It was a pretty long summer of very limited internet access so there was not much Blog activity. That will end now as I am back in Winnipeg planning the 2008-09 season.
I was very happy to see a Canadian referee that I know and respect get chosen to do the Olympic men's gold medal match. Gaetan is a great ambassador for the sport and his having been a Manitoba coach at one time is an interesting curiosity.
This week I am meeting with coaching candidates to sort out roles for the coming season. There will be some radical changes in staffing and in practice structure. All the juggling of people and resources will be sorted out soon and seasonal plans outlined for everyone.
Showing posts with label 2008-09. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2008-09. Show all posts
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Busy Guy
Sorry it has been a long time for a blog update. Carol has spring break right now and we have been busy with some household renovations that are taking lots of free time.
I heard from Serena in Hawaii yesterday that she may have torn her UCL (in the elbow) from a very hard outside shot from a big 2m defender on the Wahine squad. This girl, Ryan, shoots harder than Monika Eggens if you need that perspective, so maybe 65km/hr. She'll have an MRI this week and get the full report soon.
There have been some additional discussions the past week between Trevor and I concerning my 2008-09 MWPA plans. This is good, the more we talk, the more I hear questions, the more it becomes clear how we can move forward with unity and harmony. One of the things I had not made clear initially was my hope that Neptunes would strengthen their role as a provider of "life long" water polo opportunities and build more adult programs with players graduating from age group programs of both Bushido and Neptunes. This seems to be universally accepted so when both clubs graduate players from Bantam into Cadet they will choose participation with Neptunes or High Performance with Bushido. Then when they graduate from age group they will choose ongoing HP with Bushido ie national team, pro, NCAA or Adult or Masters with Neptunes. All of the players in both Cadet and Open will play in the same MWPA leagues so there is no lack of program opportunity for anyone if this is done right.
I was reading in the paper today about the synchro girls who are participating at Pan Am this week in the Western Divisionals. They have trained 20 hrs/week the past few years to be ready for this national level event. This will be an important program model for our families education next year when we initiate the High Performance Training Centre with Bushido. I certainly don't expect 20 hrs/week but we have to go part way to that frequency to get where we want to go nationally and internationally with water polo. Some of our players are training 6 days/week and twice some days right now so it isn't like they will practice more, just practice with more unity and partnership under a more specific plan.
Later this weekend I hope to look in detail at our Youth Women's National Championship schedule and talk about the double elimination system. Then I will have some comments on what happens if/when we beat Calgary 2 in our first game and jump up a few levels to play Quebec 1 later the same day.
I heard from Serena in Hawaii yesterday that she may have torn her UCL (in the elbow) from a very hard outside shot from a big 2m defender on the Wahine squad. This girl, Ryan, shoots harder than Monika Eggens if you need that perspective, so maybe 65km/hr. She'll have an MRI this week and get the full report soon.
There have been some additional discussions the past week between Trevor and I concerning my 2008-09 MWPA plans. This is good, the more we talk, the more I hear questions, the more it becomes clear how we can move forward with unity and harmony. One of the things I had not made clear initially was my hope that Neptunes would strengthen their role as a provider of "life long" water polo opportunities and build more adult programs with players graduating from age group programs of both Bushido and Neptunes. This seems to be universally accepted so when both clubs graduate players from Bantam into Cadet they will choose participation with Neptunes or High Performance with Bushido. Then when they graduate from age group they will choose ongoing HP with Bushido ie national team, pro, NCAA or Adult or Masters with Neptunes. All of the players in both Cadet and Open will play in the same MWPA leagues so there is no lack of program opportunity for anyone if this is done right.
I was reading in the paper today about the synchro girls who are participating at Pan Am this week in the Western Divisionals. They have trained 20 hrs/week the past few years to be ready for this national level event. This will be an important program model for our families education next year when we initiate the High Performance Training Centre with Bushido. I certainly don't expect 20 hrs/week but we have to go part way to that frequency to get where we want to go nationally and internationally with water polo. Some of our players are training 6 days/week and twice some days right now so it isn't like they will practice more, just practice with more unity and partnership under a more specific plan.
Later this weekend I hope to look in detail at our Youth Women's National Championship schedule and talk about the double elimination system. Then I will have some comments on what happens if/when we beat Calgary 2 in our first game and jump up a few levels to play Quebec 1 later the same day.
Monday, March 24, 2008
My Vision for 2008-09; Part 4
Related Activities, Beyond Daily Training and Competition
There has to be mention of the role and function of the MWPA in this new club structure and of Provincial level programming. Of course, what I have written about in the past 3 posts should open opportunities for new players and added vibrancy to the current MWPA School Leagues. There will be more energy for volunteer coaches and new blood in the referee pool as we increase the player base on a developmental level through the winter months.
