Stretch Sports Issue 1

StretchSports.com 1

ABBY DIXONHandsworth Rookie Steps Up

How to shoot SPORTS PHOTOS page 14

The Death of ELEMENTARYSCHOOL SPORTS page 4

MARCH 2011 / ISSUE 1

FREE!

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warmupsTable of Contents

FeatureThe Death of Elementary School Sportspage 4

Athlete ProfilesMaelle Ricker and Lauren Woolstencroftpage 8

Abby Dixonpage 9

Chris Losethpage 10

Team SpotlightHighlands Little League Makes Big Changespage 6

Flicka Gymnastics page 11

ColumnsIra James discusses speed in sportpage 12

Coach Fortunaso helps you connect with your playerspage 13

Photo TipsPaul Yates shows you how to increase the quality of your sports photospage 14

Welcome to the first issue of Stretch Sports Magazine, the only magazine dedicated to bringing maximum coverage to the huge community of sports enthusiasts on the North Shore - from athletes and coaches, to the fans, volunteers, and organizations.

A main theme of the magazine is engagement, an idea explored in more detail as we examine Highlands Little League on page 6. We want to engage our readers to get involved and have provided a number of opportunities for you to do so.

Have an opinion on an article you read? Join us on our forums by visiting StretchSports.com and share your thoughts with other local sports junkies. Think a certain sport or athlete needs coverage? Tell us about it. We want to hear from you! We even leave the choice of columnists up to our readers, with a voting feature that allows you to decide who deserves to be back and who needs a break.

Big thank yous for the first issue go out to all our sports partners: Highlands Little League Baseball, 3D Basketball Academy, Flicka Gymnastics, the Delbrook Basketball Association, and the North Van Central Baseball Association, all organizations who have made a serious effort to engage with the sporting community and promote local athletics.

Our business partners are vital to the continued success of local sport and their ads are featured in these pages. Visit any of their retail locations to pick up additional copies of Stretch Magazine and make sure to let them know that you appreciate their support for local athletics.

Without individuals like Paul Yates, John Jackson, David Kenwright, Carla and Laurie Jeffer, Thomas Staron, Bob Fontaine, Neil Dixon, and Patrick Zahorodniak, this magazine would not be possible, and they deserve our thanks.

I hope you enjoy the first issue of Stretch Sports Magazine and we look forward to being your best source of local sports coverage on the North Shore!

Mac Fairbairn

March 2011

March 2011 www.StretchSports.com

PUBLISHER

CONTRIBUTING

PHOTOGRAPHY

ILLUSTRATIONS

ADDITIONAL DESIGN

Mac [email protected]

Ira James, Jason Beck, Richard Merinsky, Anthony Fortunaso, Paul Yates, Janis Alden

Paul Yates, Neil Dixon, BC Sports Hall of Fame, Flicka Gymnastics, Alec Black

Stefan Toscheff

Patrick Zahorodniak

Sports MagazineSTRETCH

4 StretchSports.com

She stands about 4 feet tall and weighs in at 60 pounds soaking wet. Most of the time on the court during volley-

ball practice and games she stands with the body language of someone who is about to be whipped. And yet, on our fifth game of the season, while on serve, she somehow finds the strength to get the volleyball over the net and scores a point for her team. The entire bench erupts with cheers and high fives as she comes off the floor at the next rotation. She smiles and her life is changed. She has contributed. She is part of the team. It is for these moments that I coach elementary school sports. There will be no team sports for this girl at high school. She won’t ever even have the opportunity of winning “The Most Inspirational” or “Best Teammate” awards at the year-end Athletic Banquet. She will most definitely be on the sidelines, as maybe one, or at the most, two girls from her elementary school will make the high school team. This will most likely be her only school team sport experience.

So when the next school sport sea-son starts (track and field), and the kids come to me and ask if I will be coaching, despite the fact that I’ve told myself over and over, ‘I need to take a break’ and hope that someone else steps up, I’ll be there during lunch and after school to coach them. With the national obesity rate weighing in at an alarming 25%, I think it prudent that we encourage our children to participate in healthy living practices. It’s hard to eat when you’re running up and down the court. It is a lot easier in front of a computer.

