back into the Arete Scholarship fund to help the next generation of runners, athletes will be free to keep the remainder of their winnings to reinvest in themselves, their families, and their local community.
Spelled arete, arête, or areté. Pronounced ah-reh-'tay.
Arete represents potential realized and function fulfilled; a notion of excellence and courage bound up with the act of living up to one's full potential. The Ancient Greeks understood arete to mean “goodness” or “excellence"; something akin to US Army’s old slogan, “Be all that you can be.” Arete therefore, signifies being the best person you can be, and means different things to different people. For Plato, arete was the ideal form of a thing, the ultimate goal. In that sense, the Arete Scholarship Program exists to help disadvantaged Kenyan youth with promising, untapped athletic abilities reach their highest potential.
Arete In Athletics:
For a person to live a life of arete, it was commonly believed that the mind, body, and soul each had to be developed and prepared. It is this belief that underlies the opinion that athletics must be present in one's life in order to obtain and fully achieve arete. Athletics need not consume one's life, but the body must be exercised into the right condition for arete, just like the mind and soul would be exercised by other means.
Why Arete?
Iten, Kenya