My Vision for 2008-09; Part 1

I will summarize my plans for 2008-09 Manitoba Water Polo programming in parts. This will make the blog entries shorter, less wordy and more likely to be to the point. If there is not enough detail in one entry, wait for the next and see if it is any clearer. At the end, feel free to post whatever questions remain from the ideas I have presented.

Introduction; For several years I have watched our local community be threatened by 2 clubs recruiting young players with a similar pitch. I say threatened because the pitch from each club hinted that the programs were similar and the end point virtually the same. That is threatening in so far as the clubs are very different and the end point nothing similar at all. Bushido has been pushing athletes and programs toward national championship play and national team placement of players. Neptunes have been much more social and have always had a strong participation base to what they do. No value judgments here at all, just observations of reality.

What this has meant is that our competitive player base is too thin to support thriving clubs. Bushido has a strong core of great young athletes who work very hard but we have to entice other players with less passion to join them to make competitive teams for national events. That splits focus and team goals are never unified. The Neptunes on the other hand have a core of fun, social athletes that includes some exceptional players. These exceptional athletes get frustrated with not having teams at high level events or attending those events and never having success. It therefore makes sense to try and unify our approach to developing the sport. Combining the top players under 1 banner takes the pushy approach and competitive pressure off the bulk of the players who are there for less competitive reasons. If we do this right it will mean more players training and playing local games at a developmental level and having less emphasis on national events, more on regional. So, how do we do that?

Step #1; I have proposed creating a Bushido High Performance Training Centre (HPTC) to take the place of what is now the "High Performance Program" within Bushido that develops teams to attend national championships. Programs would be directed toward Cadet teams and older. This Centre would be different in two ways - it would be open to players from outside the current Bushido programs ie Neptunes, and it would involve coaches from the Neptunes programs in it's weekly leadership. This leads to 2 questions: 1) why "Bushido" High Performance and not Neptune and 2) why not do this under a Provincial Team banner? The answers to those questions follow.

Why "Bushido" High Performance: This is going to succeed under the Bushido banner because (a) we have a history of national team athlete placement that is continuous, visible and includes 4 carded athletes since 2000 (Bourne, Shevtsov, Bredin, Vosters), (b) we use the leadership of a professional coach and (c) we have an infrastructure with an established parent volunteer base that has vast experience hosting, managing and facilitating this level of programing. The only changes that need to be made in 2008-09 will involve adding a coach or 2 and extending athlete membership to a small group of hard training new players.

Why not do this under a Provincial Team banner: Pretty simple, our club operating budget dwarfs that of the provincial association. This means that the volunteer ownership of the programs we run is much more intense and professional. People have a stake in program success, it is their money that funds the activities and the model is not democratic in that every opinion does not have a right to be debated endlessly (a problem common with PSO boards). Our focus is much more narrow so it is easier to stick to our mission and goals with low risk of getting sidetracked. You will read much more about how the Provincial Team meshes with this model in a later post.

Athletes will be invited to join this 2008-09 HPTC in the spring of 2008; they will be given training goals for the summer - strength, fitness, psychology and nutrition. In the fall there will be a pre-season camp where ground rules are established, team rosters presented, competition plans laid out and commitments made by athletes and coaches.

next up, Part #2 "What about players not involved in High Performance?"