So why then, if there are others like me, and there most definitely are, are elementary sports, especially basketball, in jeopardy at this juncture? As District Basketball Coordinator for the North Vancouver Elementary Athletic Asso-ciation (NVEAA), I have just met with a group of like-minded individuals, who feel as I do that sports in the elementary schools are integral to a healthy school climate. It is the second meeting in recent years, called in an attempt to save the bas-ketball program. Every year it becomes more and more difficult to find coaches and, more specifically, referees to officiate our games. Several schools in our district were unable to field teams this season.

Partially, I blame the club teams who solicit ever younger and younger players into their elite programs. Don’t get me wrong. I support these programs and am convinced that they are good for the sport. They are just not so good for the elementary programs for several reasons. Firstly, players that play club teams or attend camps on breaks find it very frus-trating when they are on the floor with first time players, the kind we encourage in our school programs. They are com-petitive and want to win. Therefore, the weaker players rarely ever get a chance to touch the ball, and rarely, if ever, score. They end their season feeling worthless and will probably never want to play again. Secondly, basketball is a compli-

cated game to referee (which is why there are three of them refereeing high level games). Most teachers who are coaching have never played basketball and are not comfortable taking on the responsibil-ity of refereeing, especially in front of the parents of the more elite athletes and while attempting to coach at the same time. The parents of these elite athletes, too, are extremely competitive and often take it upon themselves to flaunt their superior knowledge of the game over the teacher coach, or in many cases, our high school student referees (whom we have to practically beg to referee for us). Abuse is common, despite the fact that each player and each parent must sign a Fair Play Code agreement, which is very

Why teachers aren’t coaching and teams are drying upThe Death of Elementary School Sports

By Janis Alden

specialfeature

Graphic by Stefan Toscheff

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specialfeatureclear about non-acceptable behaviour. This season after a league game, a parent of a grade 6 girl 411ed the high school ref-eree and called him on the phone to yell at him for awarding her daughter three fouls during the game. Again, this is Grade 6 basketball. Who needs it? Despite what some people think, elementary teachers are not paid or given any time in lieu of for coaching - or for any activity that takes place before school, during lunch time or after 3 pm for that matter.

Finally, I think that we are dealing with a new breed of teacher these days. The old school guard which alarmingly make up about three quarters of the representatives of the NVEAA are close to retirement. For various reasons, very, very few of the younger teachers are stepping up to take these volunteer positions. Case in point: In North Vancouver we have operated without a volleyball District Coordina-tor for almost ten years. The person who stepped up this year to take the position is an experienced grade 7 teacher, the acting vice-principal and the coach of ALL the volleyball teams at her school. This is not uncommon at many schools and despite great intentions, these people eventually

burn out. As well, in recent years, Univer-sity Professional Development Programs actually discourage student teachers from participating in volunteer activities as per their union contracts. Unfortunately this attitude carries over when they actually secure teaching positions in schools.

The solution to these problems is elu-sive. Students should not be discouraged from joining club teams, or their parents in supporting them. Teachers cannot be forced to coach or take their own time and money to participate in referee clinics to help them become more confident in the role of referees. Unions will not be chang-ing their policies in the near future and those ever fewer teachers who value the importance of school sports will continue to volunteer, because they believe whole-heartedly in what they are doing for kids. As a result, they will continue to burn out until there are none of them left.

Janis Alden has been a teacher at Upper Lynn Elementary for over twenty years. A former mem-ber of the UBC track team, she has been a long time coach and volunteer for elementary school athletics.

Have an opinion?

What do you think the problem is with our elementary school

sports programs? Do you think they have a future or are we already witnessing their slow decline?

Join the discussion at:www.StretchSports.

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6 StretchSports.com

Engagement is the new theme of High-lands Little League and the move has resulted in dynamic changes to

how the league is run. Not only has an entirely new coaching curriculum been implemented but Highlands has partnered with the Canadian Baseball Academy, a local organization run by former LA Dodg-ers draft pick Clint Hosford.

“We had a lot of parents who were for their kids - as in most sports,” says Matt Young, who along with Ed Ballard is in charge of coach and player engagement. “They seemed to be more [based on] self-interest than a development interest for the team or the future of players. So we got to-

gether at the end of the year and said, ‘Look. We’ve got to do a better job of keeping people interested in baseball, interested in sports. Let’s start with creating a vision that people can rally around: Engagement. At the end of the day that’s the num-ber one mission. We want to engage as many people with this great sport as we possibly can.”

A main focus of the group was engaging coaches and developing a program that would allow players to develop proper habits over the years, re-gardless of who their coach was.

