I’m am simply a coach

[dj]

Hye.. on the eve of the one year anniversary of what my friends will remember as the “Yellow Shirt Race” in Gainesville, Florida I decided to post this response i gave to a recent email.

I’ll just put it in the Coaches section…

Good morning Daniel

I’m am simply a coach, not necessarily just a vault coach.

I have had a “fun” great career which is actually not over. I have stayed healthy and still compete at my age at a pretty high level..

I’m a decathlete and still vault 12 feet, run hurdles close to the world record for my age, long jump/high jump and throw pretty well. I try and do a little with my athletes along the way, lifting and training/demo to stay fit. My fitness comes and goes according to the circumstances, last February at this time I was fit enough to run a fast 55 meter hurdle time. Now I’m a little “heavy” but can lift and throw well and continue to do speed and hurdle drills.

All in all staying healthy can and will extend my already great career for 10 or more years. I’m sure I will never quit coaching, all the way to 100 if I get that many years. I might spend more time fishing and playing golf but coaching track will still be somewhere in my daily routine.

I have 4 children not counting the 1000’s I have coached in 40 years. Two are in college, one in high school. My eldest daughter is a nurse and Rugby player. I’m GranPa.. to her two boys who will eventually “rule the world” if I have anything to say about it.

I ask everyone I work with, coach or athlete, to be great human beings and to be honest with yourself as well as others. Do whatever you “do” to the best of your ability, both mentally and physically. Giving is much better than “taking.”

And most of all enjoy what you are doing and keep a smile on your face.

That said, I approach all events from beginning to end or From “start” to “finish”.

Technically in the vault this means:

Toe your mark, grip and raise the pole into position correctly, accelerate out of the back to your “MID” (six step from takeoff mark), “get your feet down” and PLANT BIG.

Come out of the back. Get your feet down. And plant big.

Of course “planting big” is contingent on what has taken place on the run and what your concepts are at that juncture.

My concept of "Plant Big" is aggressive, arms going “up”, attack, knee drive, and maybe a little “extra” punch up (lifting/extending/moving the “ball of the thumb” of the left hand aggressively toward the “sky”, left elbow out with the chest going through and then your arms will be “stretched” and can go “elastic” and become the rope to swing on.

The rest is easy because you have done the drills and preparation to:

Swing as fast as possible around the top hand and through the shoulders. Stay “behind” the pole and “shoot like an arrow, feet first into the clouds, “pike” arc into a parabola and “float” back down safely into the pit.

From takeoff to finish is so FAST (1.45) seconds you don’t feel much.. just the same “sweep” you would feel from swinging from a rope that is hanging in that big ole’ tree by the lake in your back yard.

Wave to the crowd…. You just made the bar.

dj

[bjvando]

word!