Conflict of Interest?

While we are on the topic of the amazingly popular Kids Festival I will vent a bit about a conflict. As a full service, age-group club, we have a mandate to provide community access programs each year. I impose that mandate on the club as I see it being part of what we were established to do. That includes summer camps, Novice programs, school clinics and events like the Kids Festival. Most do not result in direct, immediate, registration jumps but do lead to positive community standing. This has indirect registration benefits that are seen over time.


That indirect, build upon a foundation, sort of growth is important for a club that is 100% self funded. We are the only high performance club in Canada, with the possible exception of Saanich Water Polo School, that is self funded. All other competitive clubs receive some sort of funding from government, direct or via Bingo or Casino funds. Not us. Keep that in mind while I outline the conflict that we are presented with.

There is a recreational fall school league in Manitoba that offers co-ed games from September to December, 1x week. It is subsidized by the provincial association, gets direct funding. That funding support does not happen to the club that sends teams to National Championships each year, hosts interprovincial events, developes multiple national team athletes etc. This year we have a problem, the MWPA has decided to try and offer a heavily subsidized winter drop-in league for kids from the school teams that want to play in the new year. That is the same athlete group that clubs recruit from, it is the reason we (Bushido) had volunteers initiate the middle years league to begin with. To build the sport.

2007 Kids Festival

We create things like the Kids Festival, introduce somewhere around 50 kids to the club aspect of the game in 1 day, then compete with a governing body to have them join our program. I will have to be prepared to explain the difference between a self funded club program and a provincial program that covers costs from public funds. Ouch. That doesn't seem fair, how can we compete with that? I will do it but there are going to be plenty of kids who don't play club polo this winter, opt for a free program, get turned off and then quit or lose a year of developmemt at a crucial age.

Is there a solution to the conflict? Sure, ask clubs to generate specific membership numbers in specific target groups, provide support and watch it happen. I will have more kids at this Saturdays Kids Festival than the MWPA will have at its first rec league 14& under session. So, why not use our numbers, athlete names and program profile to please Sport Manitoba and Water Polo Canada? Simple, if they use our numbers, support our club, then they feel a need to do the same for the other club in the province. They don't have the same organization or vision so it all grinds to a standstill. The lowest program level is the standard, not the highest level. Sad. I keep offering alternatives, they keep getting ignored.

But, I will have a very positive blog after the weekend, new pictures of the festival and then an announcement later in the week about a very major partnership that will help our age group program in years to come. It's a big announcement that will shape our Atom and Bantam programs next year.

PS I hope Malachi notices I have posted his picture twice in a row.

Kids Festival

2007 Kids Festival

It has now become tradition that we offer a free introduction each fall through a "Kids Festival" that allows players to run, swim, jump, climb, shoot, laugh and play in the shallow end. We fill the shallow end with older players who know how to laugh and guide kids, then let the games begin. It's a blast.

Last year was our first attempt at an Open House of this nature ie big promo. It had plenty of interest but with a very low registration following. We've done a few things to address that in the second go 'round so it won't be an issue in 2008. Some of the people who registered kids in the Festival were sad that the ongoing program did not have the same volume of kids and energy level that goes with that volume.

I'm sorry if the Kids Festival is too light weight a topic for most blog readers but I had a few days of critical posts about the CSL and I wanted to move away from that. Don't worry, it will come up again.

Brandon Weekend

Bantam Girls action - Brandon

This past weekend we had a great chance to see our Atom and Bantam teams play against opponents that we know quite well. It was a good thing too, no question about how the training-to-performance ratio is demonstrable through game play. Our Bantam teams have some skill, broad range of it, but not until Sunday did it start to gel. If we played every month in a league it would be amazing to see the progress. I am working toward that with the Saskatchewan Provincial Coach so it may happen sooner rather than later.

We could also see the difference between the Bantam boys team with half the players who have practiced very little so far this season and the Saskatchewan teams who practice much more and for a longer time this fall.  The Bantam girls are trying to figure out who is who and what their team members can do. With a few new players, one only in her first week of club water polo, it was hard for them to know what to expect. Now everybody has a starting point.

The Atom team is like a few previous generations, lead by players who have played for a few years and have a high skill level - swimming fast and shooting hard. I was experimenting with mentoring novice players, rotating them through while looking for leadership from the experienced ones. This worked very well. By the final Atom game I was able to play all 3 new Atoms at the same time with just 1 mentor in the water. This meant they had to initiate things on their own and figure out who to cover, when, how etc. It was a good sign that in these situations we played pretty much equal to the second place team. I look forward to seeing these kids in a 7 vs 7 event so all the players can feed off each other.

Transformation

We had a team meeting with our boys team this week, Cadet and Youth. It was intended to highlight how their training had been reflected in their performance in Regina last weekend, some good, some bad. We narrowed in on focus, discipline and respect - all obvious issues with some of our group. There was not a single guy who did not understand what we were talking about and why, it remains to be seen if they care enough to change things though.

There is a pretty high skill level with these boys and plenty of experience. What is missing is a focus at practice that allows transfer of knowledge from week to week and experience from event to event. I am trying to get them to understand that in some ways this is like learning math, each lesson leads to the next, overlook one and it will show up in mistakes later.

Carson 2005

One thing we left the meeting with was a reassurance that there was nothing the team could not achieve if they set their minds to it as a group. We highlighted how individually we manage some success but it is the team that doesn't reach it's level. The pictures above and below were used to remind them of how Carson and his hard work and extra effort have allowed for a much greater improvement the past few years than most boys. This is not just maturation, it is effort and goal setting on a personal level.