The group decided that a league-wide curriculum was needed, from T-ball on to the higher levels. This way, players would develop consistently,

and not have skill requirements change as their coaches did.

“What we’re trying to do is say: ‘Let’s es-tablish a clear set of coaching parameters

that Highlands is going to use. And this is going to be used from T-Ball right through to Bigs, so there’s a level of consistency every year. We’re teaching the same fundamentals, the same way, the same drills. Everyone can have part in defining what that is - we’re not trying to force it down your throat - but after it’s defined, we will hold you accountable to make sure that’s being utilized.”

Canada Baseball Academy owner Clint Hosford was hired to develop the curriculum, one

that spans all twelve weeks of the base-ball season and each practice as well. This gives coaches the tools and knowledge of

IGHLANDS LITTLE LEAGUE

StretchSports.com 7

sportspotlight

a former pro player. It also al-lows any coach, regardless of experience or knowledge of the game, to implement proper fundamentals that are consis-tent with the league vision.

This shift has put Highlands in a much better position in terms of volunteer coaching. “We’re finally in the position where we have a lot of coach-es,” says Young. “If you don’t want to get on the program, we don’t want you to coach. What we’re trying to do is not in our self-interest. It’s for the interest of kids being engaged in the sport and in this case the sport’s baseball. It’s pretty transparent and it’s tough to argue with something that’s

designed to be a benefit.”Young believes that with the coaching situation more consistent, it

is easier to keep players engaged in baseball. “You’re not going to get good player engagement if you don’t have good coach engagement,” he says. With these two areas taken care of, Highlands can focus on other aspects of their “engagement” theme, such as developing com-munity interest in the league and spreading the word about Highlands Baseball. One goal the League has is to build a concession, something that has been sorely missing from Delbrook Park for some time.

Although these developments will be of benefit, it is clear that Highlands can improve several areas of the league with their focus on coaching. As Young says, “If we don’t take a look at what we’re do-ing to coach our coaches, then inevitably crappy coaching is going to trickle down into a watered down learning [process].”

Highlands Baseball has produced several well-known Canadian baseball players, such as JuCo World Series MVP Ivan Hartle and Milwuakee Brewers draft pick Rowan Wick.

IGHLANDS LITTLE LEAGUE

North Vancouver FC

We are the largest boys soccer club in BC. As we celebrate our inaugural year, we extend our congratulations to stretch sports magazine on your inaugural issue, and welcome you to the North Shore sports community!

www.nvfc.ca

Soccer registration is now open!

Photos courtesy of Alec Black

8 StretchSports.com

With Vancouver still basking in the glow of the largest sporting event ever held in BC, it was no

surprise that when the BC Sports Hall of Fame announced its 2011 class of inductees in January, two local athletes from the North Shore who performed so well at the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games were included.

Growing up in West Vancouver and now liv-ing in Squamish, Maëlle Ricker took on the world’s best in her own backyard at the 2010 Olympics and emerged a champion, golden for the ages. Two days after Alex Bilodeau captured Can-ada’s first-ever Olympic gold on home snow, Ricker matched the feat in the women’s snowboard cross becoming the first Canadian woman to win gold at home. Overcoming a disastrous first run in which

she fell only to storm back in the quarters and semis and lead wire-to-wire in the final held at foggy Cypress Mountain, Ricker’s victory served as the climax of a decade’s worth of trial and toil. A fourteen-year vet-eran of the Canadian National Snowboard team, Ricker represented Canada at the 1998 and 2006 Olympic Winter Games. She nearly graced the podium in Torino,

finishing fourth, but required an airlift off the mountain with a concus-

sion. It wasn’t her only injury. Remarkably, Ricker over-

came a Bobby Orr-like eight separate knee surgeries with a training regimen rivaling that of

any high-perfor-mance athlete in

the country. And if winning Olympic

gold at home wasn’t enough, a month later Ricker locked up the World Cup Overall title as the top-per on her dream 2010 season. The world’s top-ranked women’s snowboard-

er, in 106 career starts she collected fourteen victories and thirty-two podium finishes.