One of the very first things I touched on when I presented my ideas to Trevor was the way this structure could mesh nicely with a summer Provincial Team Program (PT). If we have a HPTC running 10 months of the year there will need to be some monitoring and training in the summer months. Our players involved with National Teams are busy at that time with their international obligations but what about the other elite athletes who want to keep pace with the best in Canada. Well, a summer PT would allow a focussed set of training objectives for a limited group of committed athletes that are not out of the country, province or city. If we establish this summer training group it will provide the basis for a future PT when one is requested by Water Polo Canada for various summer initiatives like the Youth Cup.
The PT being tied into the HPTC allows us to access all sorts of additional services and funds through Sport Manitoba. It also allows for some partnerships like we have established this season with Carolyn Taylor who has been doing bio-mechanical research using Dartfish with us. Many of the components of ongoing Bushido programs do not get recognized by Sport Manitoba right now (Nutrition, Strength, Psychology, Coach Apprentice Program) because we don't offer them as part of a "Provincial Team". That is a quirk of Sport Manitoba that they will not change so it doesn't hurt us to alter our structure a bit and tap into some long hidden resources.
Will the Athletes all Get Along in This System?
So far, so good. By now everyone should know that we are running a pilot of this HPTC right now in Bushido. We have labeled it the Bushido Espoir Program and it initially involved our Youth Women who incorporated a few Neptune players. That success in joint training led to a Cadet Boy being added at the beginning of the year and then 3 Cadet Girls being added a month ago. So, we already have 3 of our 4 Age Group teams involving Neptune players right now. Geoff is fitting in very well with our Cadet Boys each week and even played with our Youth team at the Alberta Open. Heather, Robyn, Olivia, Hannah and Jessica are training well with the Youth Girls and Katie has joined Hannah and Olivia with our Cadets. Sure, there could be a little more social interaction outside of the practice drills but that will come with time, right now there is no fighting so that is the start we wanted given that this is a competitive setting. There is no reason we shouldn't expect that cooperation to grow into actual harmony in time.
So, what are the steps to make this transition? Well, I presented this proposal to Trevor at the beginning of February. I have kept the MWPA up to date on the outline of my ideas since then. Right now I am waiting to have follow up meetings with some Neptune coaches because, as you can imagine, this is more difficult for the Neptunes to embrace than for Bushido since it changes their programs in the most dramatic way. Basically all Bushido coaches support cooperation and growth and Bushido parents support Bushido coaches while they shepherd their children in a pretty positive and supportive way at all times. Hopefully, before the national championships cycle starts, we will have a template agreed upon for the MWPA to acknowledge and report on in a planning update for Sport Manitoba. I'm curious to see how much additional revenue flows to our sport next year.
There has to be mention of the role and function of the MWPA in this new club structure and of Provincial level programming. Of course, what I have written about in the past 3 posts should open opportunities for new players and added vibrancy to the current MWPA School Leagues. There will be more energy for volunteer coaches and new blood in the referee pool as we increase the player base on a developmental level through the winter months.
One of the very first things I touched on when I presented my ideas to Trevor was the way this structure could mesh nicely with a summer Provincial Team Program (PT). If we have a HPTC running 10 months of the year there will need to be some monitoring and training in the summer months. Our players involved with National Teams are busy at that time with their international obligations but what about the other elite athletes who want to keep pace with the best in Canada. Well, a summer PT would allow a focussed set of training objectives for a limited group of committed athletes that are not out of the country, province or city. If we establish this summer training group it will provide the basis for a future PT when one is requested by Water Polo Canada for various summer initiatives like the Youth Cup.
The PT being tied into the HPTC allows us to access all sorts of additional services and funds through Sport Manitoba. It also allows for some partnerships like we have established this season with Carolyn Taylor who has been doing bio-mechanical research using Dartfish with us. Many of the components of ongoing Bushido programs do not get recognized by Sport Manitoba right now (Nutrition, Strength, Psychology, Coach Apprentice Program) because we don't offer them as part of a "Provincial Team". That is a quirk of Sport Manitoba that they will not change so it doesn't hurt us to alter our structure a bit and tap into some long hidden resources.
Will the Athletes all Get Along in This System?
