Thursday, November 24, 2016

Coach Gaily Farewell and Thank You

To the Carmel High School Water Polo Family:

Friday night at our end of the year banquet, marked my last moments as head coach of the Carmel High School Boys Water Polo Program.

My decision to step down as head coach was mine alone. Many know the juggling act that I perform during the fall water polo season each year with a growing family and a busy chiropractic practice. Over the last few years I had really begun to realize how quickly the time with my kids in our home was passing. I want to enjoy every minute with them that I can. It was still an incredibly difficult decision for me and my family because coaching has become such a big part of our lives. Plus, I still loved coaching! So, one chapter ends and a new one begins. As sad as it has been for me to step down, there is also growing excitement for me and what the future brings. Coaching has made me a better father, a better husband, and a better man. I will be forever grateful for the opportunity I had to lead this program for so long.

To be quite honest, I am still struggling to process it all. The “send off” that I received at our post season banquet last week was so touching. I cannot thank those in attendance enough. The gracious kind words of love and support, standing ovations, all the hugs and tears were truly overwhelming. I continue to receive emails, texts and phone calls from kids I’ve coached in the past and their family members. Hearing the impact their experience in CHS polo has had in their lives is truly humbling and fulfilling at the same time.

The farewell memory video that was put together by Ande Parker with the help of so many current players and alumni is something I will cherish the rest of my life. It brought tears to my eyes. As a coach, sometimes when you’re in the middle of it for so long, you wonder and often ask yourself, “has this been worth the sacrifice?” “Are we making a difference with these kids?” These past few weeks and especially on Friday night, I got my answer and it has felt really good. The outpouring of love and support from so many current players, alumni, and families has filled my heart to capacity and then some.

I’d like to also thank Mr. Jim Agan (the founder of our wonderful program in 1968) and Ed Sigourney (my high school coach and who I took over from) for speaking on my behalf at the banquet. The words they spoke were humbling and so appreciated.

I wanted to conclude my farewell as head coach by recapping where we started and what we have accomplished as a program.

I have been so graciously honored and praised as head coach and for the success our program has had, BUT I cannot take all the credit. Absolutely not. The success of this program has been such a beautiful coordinated effort by so many. It was always intended to be a group effort from day 1. Our accomplishments should be shared by ALL that bought in and contributed. The vision I had was not only mine, it was cooperatively shared by all my coaches (Pete, Rodger, Graham, Frank, Carl, Jake, Brett). It could not have happened without the group effort that occurred year in and year out. This includes the parents. We needed help from the parents, welcomed them in and wow did they deliver. From our first “program chair”, Lois Dew, to Kim Stemler, to Betsy Conron, to Lori Luch, to Kira Whitaker, the parents were crucial to the success of this movement. I applaud ALL for your contributions to what has transpired these past 15 years!

I coached the varsity for one season in 1999 as a 21 year college graduate. I loved it! I was fully hooked, but had 4 more years of graduate school to complete first. I returned in 2003, coached the JV for one season and then in 2004 I took over as head coach. Upon taking over as head coach I set out to accomplish a few primary objectives for our program. I knew I could not do this alone as I was starting my family and my career at the same time. Early on I enlisted the help of Ed Sigourney (who stayed on and coached the JV for a number of years and helped me start the freshman team), Pete Dew (Assistant), Graham Evans (Assistant/Goalie Coach), Rodger Langland (Assistant/admin/facilities). We later added Carl Hertlein (Freshman and JV coach who took over when Ed stepped down), assistants Frank Reynolds and Sean Vienna. Jake Rianda later came on to coach the freshman after former players Dustin Hunt and Nate Cohen had done the job for a year each. There were other shorter term assistants which I will mention later.

Our Goals:

1) Create positive memories for a lifetime

I wanted to help create an athletic experience that each boy would remember for the rest of their lives. Something they could truly be proud of. I had visions of these boys being able to tell their kids wonderful stories of hard fought battles in the pool, intense physical training during Hell Week, and what it was like to be committed to a team family. I dreamed that they would use that experience as a tool when they began coaching their own kids teams some day.

2) A) Teach and Promote Character above all
B) Create Culture

A) Character:

I wanted to create a culture in our program that was dedicated at it’s core in teaching, embodying, and reinforcing character growth and development. Water polo is a sport parallels life in so many ways. It has the power to shape young minds and bodies like no other. We made every effort we could to underscore everything we taught and valued with a “WHY”. We wanted our kids to understand WHAT we were teaching, WHY we were teaching it and HOW to implement not just in the pool but outside it as well. We hoped the parallels to life that we drew would positively impact their school work, their friendships, their immediate families, their future families, their careers, etc.
Mr. Agan (our program’s founder) once told me of a player he had coached back in the 70’s who went on to an illustrious career in the military. Years later he told Mr. Agan that his experience playing water polo at CHS was what he called a “force multiplier” in his life. I absolutely loved that! I wanted all our kids to be able to look back at their experience and the things they learned and be able to enact them as a “force multiplier” in whatever challenge or obstacle they may be facing.