Lauren Woolstencroft was Canada’s most decorated Paralympic alpine skier even before the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games. Then she merely owned the po-dium on her way to becoming the ‘Golden Girl’ of the 2010 Games, capturing gold medals in all five disciplines in which she competed. And Woolstencroft didn’t just win; she dominated, winning the Super Combined, Downhill, Super G, Slalom,

and Giant Slalom by a combined thirty-five

seconds. Her feat marked the first

time in his-tory a Winter Paralympian had won five gold med-als at a single P a r a l y m p i c

Games. Wool-stencroft had

earlier represent-ed Canada at the

2002 and 2006 Para-lympics winning another three

gold medals, as well as one silver and one bronze. A member of the Canadian Para-Alpine Ski Team since 1998, during her career Woolstencroft won over fifty World Cup medals, eight World Championship ti-tles, and was named the 2006 International Paralympic Committee Athlete of the Year. Born in Calgary, Woolstencroft moved to BC to attend the University of Victoria in 1999 and now resides year-round in North Vancouver, where she is employed as an electrical engineer with BC Hydro. The twenty-nine-year old, who announced her retirement from competitive skiing in June 2010, recently was nominated for a 2011 Laureus World Sport Award for World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability. The only Canadian nominated, she eventu-ally lost out to Verena Bentele.

Ricker and Woolstencroft will be in-ducted with the rest of the BC Sports Hall of Fame’s 2011 induction class at the 43rd an-nual Banquet of Champions, September 13, 2011 at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

Jason Beck is the curator of the BC Sports Hall

of Fame. Visit www.bcsportshalloffame.com for more info on the 2011 Banquet of Champions.

BC Sports Hall of Fame to Induct Two North Shore Athletes in 2011

By Jason Beck

athleteprofile

StretchSports.com 9

“Handsworth has a bit of a tradi-tion creating good point guards,”

says Ramin Sadaghiani, Elite Girls Coach at 3D Basketball Academy. “For the last ten years there’s been a really good point guard there. Going back to Christine Kirk, and then Michelle Lee, and then Kristen Hughes, and Diana Lee recently.”

The names of these successful university players might be a little intimidating for a younger player. Diana Lee, the most recent graduate, achieved back-to-back provincial championships and an NCAA scholarship to Boise State. Depsite having small feet, Diana managed to leave a big pair of shoes to fill at the point gaurd position.

Enter Abby Dixon: Not only is she the heir to a point guard legacy, but she’s the taken the role as a grade ten, something that makes the leadership position of point guard - widely considered the hardest in basketball - that much more difficult. To top it off, Dixon is relatively new to the game; so new, that she could lose a couple fingers and still be able to count the years she’s played on one hand.

“I started in grade 7 at Montroyal and had been to a couple camps but I wasn’t really into it,” says Dixon. “Then I just started 3D and tried out for a team. I didn’t make it onto the ‘A’ team the first time, but some people didn’t want to play, [so I got invited].”

Her experience with the 3D team, which included a trip to Anaheim, got her a little bit more “into it”. A Metro soccer player, she dropped down to gold so she could commit to basketball as her main sport. Entering Handsworth meant playing at the same school as star Diana Lee. For a young, fairly inexperienced player, it would be akin to finding out Warren Buffet works in

the same building as you; intimidating, but for those that seize the opportunity, a great learning experience.

“Knowing that I come after Diana Lee and I have to kind of live up to something that she’s done... They’ve won provincials two times in a row so it’s tough trying to live up to what they’ve accomplished,” says Dixon. “[But] it showed me what it is to get there and why it’s important to do the things that they do to get to that level.”

Sadaghiani, who coached Dixon in the summer before her grade 9 year, says her improvement has been tremendous, maybe because she’s naturally suited to her position. “She obviously works hard and everything,” he says, “But the one thing that I notice about Abby is that she’s always calm on the court. She has a calm demeanor about her. That’s an important skill that point guard needs to have. She doesn’t get rattled.”

After the Argyle senior boy’s team won the provincial championship in 2004, head coach Glen Chu said of his point guard Sean Burke: “He’s only in grade 11. Imagine how good he will be next year!” The same applies to Dixon, but even more so, as she gets a full year of experience before her

“real” senior year begins. Needless to say, this bodes well for Handsworth basketball. “Our whole team is young,” says Dixon. “I think next year will be a good year and the year after that as well.” When asked about the chances she can lead Handsworth to another back-to-back championship run, she laughs for a moment, before returning to the unflappable point guard nature that Sadaghiani praised: “Maybe.”

Abby Dixon is:“Next in Line”athleteprofile

By the Stretch Sports Team Photos by Neil Dixon / www.DixieClicks.com

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From the very beginning there were always horses.