So far, so good. By now everyone should know that we are running a pilot of this HPTC right now in Bushido. We have labeled it the Bushido Espoir Program and it initially involved our Youth Women who incorporated a few Neptune players. That success in joint training led to a Cadet Boy being added at the beginning of the year and then 3 Cadet Girls being added a month ago. So, we already have 3 of our 4 Age Group teams involving Neptune players right now. Geoff is fitting in very well with our Cadet Boys each week and even played with our Youth team at the Alberta Open. Heather, Robyn, Olivia, Hannah and Jessica are training well with the Youth Girls and Katie has joined Hannah and Olivia with our Cadets. Sure, there could be a little more social interaction outside of the practice drills but that will come with time, right now there is no fighting so that is the start we wanted given that this is a competitive setting. There is no reason we shouldn't expect that cooperation to grow into actual harmony in time.
So, what are the steps to make this transition? Well, I presented this proposal to Trevor at the beginning of February. I have kept the MWPA up to date on the outline of my ideas since then. Right now I am waiting to have follow up meetings with some Neptune coaches because, as you can imagine, this is more difficult for the Neptunes to embrace than for Bushido since it changes their programs in the most dramatic way. Basically all Bushido coaches support cooperation and growth and Bushido parents support Bushido coaches while they shepherd their children in a pretty positive and supportive way at all times. Hopefully, before the national championships cycle starts, we will have a template agreed upon for the MWPA to acknowledge and report on in a planning update for Sport Manitoba. I'm curious to see how much additional revenue flows to our sport next year.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
My Vision for 2008-09; Part 3
"Who trains where and when, who competes out of province?"
Everyone in the current system will want to now the answers to these questions. First I have to emphasize that if we create a HPTC that it will actually have to be high performance to be taken seriously.
Step #4; Put in place HP training practices. With that distinction comes a minimal amount of training and intensity and the starting point is likely to be 5 team practices per week at a minimum. All LTAD models suggest 9 or more training sessions per week for this level but I am working on a model that allows for a shift to this workload by incorporating additional personal workouts the way I have done the past decade with our Bushido Academy.
Why is it important to follow an LTAD program model and to provide this level of training? Because players here want to compete at National Championships, not just "play" but "COMPETE" and the teams at the top will be training that much so we must too. The LTAD model ensures that players will develop correctly over time the way Breda has; I use her as the example because she is from the first generation of Canadian water polo players who began their careers in a program that was structured on LTAD. Others from her generation that have had success from this model are people like Heather, Jesse, Adam, Karly, Derek, Mitchell, Domo, etc. But, that is a whole other topic for another time.
Another aspect of this program re-branding that many will not understand just yet has to do with the restructuring of Water Polo Canada. It is a given that the past practice of taking all our National team players and moving them to a common centre in Calgary (men) or Montreal (women) is about to end. Training will be localized to a great extent and there will be standards in each of the centres that emerges to fill the role of what was done with a single national centre. If we wish to keep our young athletes here to mentor our developing age group players, and to play on our Junior and Senior teams, we must have a training standard that is accepted nationally.
Step #5; Identify the correct competitions for the correct teams. Trevor and I have already discussed this point as it is easy to agree on. We would like to see local Cadet leagues develop 2 levels of team to travel outside Winnipeg. One high level team that will challenge for medals at all national events and one that is developmental and teaching players about what is involved with success at this level. At the Youth level we would likely only have 1 team traveling at a national level and maybe 2 at a regional one.
We would like there to be competition every month for Cadets and almost as much for Youth. That is an ideal and it will take time to get get there. This is something that will be discussed more with families in the program once it is unveiled.
Everyone in the current system will want to now the answers to these questions. First I have to emphasize that if we create a HPTC that it will actually have to be high performance to be taken seriously.
Step #4; Put in place HP training practices. With that distinction comes a minimal amount of training and intensity and the starting point is likely to be 5 team practices per week at a minimum. All LTAD models suggest 9 or more training sessions per week for this level but I am working on a model that allows for a shift to this workload by incorporating additional personal workouts the way I have done the past decade with our Bushido Academy.
Why is it important to follow an LTAD program model and to provide this level of training? Because players here want to compete at National Championships, not just "play" but "COMPETE" and the teams at the top will be training that much so we must too. The LTAD model ensures that players will develop correctly over time the way Breda has; I use her as the example because she is from the first generation of Canadian water polo players who began their careers in a program that was structured on LTAD. Others from her generation that have had success from this model are people like Heather, Jesse, Adam, Karly, Derek, Mitchell, Domo, etc. But, that is a whole other topic for another time.
