A Growing Family 2/27/2012

As we go into our eighth week of full time training we are seeing some big gains with the overall conditioning level. This past week was a very tough one and the team responded well. We stepped up the level of work and the team rose to the challenge and trained hard through it. In a way it is like running a marathon - as we go through these weeks of training many of our athletes will “hit a wall” of fatigue and have to make a choice –do I ease back on the throttle and give my body rest? Or do I challenge myself and push through this to break through the wall and rise to a new level of fitness and perhaps performance? For the most part, that is our job as coaches, to find a way to help encourage and coax our athletes to work through this tough spots and get pushing their bodies to new levels. Of course, there is a fine line between breaking them down too much and risking injury and pushing them through the pain of being fatigued. Staying in touch with each athlete and keeping up with “their reality” is a big part of this. For example, I always try to find out what is going on personally with any of the guys when I see them not performing at their best. Chances are that there is something going on outside the pool that may be impacting their performance in the pool. This takes communication and trust. I feel that is building and getting better and better on this team. We certainly had it working well in 2008, when we made it to the gold medal game and won the silver medal. However, with most of the team playing professionally over in Europe for the past three years the level of trust, respect and communication has dropped off a bit. Perhaps not much but a little bit. We are working to get that back. It will come with time together. I feel that much of it lies on our shoulders as coaches. We must trust and respect our athletes and we must work to communicate with them everyday. As we do this then trust, respect and open communication will begin to flow back to us. This is where team chemistry takes it roots and begins to grow. It is exciting to be a part of it again. I can sense that this is happening and I know all to well that only when these elements are deeply rooted will we have the foundation we need to make it back to that gold medal game this summer in London.

This week could be very interesting outside the pool too. Jeff Powers and Adam Wright are both expecting babies very soon. For Adam and his wife it will be their second child. While Jeff and his wife are expecting their first babies (twins). So our family continues to grow. This team is amazing! They have been through so much together and now many of them are balancing families with all we are doing to prepare for London. The majority of them have played together since they were on the USA Junior team. That means that many of these guys have been together for 12-15 years. That is pretty incredible in a sport like ours where for the most part the athletes are playing to represent their country and possibly win a gold medal for the USA. Our average age is 31-32 years old. We could be the oldest team in the Olympic Games. I feel honored to be a part of this team. It is a special group and we have one more step up the podium to realize all of our dreams.

As far as upcoming events go here is the schedule. For those that may be interested in seeing some good water polo – we will be having “Competition Wednesday” each Weds night at Oaks Christian. Scrimmages begin at approximately 7:45 and our open to the public. If you are interested in watching the team got through their warm up then get there at about 7:15. Fans are welcome and there is no charge. We will be hosting Italy, Montenegro and Germany at the end of next month. We will be having a small four nation tournament at CLU the weekend of March 23rd, 24th and 25th. Stay tuned for more information on this tournament.

That is it for now. See you at the pool.

Coach