This was posted in Scuttlebutt 3290: By Dean Brenner, US Olympic Sailing Program Chairman I really enjoyed Joe Morris’s comments in Scuttlebutt 3289 about Olympic Development. It’s an important issue and one that the leadership of US Olympic Sailing takes very seriously. Joe is correct that as of only a few years ago there was no formal development program as part of the US Olympic effort. We are now in our fifth year of this program, and we have made some adjustments each year in an effort to get the program where we want it and need it to be. Joe brings up some important questions, the most fundamental of which is “can a sailor pursue Olympic and college goals at the same time?” We think the answer is yes, but it requires collaboration among the college coach, the Olympic program and the athlete. Some athletes will make college sailing their priority, and that’s great. Other athletes will make Olympic sailing their priority, and that’s also a great choice. It’s really up to the athlete to decide what their own goals are, and then it’s up to the Olympic program and the college coach to help facilitate those goals. Some college programs are clearly willing to help interested athletes pursue both sets of goals, and we’ve partnered with several of them. It’s not always easy, but with good communication and collaboration we usually get to a great place for everyone. One point we feel strongly about, however, is that if a sailor wants to achieve college goals AND Olympic goals, then the wrong way to pursue their Olympic goals is to put them completely on hold for four years. That may help them with their college goals, but ignoring Olympic sailing for that length of time will put the sailor years and years behind their international peers. The best model, we think, is to find a college program where the coach is open to parallel goals, and then create an annual plan that allows for both college sailing and some Olympic sailing. It likely means that neither set of goals gets 100% of the sailor’s attention, but from an Olympic perspective, we would rather have a talented athlete at least partially focused on Olympic sailing for four years, so that when they graduate and focus exclusively on the Games, they are at least part way up the learning curve and not starting from square one. But ultimately, the path needs to start with what the sailor wants, and what he or she (and their family) thinks is best. Good coaches (college and Olympic) will then collaborate in the best interest of the athlete. College sailing and Olympic sailing require different skill sets, as Joe correctly points out. And if the athlete wants both, then both sets of skills need to be developed in a parallel fashion. Will it be easy? No way. But if it were everyone would be a national champion, an All-American and an Olympic medalist.
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Stanfords John Vandemoer: College and Olympic Sailing Response
College and Olympic Sailing Response, by John Vandemoer, head varsity sailing coach at Stanford University
This is the fourth in an AirWaves Series on Youth-to-College-to-Olympic sailing. Enjoy!
Brought to you by Mauri Pro Sailing
| College sailing is absolutely a path to Olympic sailing, is it right for everyone? Probably not, but that is what’s great about being human; what is right for one is not necessarily right for another. In Joe and Stu’s article, and in most of the responses the points were based on actually sailing, but I think college sailing and college itself benefits Olympic campaigners immensely in different ways. |  |
My experience with Olympic level sailing is different than some, I live vicariously through my wife, Molly O’Bryan Vandemoer, who as well as being a college All-American and National Champion, has also campaigned 470’s and who is now fully focused on women’s match racing as a member of Team Tunnicliffe. Listening to her recap her challenges and successes during training sessions and World Cup events I can’t help but think of the lessons learned in college sailing. College sailing is much more then boat handling, short course tactics, and starts, it is about working within a team, managing your life, and dealing with relationships with teammates, coaches, umpires, race committee, etc. College sailing is a crash course for life lessons.
A successful college team is one that works together to become better; the players all focus on improvement and hard work to build each individual’s ability into team strength. The current system for USSTAG seems to be built around the basic college sports model: work together, share, and make each other stronger. These are all lessons of a strong college team.
The next life lesson that college sailing imparts is dealing with your emotional IQ, a successful sailor is one that can control their temperament and stay focused on racing well. Sailing is a tough sport, maybe even the toughest with all the variables that contribute to it. Being able to manage your emotions and deal with your competitors, coaches, race officials and judges is a mandatory skill for success. Everyone has had a race, at any level that was affected by a variable outside of your control; it is how you handle these variables that makes you a champion. College sailing pushes these challenges at you every weekend with tough venues, changing conditions, no drop race, umpires and judges with all sorts of experience, and the slew of colorful coaches on the sidelines. Then it throws at you wind delays, protest delays, homework, midterms, and the ever-evolving romantic relationships all in 48 hours. A great college sailor can manage all of these distractions and see the racecourse in front of them. Four years of sailing in college helps you develop a high emotional IQ, it helps you to learn to respect the relationships you have with sailors, coaches and race officials and it keeps you focused on sailing your boat and the race course well.
