|
|
|
 |
Coaches Corner
Committee Meeting News 2002
Rob Wagner
I would like to provide you with a brief report of the Coaches Committee meeting that took place in Chicago on July 13th 2002. Several new members were added to the committee including Rob Keller, Jon Magendie and Trey Cunningham. The meeting was attended by committee members, world team coaches and athletes and lifters from all age divisions. The topics we discussed were the coaches certification project, coaching evaluations, standardization of world team selections processes and the nominations of coaches.
Several positive things came out of this meeting and recommendations have been made to the EC. Let me discuss them in order. The coaching certification plan is somewhat dormant. We felt that for this to proceed a budget will need to be presented and approved for the printing of educational materials as well as some compensation for the individual(s) that will work on this task. The development of this material will require a significant amount of time researching the material and then to put it into a written form. We feel that we need to look at the cost effectiveness of this program before we take any further steps.
We also discussed the use of the coaching evaluations a part of the criteria for coaching selection. Last year, the Open Men's, Open Women's and Open and Masters BP teams were given evaluations. The feedback from these evaluations was quantified and submitted back to the coaching staffs (if more then half the team submitted evaluations). The evaluations will be used for all teams in the coming year. The outcomes of the two teams that provided enough returns were generally positive. They did provide some insight into areas that needed improvement.
We also discussed the standardization of the world team selection process. It seems that the open teams tend to fill all their team slots with little problem. However, in the master's, sub-junior and junior levels this is not the case as was presented by Master's chair and coach Johnny Graham and Sub-Juniors coach Tod Miller. Our hope was to create a system similar to that of the open teams using National performances as compared to past world contests. After reviewing this situation we have realized that this is just not efficient for these teams. We will continue to allow these coaches to use their old selection processes. Basically winners will get the automatic berths and alternates will be selected based upon the criteria each team has instituted (see Powerlines #7 & #8). The Coaching Committee will require that coaches of these teams to provide us with the top five alternate positions for our review. We will then forward those names with our recommendations to the EC for approval and then provide the coach with their decision.
Starting in calendar year 2003 we will be asking all individuals interested in coaching a world team to submit a coaching resume to the committee for our approval. Current coaches will still have first choice of coaching their respective teams barring any major flaws or problems with that team. The primary criteria that we came up with in applying for these positions is that all candidates must submit a resume and have a desire to coach. Initially the committee will vote / decide on team coaches. We will use the resume and past staff evaluations as part of the criteria initially. This system would allow us to submit name of coaching staffs or at least head coaches for approval of EC before the start of the new year. We discussed the beginning of the month of December as a possibility of a deadline. This would allow us to have coaches in place before all National meets for the coming year. The only problem was with the Masters Bench
Press since their team is selected from the prior years Nationals. To resolve this, the world team coach named for the 2003 year will actually be the team coach for 2004. As this process develops we will have a better opportunity to create more specific criteria such as past coaching experience, mentor situations.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this article I felt that the outcome of the meeting was positive. The committee has several items to work on and has already proposed several of these ideas to the EC for their approval. Once we receive approval we will list any changes to current practices here in Powerlines, the unofficial forum and on the web site.
Until next issue Stay Strong!
|
|
