The Heat Is On
Wow – it has been hot! We have been melting the training facility in Montenegro. Yesterday it was 107 degrees when humidity was factored in. I had to soak myself in the water every 15 minutes or so just to be able to coach from the pool deck. We had two good trainings yesterday. The heat has definitely been a factor with the team. You can’t help but feel somewhat drained. I know that all of us coaches feel it and we have been mostly just standing around so I can’t imagine how the players are feeling. Regardless, we have been doing better in training. We had good scrimmages against both Montenegro and Spain and gave them a little more to think about before leaving town.
This morning we got up early (4:30 am) and headed for the airport. Our flight was at 6:30. Even though Rome is not too far away, there is no easy way to get there. We had to fly Podorica to Belgrade and then Belgrade to Rome. By the time we arrived at the hotel it was almost noon. We were able to get right in for lunch but unfortunately our rooms were not ready. The hotel was jammed with people from a Princess cruise that were in no hurry to get out of their rooms. Finally, after waiting around for a few hours everyone was able to get in their rooms and relax. We gave the team the day off – to recover and do some team bonding. They are going to go out for a nice dinner in town tonight.
Rick and I took the opportunity to drive around town and take a look at some of our training venues and try to figure out where we are going to do weights and what the pools are like so that we won’t have any surprises in the next few days. Three days to go before our first game with Italy. Even though it is a bit cooler here in Rome I think that many of the guys are beginning to feel the heat. There seems to be a little more pressure – perhaps it is self imposed now that they have a silver medal in their pocket. I feel like one of my biggest jobs is to keep the pressure off them as much as possible. There is no doubt that the team is one of the favorites. Everyone wants to train or scrimmage with us. Tomorrow we have been asked to train with the German team. They have a time slot right before ours in the competition pool so we will actually get two hours straight of training. This is so much better in my opinion, instead of running all over town – our two main venues are 20 – 45 minutes away depending on traffic. Many of our scheduled training times are for one hour which seems silly. You spend more time driving around then actually in the pool. So combining times and saving a drive to and from a training session sounds pretty good to me.
We were very fortunate in Beijing to have a dedicated training facility. If you remember - the USOC had rented out Beijing Normal University for the USA team so we only had to schedule our training times around the women’s team and we were able to do two hour blocks which significantly cut down on the tiresome drives around town in a bus. Here we will have to rely a little on combining workouts with other teams and seeing if we can get one good workout in rather than two shorter ones with much more driving time.
I think that the team dinner will be really good for the guys tonight. Then need just some fun time together. Time to relax and talk among themselves and find that inner confidence or peace that being on a united team brings to you. I told the guys last night in our meeting that our success in this tournament will come down to how we handle the stressful situations. Can we be calm in a storm? When we are down a goal or two can we stick together and rely on each other to fight on and win as a team or do we break apart and begin to play like individuals. The true measure of our team will be not how we perform in the times when we are winning but how we perform in the times when we are down. All great teams are tested and I truly believe that we are a great team and that we will find a way to become stronger in these situations.
It is exciting. The “team” has two weeks left in our lifetime together. The reason I say this is that every team is different. Last year’s team was made up of a few different players and next year will be different too. This “team” has these two weeks together and then we are done. Can we create some wonderful memories over the next two weeks that will surely last a lifetime? I believe that we can and we will!
See you at the pool!
Coach
This morning we got up early (4:30 am) and headed for the airport. Our flight was at 6:30. Even though Rome is not too far away, there is no easy way to get there. We had to fly Podorica to Belgrade and then Belgrade to Rome. By the time we arrived at the hotel it was almost noon. We were able to get right in for lunch but unfortunately our rooms were not ready. The hotel was jammed with people from a Princess cruise that were in no hurry to get out of their rooms. Finally, after waiting around for a few hours everyone was able to get in their rooms and relax. We gave the team the day off – to recover and do some team bonding. They are going to go out for a nice dinner in town tonight.
Rick and I took the opportunity to drive around town and take a look at some of our training venues and try to figure out where we are going to do weights and what the pools are like so that we won’t have any surprises in the next few days. Three days to go before our first game with Italy. Even though it is a bit cooler here in Rome I think that many of the guys are beginning to feel the heat. There seems to be a little more pressure – perhaps it is self imposed now that they have a silver medal in their pocket. I feel like one of my biggest jobs is to keep the pressure off them as much as possible. There is no doubt that the team is one of the favorites. Everyone wants to train or scrimmage with us. Tomorrow we have been asked to train with the German team. They have a time slot right before ours in the competition pool so we will actually get two hours straight of training. This is so much better in my opinion, instead of running all over town – our two main venues are 20 – 45 minutes away depending on traffic. Many of our scheduled training times are for one hour which seems silly. You spend more time driving around then actually in the pool. So combining times and saving a drive to and from a training session sounds pretty good to me.
We were very fortunate in Beijing to have a dedicated training facility. If you remember - the USOC had rented out Beijing Normal University for the USA team so we only had to schedule our training times around the women’s team and we were able to do two hour blocks which significantly cut down on the tiresome drives around town in a bus. Here we will have to rely a little on combining workouts with other teams and seeing if we can get one good workout in rather than two shorter ones with much more driving time.
I think that the team dinner will be really good for the guys tonight. Then need just some fun time together. Time to relax and talk among themselves and find that inner confidence or peace that being on a united team brings to you. I told the guys last night in our meeting that our success in this tournament will come down to how we handle the stressful situations. Can we be calm in a storm? When we are down a goal or two can we stick together and rely on each other to fight on and win as a team or do we break apart and begin to play like individuals. The true measure of our team will be not how we perform in the times when we are winning but how we perform in the times when we are down. All great teams are tested and I truly believe that we are a great team and that we will find a way to become stronger in these situations.
It is exciting. The “team” has two weeks left in our lifetime together. The reason I say this is that every team is different. Last year’s team was made up of a few different players and next year will be different too. This “team” has these two weeks together and then we are done. Can we create some wonderful memories over the next two weeks that will surely last a lifetime? I believe that we can and we will!
See you at the pool!
Coach
posted by Dr. Terry Schroeder at
8:44 AM
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