I see my wife use these lessons everyday in setting up training sessions, working with her team, and dealing with the challenges of her discipline. Will college sailing make you a top-level technical Olympic sailor? No, but it will help you recognize the tools you need to get there which can sometimes be the hardest part. Learning how to learn, how to use coaches, and how to use the resources around you are all the strengths of college and of college sailing.
I like the idea of a college sailor getting international experience and Olympic sailing experience when they can during their four years of college. These experiences make you a better sailor, teammate and person. However, the focus of college should be college, it should be learning in the classroom and learning from those tough choices that come up in a college life. I really feel these are invaluable and will help anyone succeed on the Olympic circuit. I do not think it matters if you win the gold at age 26 or at age 18.
2011 Laser Midwinters East Final Results
Laser Midwinter’s East
February 23-27, 2011
Final Series Results: Laser 4.7 Laser Standard Gold Laser Radial Gold Laser Standard Silver Laser Radial Silver.
Peter Isler on "The Right Path for Top Youth Sailors: Is it College Sailing?"
This is the third in an AirWaves Series on Youth-to-College-to-Olympic sailing. Enjoy!
After posting a quick comment to Joe Morris’ piece in Sail1Design I was invited to read Kenny Legler’s “part two” piece on the subject and then expand on my first posting into something a bit more formal. Well, here goes.
Firstly I find the subject (is college sailing the “right path” for top youth sailors?) very interesting and my initial reaction was – “of course”. I figured – when you’ve got it “flaunt it’. And in the US we have an amazing intercollegiate sailboat racing scene that has only gotten better since I was sailing 420’s at YCYC.
But maybe my initial reaction was a bit too much of just that, a reaction – without fully thinking about the question. After reading Joe/Stu and Kenny’s thoughts I still am thinking about the question and now have more questions.
Kenny took a bit of a look back at the history of American college sailors in the Olympics. This was informative – and he helped coin a useful phase – “the professional era” of Olympic Sailing (post ’92). But I still want to know: What are the backgrounds of the international medalists in this era? Like all of us following recent Olympiads, I know that many medalists enjoy extremely deep funding from their respective national team. But what step did they take after youth sailing? Most countries don’t have a collegiate sailing circuit so the fact that these guys and girls didn’t “sail in college” doesn’t necessarily mean that they wouldn’t have benefited from it – if such a program was available.
Or maybe we need to examine the age of the recent international medalists… could it be that like in many other pro sports, the average age of the top athletes has lowered since the “amateur era”? Are more Olympians enjoying success in their “first try”? If so, that would lend credence to the argument that even in the US – the Olympic path diverges at an earlier age – so that college sailing is an unnecessary diversion rather than a step along the road to sailboat racing nirvana.
Is Olympic sailing at a point where, like for the young high school basketball phenom, the path to the “big leagues” is to forgo collegiate athletics in favor of turning “pro” at age 18? But even in pro basketball, not every high school superstar succeeds at the professional level, much less gets the 30 million dollar contract that provides a financial raison d’être for forgoing a college degree. So I’m right back to where I was in my initial reaction to the question – it would be a pretty risky move to advise an aspiring elite youth sailor to miss out on college sailing – much less a college education.
In the US, I’d rather keep fueling the collegiate sailing ranks with our top youth and turn my questions to smart people like coach Ken and ask – how do we help collegiate sailors develop better boat speed – boat tuning skills (to supplement their tactical/boathandling education) during their college years? Is there a way to have your cake and eat it too?
Maybe we just have to poke around at this question a bit more before it reveals its secrets.
Once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right!
J22 Midwinters 2011 Final Results
J/22 (26 boats) (top)
Series Standing – 9 races scored
Information is final.
Regatta results last updated: Saturday, February 26, 2011 4:26:11 PM CDT
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Olympic & Collegiate sailing
Excellent article and interview. Of course there is no exact path that is optimal for every individual. It would be interesting to expand this “US based” perspective and look at the youth>>>olympic path in other countries. I like the “outside of the box” idea of Stu’s (#9): “Collegiate Olympic sailing programs”. As a step in that direction I wonder if, in the US, Collegiate sailing programs might benefit from programatic exposure to Olympic Sailing. Certainly Olympic aspirants benefit by “getting back to basics” and doing some college-style short course racing and drills (ala the Snow & Satisfaction) and their participation at a few practices might benefit an entire team. As Jerry used to sing: “If I knew the way, I would take you home”