Another aspect of this program re-branding that many will not understand just yet has to do with the restructuring of Water Polo Canada. It is a given that the past practice of taking all our National team players and moving them to a common centre in Calgary (men) or Montreal (women) is about to end. Training will be localized to a great extent and there will be standards in each of the centres that emerges to fill the role of what was done with a single national centre. If we wish to keep our young athletes here to mentor our developing age group players, and to play on our Junior and Senior teams, we must have a training standard that is accepted nationally.
Step #5; Identify the correct competitions for the correct teams. Trevor and I have already discussed this point as it is easy to agree on. We would like to see local Cadet leagues develop 2 levels of team to travel outside Winnipeg. One high level team that will challenge for medals at all national events and one that is developmental and teaching players about what is involved with success at this level. At the Youth level we would likely only have 1 team traveling at a national level and maybe 2 at a regional one.
We would like there to be competition every month for Cadets and almost as much for Youth. That is an ideal and it will take time to get get there. This is something that will be discussed more with families in the program once it is unveiled.
My Vision for 2008-09; Part 2
"What about players not involved in High Performance?"
Last post we left with a vision for a combined approach to High Performance training for 2008-09 in the Manitoba water polo community. Now I will attempt to address how the developmental side of the sport fits into that new model. This will be an evolutionary process, what I propose today may take a sharp turn in a year or two, this is a beginning, not an end.
Step #2; Create a viable provincial winter league for Atom and Bantam teams that are club based. A league, to be viable, should start with a minimum of 4 teams per category. How can we ensue that we have leagues with that many teams when we only have 2 clubs in Manitoba? I have a few ideas and these will require support from both clubs. First, we can mandate that each club must develop age group programs in at least 2 city pools (ie Klassen & Eldon Ross or UofM & Pan Am). That will increase the focus and community awareness and give us centres for 2 teams for each club in each category. We can't do this overnight but we can do it in 1 season if we plan for it now, approach the pools as a unified group with the MWPA, and have the structure ready to accept players from the vibrant Middle Years League run by the MWPA.
These leagues can be 5 vs 5 or 6 vs 6, it does not matter. What is important is that we have games on a regular basis, we market the sport, we provide levels of participation and we have community involvement opportunities. This structure allows for the development of referees, coaches and minor officials. It provides players with a taste for the game that has competition as an integral part, not like the infrequent games available today. Following a Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) Model we know that games at this age should not be focussed on outcome but they should emphasize process. This would allow both local clubs to participate with less emphasis on who is "better" and more on what are we learning, collectively. It also allows new clubs or groups to join in the system with less stress or intimidation.
Ok, that takes care of Winnipeg but what about other regions? Well, I have just spent a good deal of my time while in Calgary at the Alberta Open talking to Coach Cyril from Saskatchewan about water polo on the prairies next season. We would like to have some inter provincial games as 1 day affairs with both centres traveling ie Sask Teams and Winnipeg Teams. Brandon is the perfect meeting place and if we have a few Saturday afternoon games at the Sportsplex in 2008-09 you can bet that it will be possible to start an Atom program there in 2009-10. That is a nice piece of this restructuring that the MWPA could become involved with and guide through the development stages.
Step #3; Create a viable provincial winter league for Cadet and Open teams that are NOT club based. Why not based on a club? Because that would be impossible if the HP athletes are all training 5x week or more with Bushido, how could any other team compete? In order to get 4 teams of Cadet Girls or Cadet Boys we would need to (i) move up some Bantams (ii) recruit from the school leagues (iii) use both Bushido and Neptune programs that cross over the HP vs Developmental boundaries. Can you envision a Cadet league of 4 girls teams of 10 players, each with 4 Bantams, 5 HP players and the balance developmental players from school teams or other sports like swimming or basketball? I certainly can and it will be a great mentoring league for the HP players who train so much each week and want to share their passion and experience with others in a fun, experimental game situation.
If you are wondering how the teams would be created it isn't that tough. I will sit down with Trevor, Head Coach of Neptunes, and talk about what kind of teams we want to create, what tactics we want to focus on, do we want a strong countering team and a strong shooting team or do we want 4 balanced teams? Then we will divide the HP players, assign the strong bantams from our clubs, make sure there are committed coaches and then we will all recruit from the school leagues. The tough thing here will be finding a day and time when these teams can have a weekly practice that does not interfere with HP training. That is the one complex piece of this puzzle as we do not want training to overlap with Development and HP programs.
The Open Leagues will be run the same way but with a major difference, we won't assign coaches and run weekly practices. These teams will focus on a weekly game and be lead by Mentors who play, coach, teach the younger or less experienced members of their squads. If you are having trouble with that idea imagine a team of 16-20 year old women led by Heather Carson who will have just returned from a pro career in Italy, or led by Marilyn Thorington or Nancy Smith who have played Senior international water polo for Canada.
