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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