Archive for the ‘Coaching’ Category

Jennifer Azzi on brink of making the San Francisco Dons a women’s basketball force

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011 by

Jennifer Azzi

There’s a shake-up coming in West Coast Conference women’s basketball; and the agent of change is Jennifer Azzi, second-year coach of the bottom-feeding University of San Francisco Dons.

Azzi’s first year as the Dons coach ordinarily would not be cause for undue, or any other kind of, optimism. The team finished with a 4-25 record and managed only one win in the conference. Those results mirrored the final year of her predecessor’s team.

There were good reasons why last season was so similar to the prior season … most of the players were the same. By the time Azzi was hired in the Spring of 2010, most of the blue-chip high school players had made their commitments to colleges. USF had only two commitments. And the players, old and new, had to acclimate to a new system.

Inevitably, the results weren’t promising. But progress was made. By the time the WCC tournament came around, the Dons had progressed to the point where they battled to the final horn in their first round game with Santa Clara before falling four points short.

So why the rosy outlook?
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Tom Walter adds new meaning to the player-coach relationship

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011 by

Wake Forest baseball coach Tom Walter donated a kidney to one of his players.

It’s an article of faith that coaches play an important role in the development of their young charges: teaching athletic skills, discipline, teamwork and good sportsmanship.

Wake Forest baseball coach Tom Walter ratcheted the coach-player relationship from important to vital when he donated a kidney to one of his players, Kevin Jordan; thereby writing a new chapter in the manual of coaching.

This is a dramatic example of commitment — Jordan had never actually donned a Wake Forest uniform. He was a recruit who arrived for his freshman year on campus with his kidneys already ailing. Nevertheless Walter still considered him as a member of the team.

Jordan’s kidneys were barely functioning … he needed daily dialysis; and none of his immediate family members were a match as an organ donor. Up stepped Walter, who volunteered to be tested and was found to be a compatible donor. On Monday, Feb. 7, the transplant was performed at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Both patients are doing fine as of this posting.

There has been extensive internet coverage of this story. Some of the best are from Yahoo’s ThePostGame and CBS’ Wake Forest baseball official site.

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A special coach-player relationship ends in Europe

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 by

The bond between coach Rick Fullerton of Marin FC and player Teddy Mauze is an unusual one because of its duration.

In youth sports, players get older and move on to other coaches or other clubs. Coaches generally continue coaching an age group with which they’ve had success. So it’s customary for coaches to see a huge turnover in players and for players to train under different coaches.

Defying that pattern, Fullerton and Mauze have been together for seven years. Their last game together was the title match of the Copa Catalunya tournament in Spain.

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How a baseball coach doubled his fun

Sunday, June 20th, 2010 by

Coaches often count their most memorable moments by the victories they’ve won, the playoff berths they’ve earned, and the star players they’ve had the pleasure to mentor.

But there’s also a great deal of satisfaction to be gained by helping the journeyman players hone their skills. In this excerpt, East Coast coach and author Larry Cicchiello tells how one of his most memorable moments was provided by Nick, a player going 0-20 for the season.

I knew Nick off the baseball field and knew he was a great kid with great parents. . . . Nick had this “long and looping” swing and was overmatched by every pitch. . . .
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An Olympic Gold Medalist on the value of good coaching

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 by

Jennifer Azzi is an Olympic Gold Medal winner while playing for the 1996 U.S. women’s basketball team. She was also a lynchpin of a Stanford team that won an NCAA championship and she played professional basketball in the WNBA.

She attributes her success to a string of great coaches she trained under from the time she was 6 years old.

Her life speaks to the sincerity of those sentiments. She’s become a member of the Advisory Board for the Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA). She offers basketball camps in the San Francisco Bay area. She’ll also apply her experience next year as the new coach of the University of San Francisco women’s basketball team.

In this video, she recounts her experiences to winners of the PCA Double Gold award.

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