November 20, 2006
NENSA Maine Coaches Clinic Recap
Summary: On Saturday Nov 18th we had a great turn out of 28+ coaches for the one day NENSA-Maine Coaches clinic at Titcomb Mountain. Many thanks to Buzz Davis for organizing this for the Maine Coaches! He really did a fantastic job promoting the clinic and setting up the venue.
It was nice, clear weather with a welcome seasonable nip in the air. This was a great opportunity for all of us to learn and exchange ideas on training, coaching, and technique. It was quite an honor to be asked to come up and present, Maine is very rich in Nordic ski history and culture, with a lot of great coaches driving this tradition.
The presentation topics were: Training Plan Design for High School Skiers, Overview of ideas on Technique, Application of Video for technique analysis, then afternoon sessions on classic and skate technique.
We are definitely onto something with this format of one day clinics. This was originally the brain child of Rob Nadeau who is the President of New Hampshire Nordic Coaches Association. Last Spring he saw the need for a clinic format that was accessible to, and educational for high school coaches. He started setting things up for the NH coaches this Fall, then we did a clinic in NH late October that was well attended by coaches throughout New England.
Both of these clinics have been a well spring of ideas to improve coaches education and athlete development. Among the ideas are:
-Develop series of HS coaches education clinics in the Fall
-Develop series of economical regional summer ski clinics or camps geared towards developing HS skiers. i.e. 2-3 days, same format as coaches clinics where coaches do the organization, NENSA staff does presentations. Plan and market before end of HS ski season so coaches can get information out to skiers.
-Post key coaches ed content on website
-Citizen's race series w/ HS team/club scoring had tons of support.
-Maine/NH Cup Challenge series where they open some of their key Saturday races up to NH HS skiers and we make a 1-2 race series out of it.
-Ski lease program including High School programs
-Early Nov coaches ed clinics is perfect timing for everyone
-Consider running 1 day camps for HS skiers as well(to jump start season)
-Develop strategies to retain more skiers in middle school programs
More ideas and feedback are always welcome! Just contact me at stuart@nensa.net.