This Open league also addresses an important part of the shift in athletes with a new structure. The Neptunes have always had a strong Masters aspect to their programming and membership. I would like to encourage older players not training more than once per week to join that club for social practices that are fitness based. Since all these players would be in the same Open league it makes no difference if they join one club or the other and that helps support Neptunes with a core membership group.
next up, Part #3 "Who trains where and when, who competes out of province?"
Last post we left with a vision for a combined approach to High Performance training for 2008-09 in the Manitoba water polo community. Now I will attempt to address how the developmental side of the sport fits into that new model. This will be an evolutionary process, what I propose today may take a sharp turn in a year or two, this is a beginning, not an end.
Step #2; Create a viable provincial winter league for Atom and Bantam teams that are club based. A league, to be viable, should start with a minimum of 4 teams per category. How can we ensue that we have leagues with that many teams when we only have 2 clubs in Manitoba? I have a few ideas and these will require support from both clubs. First, we can mandate that each club must develop age group programs in at least 2 city pools (ie Klassen & Eldon Ross or UofM & Pan Am). That will increase the focus and community awareness and give us centres for 2 teams for each club in each category. We can't do this overnight but we can do it in 1 season if we plan for it now, approach the pools as a unified group with the MWPA, and have the structure ready to accept players from the vibrant Middle Years League run by the MWPA.
These leagues can be 5 vs 5 or 6 vs 6, it does not matter. What is important is that we have games on a regular basis, we market the sport, we provide levels of participation and we have community involvement opportunities. This structure allows for the development of referees, coaches and minor officials. It provides players with a taste for the game that has competition as an integral part, not like the infrequent games available today. Following a Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) Model we know that games at this age should not be focussed on outcome but they should emphasize process. This would allow both local clubs to participate with less emphasis on who is "better" and more on what are we learning, collectively. It also allows new clubs or groups to join in the system with less stress or intimidation.
Ok, that takes care of Winnipeg but what about other regions? Well, I have just spent a good deal of my time while in Calgary at the Alberta Open talking to Coach Cyril from Saskatchewan about water polo on the prairies next season. We would like to have some inter provincial games as 1 day affairs with both centres traveling ie Sask Teams and Winnipeg Teams. Brandon is the perfect meeting place and if we have a few Saturday afternoon games at the Sportsplex in 2008-09 you can bet that it will be possible to start an Atom program there in 2009-10. That is a nice piece of this restructuring that the MWPA could become involved with and guide through the development stages.
Step #3; Create a viable provincial winter league for Cadet and Open teams that are NOT club based. Why not based on a club? Because that would be impossible if the HP athletes are all training 5x week or more with Bushido, how could any other team compete? In order to get 4 teams of Cadet Girls or Cadet Boys we would need to (i) move up some Bantams (ii) recruit from the school leagues (iii) use both Bushido and Neptune programs that cross over the HP vs Developmental boundaries. Can you envision a Cadet league of 4 girls teams of 10 players, each with 4 Bantams, 5 HP players and the balance developmental players from school teams or other sports like swimming or basketball? I certainly can and it will be a great mentoring league for the HP players who train so much each week and want to share their passion and experience with others in a fun, experimental game situation.
If you are wondering how the teams would be created it isn't that tough. I will sit down with Trevor, Head Coach of Neptunes, and talk about what kind of teams we want to create, what tactics we want to focus on, do we want a strong countering team and a strong shooting team or do we want 4 balanced teams? Then we will divide the HP players, assign the strong bantams from our clubs, make sure there are committed coaches and then we will all recruit from the school leagues. The tough thing here will be finding a day and time when these teams can have a weekly practice that does not interfere with HP training. That is the one complex piece of this puzzle as we do not want training to overlap with Development and HP programs.
The Open Leagues will be run the same way but with a major difference, we won't assign coaches and run weekly practices. These teams will focus on a weekly game and be lead by Mentors who play, coach, teach the younger or less experienced members of their squads. If you are having trouble with that idea imagine a team of 16-20 year old women led by Heather Carson who will have just returned from a pro career in Italy, or led by Marilyn Thorington or Nancy Smith who have played Senior international water polo for Canada.
This Open league also addresses an important part of the shift in athletes with a new structure. The Neptunes have always had a strong Masters aspect to their programming and membership. I would like to encourage older players not training more than once per week to join that club for social practices that are fitness based. Since all these players would be in the same Open league it makes no difference if they join one club or the other and that helps support Neptunes with a core membership group.
next up, Part #3 "Who trains where and when, who competes out of province?"
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?"
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?"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)