Each year, the USOC and the National Governing Bodies (NGBs) have the privilege of honoring America’s top Coaches. Each NGB nominates a coach for one of five categories: National, Paralympic, Developmental, Volunteer and the “Doc” Counsilman Science Award. Those coaches receive a special recognition plaque from the USOC representing their accomplishments and achievements for the previous year.
Every coach who is nominated is included in the selection pool for national recognition of their accomplishment and to be named as the Coach of the Year in their category. The original pool is reduced from 47 nominees to five finalists. The five finalists receive cherry wood boxes with a commemorative tile indicating their status as a finalist. The balloting then takes place to select one person to represent the USA in each of the five categories. This year, the National winners of the five categories for the Coaches of the Year were recognized at the USOC Media Summit in Chicago.
The USOC is pleased to announce the 2007 Coaches of the Year. They represent America’s finest coaches throughout our athlete pipeline.
 “Doc” Counsilman Science Award
The “Doc” Counsilman Science Award is named after the legendary swimming coach who used science and technology to revolutionize swimming. This award is presented to a coach who utilizes scientific technique or equipment as an integral part of his/her coaching methods or has created innovative ways to use sport science. The 2007 winner is Sean O’Neill from USA Table Tennis. Sean has used the latest online technologies to keep his athletes playing their best. Through the use of video and uploading over 650 video matches online, national team players and coaches can view their performances from any web connection. O’Neill has also set up online training logs/journals for all the USA Paralympic Table Tennis team members as well as U.S. Olympic hopefuls. This allows O’Neill, who will be serving as the 2008 Paralympic Head Coach in table tennis to do remote coaching with his team, who are scattered all over the U.S.
Volunteer Coach of the Year
The 2007 Volunteer Coach of the Year was nominated by USA Taekwondo and hails from Washington, D.C., where he works for the D.C. Parks and Recreation Department—Sherman Nelson. Sherman donates his time traveling with national teams to help athletes maximize their opportunity to represent the U.S. in international competition. His taekwondo program hosts a holiday event for the mentally challenged with his national competitors serving as the host for the event. Sherman has his older teens conduct peer-to-peer mentoring with the pre-teens.
In 1994, he began teaching taekwondo to expose youth in the inner city to the sport that had allowed him to travel all around the world. Originally he had two sites with 16 kids at one and 12 kids at the other. One year later, he had six kids make the Junior Olympics. He has had over 300 athletes with over 25 national champions, 60 national medalists and 12 national team members. For 2007, two athletes won bronze medals at the U.S. Nationals and two won gold at the Junior Pan-American Championships with another athlete achieving bronze. Finalists: Marilyn Deister (Synchronized Swimming), Matthew Dubois (Sailing), Jock Oubichon (Table Tennis) and Bill Walker (Diving).
Developmental Coach of the Year
Paul Yetter (USA Swimming) is the 2007 Developmental Coach of the Year and he typifies the description of that coach. The Developmental Coach is one who works with a youth club, high school or junior-level coach, or a coach who is directly responsible for coaching athletes to the junior and/or elite level. Yetter is on the coaching staff of the North Baltimore Aquatic Club. He is the personal coach of Katie Hoff, who won three gold medals and set two world records at the 2007 World Championships.
Thirteen Yetter-coached athletes have made Swimming’s Olympic Trials cuts, which includes three of his Junior athletes. Since 2002 Paul has helped eight different North Baltimore athletes achieve over 60 #1 National Age Group rankings. Paul served as the head women’s coach for the 2007 Pan-American Games where the team took home the gold medal in 14 of 16 events. Finalists: Jimmy Kim (Taekwondo), Jon Cooper (Ice Hockey), Bob Gunter (Diving), and Joanne McCallie (Women’s Basketball).
Paralympic Coach of the Year
The Paralympic Coach of the Year was the coach for three U.S. athletes who broke World records in 2007 in Wheelchair events. Adam Bleakney coaches the Paralympian of the Year Jessica Galli (WR- 400 meters), Amanda McGrory ( WR- 5000 meters), and Josh George (WR-800 meters). Currently he is the personal coach of five out of the 11 members of the U.S. Paralympic Elite team. Another Bleakney coached athlete, Anjali Forber-Pratt burst onto the scene this year winning two golds and a bronze at the ParaPan American Games. Adam is still actively competing and is a hopeful for Beijing. He is in a unique situation as the coach of a collegiate track and field program at the University of Illinois- Champaign in the Adapted Athletic department. Finalists: Ron Lykins (Women’s Wheelchair Basketball) and Steve Wilson (Men’s Wheelchair Basketball).
National Coach of the Year
35-0-1! What an incredible record for the Guy Baker-led Women’s Water Polo team. Add to the unblemished record, a World Championships, World League Super Final and the Pan-American Games title and you can see why Guy Baker was named the National Coach of the Year. This is a team that re-grouped after a disappointing fourth place finish in 2006. Guy is not only responsible for the Elite team, but he directs and oversees three other National teams (20 & under, 18 & under, 16 & under).
He is developing a pipeline for “sustained competitive excellence”. Guy has also created two domestic events for Water Polo. The Holiday Cup is an international tournament and is the only traditional tournament outside of Europe where the Europeans will compete. The second event is the Speedo Top 40 Festival, which is a three day competition with the Top 40 Women water polo players competing. Finalists: Bob Bowman (Swimming), Mike Candrea (Softball), David Johnson (Shooting), and Tom Terhaar (Rowing).
Five coaches, five great stories and five people with a vision for the future. |