When Chris Loseth was a sandy-haired toddler, barely two years old, his parents propped him up on a chunky horse named Blaze and snapped a photo. It marked the first time one of Canadian rac-ing’s greatest jockeys ever sat astride a horse.

A few years later, after ten-year-old Los-eth grew adept at catching packhorses roaming free on open ranges near his Fort Nelson home, he flipped across a Winni-peg Free Press article describing Johnny Longden’s 6,000th win at Vancouver’s Exhibition Park. The piece made such an impression that Loseth’s mind was made up to become a jockey like Longden.

Finishing high school in Grand Forks in 1972, he came to Exhibition Park and worked under trainer Alan May, starting as a hot-walker for $60 a week and living in a racetrack tack room. Loseth began racing as an apprentice jockey in 1974, riding four winners that autumn, his first winning ride a horse named Stormy Don.

From there, Loseth grabbed the reins of success and let it ride. In 1976, he won his first Sovereign Award as Canada’s out-standing apprentice rider. His second Sovereign, as Canada’s outstanding jockey, arrived in 1984, making him the first rider to win as both apprentice and jockey.

Over his career, he finished as leading jockey an unprecedented eight times at Hastings, where he remains the all-time leading rider. In over 26,000 races, he was first to the wire 3,668 times, adding over 6,500 seconds and thirds. His mounts earned more than $32 million, including three of the top money-earning BC thor-

oughbreds of all-time: Delta Colleen, Travelling Victor and Police Inspector. His 1984 win aboard Travelling Victor in Seattle’s $150,000 Longacres Mile remains his proudest accomplishment.

Loseth was good, but he’s the first to admit he was also lucky. In over 30 years and 26,000+ races flying five feet in the air amidst packs of 40mph thundering half-ton beasts, the 5’2” 116-lb Loseth, wearing only a Caliente helmet for protection, never once broke a single bone in his body.

Jockeys break bones routinely; the leg-endary Longden broke his legs five times. Loseth chalks it up to the most pliable bones in any human he’s ever come across. Surviving countless falls, during one race the full weight of a horse’s hoof slammed down on his thigh. The sheer force cut the muscles to the bone, which by all rights should have shattered. It bent into a U-shape, but didn’t break. Doctors hadn’t seen anything like it.

Then there was April 19, 1984 at Exhibi-tion, an evening where he was both lucky

and good. On the ten-event card, Loseth rode eight winners, putting his name in the Guinness Book of World Records for most wins on a single racing card.

Accolades arrived as Loseth came down his career’s home stretch. In 1992, he was inducted into the BC Horse Racing Hall of Fame, and, in 2007, the Canadian Horse Rac-ing Hall of Fame. In 2001, he received the prestigious Avelino Gomez Memorial Award.

Loseth retired in 2005, his career cele-brated May 22, 2006 with Chris Loseth Day at Hastings Park. Making his home on the North Shore today, he remains involved as an owner and trainer of horses. In 2009, he was inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame.

From ranges to races, the paddock to the penthouse, there have always been horses for Chris Loseth. That will always remain.

Jason Beck is the curator of the BC Sports Hall

of Fame. Please visit www.bcsportshalloffame.com for more info on North Shore sports and athletes.

[email protected]

lisbeth jewelry

athleteprofileJockey Chris Loseth

By Jason Beck

3668 career wins

Holds the North American record for most wins in one day after win-ning eight races on a single race card at Hastings Racecourse.

Inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2007

StretchSports.com 11

sportspotlight

Over 50 years Flicka Gymnastics Club has been a constant pres-ence in the Central-Lonsdale area,

providing high quality coaching to both competitive and recreational gymnasts.

Having amalgamated various gymnastic clubs over the course of its tenure, the ath-letic club, now located in the Harry Jerome rec-center, has evolved into an organization that is focused on giving back to the com-munity that has been so kind to it. With nearly 1000 members ranging from young children learning to jump and tumble to athletes looking to represent Canada on the international stage, the organization has two main goals: To provide gymnastics for everybody, and to keep youth involved in sport.

From its humble beginnings in Mickey McDougall gym, Flicka has always been community–oriented in their goals. A not-for-profit organization that sprung from the passion of John and Louise Heming-way, the gym’s goal has always been to support anyone interested in gymnastics

and help them on their way to achieving their goals, be they fitness or competing on the international stage.