Carson 2008

Technique and skill are never the issue with our club. Carson had great coaching from a Serbian goalie coach, Darko, in that earlier picture. It was that introduction to how hard he could work that let him set high enough goals. We are hoping that this image helps the boys gather a team picture of where they want to be in April and how they are going to make practice changes to do it. We'll see.

Brandon's First Water Polo Event

This weekend I get to coach our Atom team in a competition for the first time in about 3 years. It is amazing how much I look forward to that. I have not given much time to the Atom and Bantam ages the past few years, too many demands modeling high performance and increasing practice frequency at the other end of the spectrum.

Bantam Boys Team Captain, playing Cadet in Regina

I hear there are some really good Atom teams in rural Saskatchewan, that Weyburn and Estevan are good and Regina is close. With our solid group at that age we should see some really interesting games where players improve from game to game and feed off each others enthusiasm.

Bantam Girls Captain, playing Open Women in Regina

We are fortunate this week that each Bantam team going to Brandon will have a player that played on an older team this past weekend in Regina. Eric was on the Cadet Boys team that won silver and Jaelyn was on the Open women's silver medal team. In fact, Jae even scored in the gold medal game. I am excited to see their leadership with their own age and the confidence they bring to this level will really help influence the rest of the group.

We had 3 new registrations in the Atom/Bantam age groups last week and 2 of those players are joining us on the Brandon trip. I am very interested to see how these 2 sisters, 1 Atom and 1 Bantam, pick up skills and tactics in the weeks following their games. We seldom have players play an event in their second week of training so it might influence the sharpness of their focus.

Speaking with the Saskatchewan Provincial Coach last weekend he is as excited about this event as I am. We want to expand on it next season and have multiple events in Brandon that are single age groups and single day. That would allow a Saturday morning drive, 2 or 3 afternoon games of 30-40 minutes, a team dinner and then a drive home. A great package for our two provinces with such small populations that same-city events are tough to make interesting.

I am really excited that Cyril, the Saskatchewan coach, agrees with me about the value of these short, 5 vs 5, age group games. He has even created a provincial league on this format, the one we pioneered with the Bushido Invitational 10 years ago. For those that are not familiar with this set up it is a mini version of the regular game. We play with 4 field players so there are more touches on the ball for each player. This reduces the team tactics ie umbrella set up and complex defense. Instead of that it is possible to focus on 1-on-1 defense and passing/shooting.

The games are short since part of the learning involves team meetings to set objectives, application of specific things with a narrow focus, meetings to review objectives and execution and then a chance to do it over again. This takes the emphasis off winning a long game that tires the players and repeats errors that could be corrected with a team refocus that is not possible in a 2 minute quarter break.

NCAA

I tagged this blog and named it NCAA because that is what I am thinking about today. This is the time of year when players are contacted by US schools for 2009 scholarships and it takes our focus to that part of the world for awhile. 

Of course we know that Breda, captain of the Jr National Team, will get offers from schools but there are others who are being looked at too. Like the guy in my last blog picture, Brendan Domoney. He plays in California in the summer, smart guy, so has some people there paying very close attention to him. He has a scrappy quality that most US boys with speed swimming backgrounds do not match until later in a collegiate career. He is possibly the most overlooked male player in Canada right now (but since we know nothing about NT depth charts we can't be sure). 

Old Pic from the late '90's

Girl in front NCAA bound, behind 2007-08 pro from Italy

I coached for a long time without supporting NCAA play for Canadians; didn't fight it but didn't support it either. It wasn't until I had female players being overlooked for national teams while they were offered pro contracts in Italy, or having girls told to move to Montreal to get support, that I decided it was wrong to not help them improve down south. There are no english speaking female players who have moved to Montreal to the Training Centre and have graduated from a Canadian University there. That is sad since it should be possible to combine post secondary education and training. In fact, 2 players from the Hawaii NCAA program combined studies and training that still allowed them to win Olympic gold medals this past summer after a brief return home to prepare with their national team.

Coaches in Canada have been talking for some time about using National Team cards (financial support) to help Ontario university programs attract players and keep them in Canada while boosting the level and status of the OUA league. The only thing stopping that is .... well, nothing should stop that. It just is not supported by NT coaches right now.

Hopefully I will be around long enough to help make the changes to our domestic program that I have been after for a decade or so. In fact, this past weekend the youngest member of our club told me I could not retire for 10 more years. He wanted to be sure I was coaching until he was 18. I would say that is one of the warmest compliments I have had in a very long time. But, I don't quite have 10 years of high end coaching left in me.

Finally, a new blog entry

It's been quite some time since I last sat down to update this blog, sorry. I have been busy but also preoccupied with negative BS in the water polo world that I didn't want to write about.

This past weekend we had some friendly inter-club games with the Saskatchewan Provincial Team at Pan Am Pool. That gave us a really good early season snapshot of what the players know and how strong and fit they are. The absence of game knowledge was surprising for the girls and that is not explained by the fact that their national team members were away at other events. The boys, that was a different story, they picked up ahead of where the finished last year.

After 2 weeks of formal training this fall we have a decent fitness level and good passing mechanics and strength. What was poor was pass selection and leg strength with the ball. We'll deal with that in weeks ahead as we do drills that include partner work. The best thing to come out of the weekend was the interplay between Heather and the boys.

Some people thought I had lost my mind when I named Heather, a 20 year old woman, to coach an 18& under boys team. Hopefully this weekend helped people see what I am after as she was very calm, direct and specific about what she wanted and expected. The boys were better each game and seemed to follow what they were asked to. There is more excitement to come as Heather starts to share some experience from her pro career in Italy with these guys.

Now that Breda has finished her NCAA visits to the tropics and Shae is home from CSL we can turn our attention to serious training and getting ready for the Sask Open. That will be a good time to look at teams in relation to real games vs training.