B) Culture:

I wanted to create a culture that was built upon a few things. Character as I described before, but I wanted our program and the successes that would come be built upon hard work and commitment to team. I wanted a culture where kids learned that working hard and pursuing consistent improvement could be fun! Of course we had lots of goofy and fun times, but the foundation of the program would be built upon hard work and rewarding kids based upon their effort and commitment.
I also wanted this culture to be one that honored it’s past (alumni) and it’s future (underclassmen). I wanted a culture where the underclassmen honored the upperclassmen and alumni not simply because they were older and perhaps better players, but because those upperclassmen and alumni had shown those younger generations the utmost of respect. I wanted upperclassmen to be integral in the welcoming, teaching, helping and encouraging those on the lower teams. I wanted a “pay it forward, but also pay it backward” mentality that was shared by all.
One of my proudest achievements is that we have had so many alumni want to return and coach. In any given week during the season one could see an alum either with a whistle on as a full time assistant, one that was in the water helping with certain kids on a day they were in town, or simply just stopping by to say hello and share a hug with their coaches. Full time alumni coaches that graduated from our program are Craig Gonzales, Ian Hagn, Dustin Hunt, Jakub Kristl, Chimay Skinner, Nate Cohen, Brett Luch, and Jake Rianda. Countless others have contributed with a few days here and there to help when they were in town, past players like Zack Olivas, Sam Sunde, Ben Price, Jay Louis, Brady Hopkins, Chase Motley, are just to name a few. We have had three fathers of past players want to share in the vision and help coach. Pete Dew, Rodger Langland, and John Perkins had boys play and graduate from our program years ago. Each stayed on as valuable assistants years after there boys were gone.

3) Be Competitive. Create a Standard of Winning:

I remember joking with Coach Pete early on, “all this character building and mentoring is gonna get old real quick if we don’t start winning more”. Our focus from the get go was to do our very best in building this program to be as successful as we could be in the competitive arena of our local league, but also beyond in the Central Coast Section (CCS). We wanted our teams to be competitive year in and year out regardless of whether we had a lot of talent that particular year. We still competed in a league of schools that outsized us by substantial numbers like Live Oak, Salinas, San Benito, Gilroy, basically everybody except Stevenson. We also trained in a substandard shallow bottomed pool at the time. We committed early on that neither of those issues would ever be allowed as excuses. We had to figure out how to move around and through those obstacles. In my first year, we had a few disgruntled parents when I made the decision to fundraise and rent the pool at Monterey Peninsula College so that we could train in deep water. This meant practices would begin at 7pm and ended at 9pm, as that was the only time the pool was available. We had multiple kids each year who lived deep in Carmel Valley and down in Big Sur that would regularly get home around 10pm. It was a significant sacrifice for all, but even more for those who lived at the outer reaches of our district. The sacrifice was worth it as our play as a program began to rise on all levels very quickly. Thankfully this scenario lasted only a few years.
A few years later, due to a tremendous group of people led by Ed Sigourney, Merrie Potter, Rodger Langland, Meredith Manhard, The Rianda family, and others, we had a beautiful “state of the art” pool built at Carmel High. It was a labor of love for so many and that facility truly opened the door even wider for our water polo program to grow to even greater heights. This effort will benefit youth in our community for many years to come on so many levels.
Carmel had not won a league title since 1979. We set that as our first target. It took us a little while, but we won our first league championship in 2010, our first in 31 years. We were very proud. That initial “championship swim” when the kids tossed us coaches in the pool felt amazing and was special for all of us. The very next year our league would change dramatically. Our current league agreed to absorb the Santa Cruz league. With that merger we inherited new competition on top of our current competition we had worked so hard to reach the top of. Soquel High School had not lost a league game nearly 20 years and had not lost the league championship in about the same amount of time. But, with much hard work and belief, in 2012 and in heroic fashion, a group of underdogs defeated the mighty Soquel in triple overtime for a share of the title. Again in 2014, a group of even bigger underdogs beat a talent laden Soquel in the league championship game for a share of the title, our third championship in that 5 year span.
Our secondary goal on the competitive side of things was to be a consistent presence in the CCS playoffs. Carmel had qualified for the CCS playoffs a couple times during the 80’s, a few more times during the 90’s, but it had been since 1998 the last time Carmel High had qualified for CCS. We aimed to change that. We got back to the playoffs in 2006. Then again in 2007. Missed in 2008, but qualified again in 2009 which began our string of consecutive CCS berths in ’09, ’10, ’11, ’12, ’13, ’14, ’15, ’16.

In conclusion, again I share this so that ALL who contributed (there were many) can be proud of the improvement and difference we all helped achieve.

I am so thankful and was so very blessed to have had this opportunity to coach and lead this program for these last 15 years.

Thank you all for the love and support you have shown my family and I.

Go Padres!!!!

Sincerely,


Coach Aaron Gaily
(1999, 2003-2016)


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