“Whether you’re a special needs athlete or someone that wants to represent Cana-da on the national stage we’ve got a home for you. Tall, small, broad - you name it we accommodate it. That’s our primary man-date,” says gym manager David Kenwright. “We believe in youth in sport, we believe in gymnastics for everybody, and we believe in sport for life. That’s fundamentally who we are.”

Flicka certainly has the credentials and coaching staff to al-low their athletes to reach elite levels.

The club boasts two women in the top ten ranked gymnasts in Canada, one of whom, Charlotte Mackie, is ranked third all around in Canada and has competed in two world championships. Taylor Ricci, also in the top ten, placed first all around in the Rushmore Rose Bowl International Com-petition in England this fall, an impressive feat for the fifteen year old.

The sport of gymnastics has been steadi-ly growing in popularity on the North Shore due in no small part to it’s value to any athlete wishing to become stronger, faster and more flexible. With cross-train-ing becoming a popular way of improving athletic ability, Flicka’s appeal is spreading, and Kenwright sees this as positive growth for the organization.

“In gymnastics you spring off your hands and you spring off your feet – that’s what makes it unique. But all sports involve springing somehow, if you’re a runner, diver, basketball player or a track and field competitor, you’re going to spring at some point.”

Flicka shares their space with other groups, specifically stunt groups from film production companies and adult-oriented gymnastic classes, and Kenwright believes a renovation could be just the shot in the arm gymnastics on the North Shore needs.

“We want to continue to be a very strong gymnastic powerhouse while still main-taining our commitment to community and grassroots. We’re always pushing the envelope for an extra flip, an extra twist, an extra combination which makes [gym-nastics] new and exciting but it never stops being challenging.”

Learn more about Flicka Gymnastics by visiting www.flickagymclub.com.

Written by Rich MerinskyPhotos courtesy Flicka Gymnastics


If you had to pick the one physical component that

was most essential to your athletic success, what would it be? Agility, endurance, and strength are all important but there is one that attribute that

stands out above the rest: Speed.This issue we’ll be looking at the benefits of

implementing a speed specific training regime to an athlete’s current program, addressing how this might be achieved and why it is important.

An athlete who possesses speed in their given sport possesses a major advantage. A basketball player can blow by opponents, a volleyball or tennis player will be able to posi-tion themselves for an unbelievable return, and a soccer player can leave his defenders cement-footed as space opens up before them.

There are many schools of thought on how to develop speed in team sports but I adhere to the “short to long” theory, a paradigm that is used by many of the world’s best sprinters and coaches today. This method has also been adopted by trainers and integrated into pro-grams of some of the league leading teams in the professional sports world.

The idea of “short to long” is to start the training cycle or off- season by developing strength and power as a foundation and then gradually adding volume while adjusting in-tensities to keep a steady output and not drain the athlete’s energy system’s or leave the ath-lete burnt out for their specific sport.

Take a look at the sample workout provided in the blue boxes. In the first phase of speed development, we focus on creating strength and power, which will allow the athlete to transition properly when distances are length-ened. This has the added benefit of allowing the athlete’s body to last through the stresses of practice and training.

In the second phase of training, notice how we transfer workout intensity to the gym, while vol-ume is transfered to the track. We also remove a general strength circuit but keep a medicine ball

work out to preserve core strength.In the third phase we have removed lifting

entirely. Our goal during the weight lifting stages was to provide enough strength for the athlete to handle the stresses of their sport during competition.During the season ath-letes are exposed to very high intensity games and rigorous practice; therefore, speed train-ing should be very low volume and done only in order to maintain the speed qualities gained in the off-season.

You can work a speed-training regime into

an athlete’s normal training program, how-ever, one must be careful in implementing a program and take into consideration many factors. Variables that must be taken into ac-count include the athlete’s sporting history, level of competition, age, physical develop-ment and of course which sport they play. All these variables will play an important role when developing a speed specific training program that will be both safe and efficient in achieving the desired benefit to competition performance.

A UBC graduate, Ira James is a Canadian Nation-al Team member and multiple Provincial Champion, competing in track and field in the sprints events. You can contact Ira at [email protected].

6 Week Pre-Competition Phase

1 - Running: 3x / week• sprint work: 2-3 sets of 2-3 reps over

distances of 50-100m2 - Gym: 2x / week• plyometrics (high volume, low

intensity)• olympic lifting (low volume)3 - Core: 3x / week• medicine ball abdominal work

Speed In Sport By Ira James

6 Week Competition / Maintenance

1 - Running: 1x / week• sprint work: 1-2 sets of 1-2 reps over

distances of 60-150m2 - Gym: 2x / week• plyometrics (low volume, high

intensity)3 - Core: 3x / week• medicine ball abdominal work

elitecolumn

12 Week Preparation Phase

1 - Running: 3x / week• accelerartion development• short hill sprints

2 - Gym: 2x / week• plyometrics (high volume, low

intensity)• strength work, focus on balance, core

and technique: 5 exercises, 3-5 sets each with 10-12 reps

3 - Core: 3x / week• medicine ball abdominal work• general strength circuit


coachescolumnAthlete Interaction THE

PENALTY BOX

What’d you think of Anthony and Ira’s columns? Did you like them or do you think they deserve a time out?

Go online to www.Stretch-Sports.com to vote on their

articles; if they survive, they’ll be back next issue, but if they don’t they’ll be given a one month penalty

from writing.

Vote GOAL or RED CARD online at www.StretchSports.com

Where you get to blow the whistle on our Elite and

Coach Columnists.

GOAL RED CARD

I started my foray into the coach-ing world in 2005

- fresh out of high school and with no experience save a few methods that had rubbed off on

me from my old coaches. Every practice was a learning experience but eventually a few things clicked. They’re little things but it’s hard to understand how I never “got” such simple concepts, ones that now form the basis of how I coach.

The most important factor that I began to realize a few years ago is that players have to WANT to play for you. Take the recent firing of NBA coach Jerry Sloan, for instance. He is one of the greatest coaches in basketball but he could never get his team over the hump because of his refusal to adapt to younger generations. This eventually cost him his job.

Now I know we are not dealing with multi-millionaire athletes who believe they are owed something, but the same princi-ples still apply. Your players have to want to play for you and they have to not only look up at you but also respect you. I see lots of coaches who have all the technical knowl-edge in the world but their teams rarely perform as they should. Why was this I started to wonder? To me it came down to how the players responded to the coach.

I always make an effort when I come into a practice or a game to ask as many players as possible how their days are going. I try to take an interest in other activities they have going on from piano to life-guarding. I even go out of my way to go see these players compete in other school sports. I feel that if they know I support them in what they do, then in turn, they will support me in what we are trying to accomplish.

In the same vein, a lot of coaches try to make it about themselves. Athletes don’t respond to that kind of coach. They want to know that you are there for them, and you have their best interests at heart. That may mean you don’t play your star player when she’s hurt, even though she wants to play. It may also mean staying 20-30min after practice putting in extra work with a player, even though you have something else you need to do. Tell ter-rible jokes as well (Bieber), especially with

younger athletes. They love to laugh with you as much as they love to laugh at you. Trying to keep up on popular culture helps and if you haven’t tried listening to Justin Bieber I definitely suggest you give it a try - not for the musical value, but for how well your athletes will respond to you when you make fun of him. Players will laugh with you more often than you think, and that means you’re doing a great job.

Replacing words such as “I” with “we” will go a long way with helping you iden-tify with your team of athletes. Rules are another thing that sometimes get in the way of managing team. While rules are good, I also find that they cause people to stop making decisions. I want my players to make good decisions and learn, so I set out some guidelines of what we (not I) are trying to accomplish. If you can some-how combine a little bit of these factors into the way that you coach your team, I think you will find that the players will start to respond to you in a much more positive manner. As always, have fun and love what you’re doing. Checking out the new Justin Bieber single wouldn’t hurt ei-ther - the kids love it.

Anthony won a 2004 provincial basketball championship with the Argyle Pipers. He is cur-rently the assistant coach for the Argyle Senior girls basketball team.

By Anthony Fortunaso


Get low to boost your photo qualityBy Paul Yates

Visit www.VancouverSportsPictures.com

Get low to shoot! Bring a portable folding chair (three legs, simple seat, easy to pack and open) to field games like soccer, rugby, and field hockey and get low. Sport pictures almost always look better from the surface up. It makes athletes bigger and shows true action better. You can tell immediately when looking at a sports image if the photographer is standing up on the sidelines. It also shows they are lazy shooters. This rule works for almost every sport except hockey or box lacrosse. In basketball, sit on the floor with your back to a wall if the gym is small, or three feet off the baseline if there is enough room. Get low; the angles shooting up - - - from down low - - - will get you killer shots.

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Stretch Sports Issue 1

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