Thursday, April 27, 2017

Coaching Philosophy



I wanted to share with you part of my coaching philosophy and what this means for the upcoming season. Coaching provides the opportunity to teach not only the skills to succeed in water polo, but the character skills necessary to be successful in life. These life lessons have been ingrained in our water polo program over the years and will remain a major component of our coaching style. 

A lesson that I feel is incredibly important to teach is that of earning your spot by showing hard work, dedication, and respect. This translates in and out of the pool.  This year the Varsity will only be dressing 14 athletes for games. The others will be on the practice squad. The two teams will always practice together under the same Varsity umbrella, and the two groups are fluid. Each week the coaches will be evaluating the team and making recommendations based on hard work, dedication, skills and attitude. The caps must be earned each week. Players from the practice squad have the ability to move up as much as the players who have caps have the ability to move down. 

I believe this accomplishes two things. The first is earning your spot. Practices will become more competitive. The second is not having to make cuts. We struggle every year with this dilemma. This program has grown considerably. We have never cut before and by creating two groups we wont have to. This gives the athletes the ability to compete by working hard to earn their spots. We will conduct one on one meetings with each athlete to let them know what they have to achieve to earn a cap. I want to also encourage players to come to the coaching staff and ask what they need to do to keep or earn a cap. This instills accountability and is a great life lesson. When practices start everyone is on a level playing field. 

Practices will start July 5th. They will be every Monday and Wednesday from 4-5 pm until July 26th. We also have the pool reserved on Tuesdays and Thursdays during those same hours for special practices and clinics. These practices are NOT MANDATORY but strongly encouraged. These practices are open to all water polo players that are Carmel High Students. A waiver will have to be signed to attend. I encourage all players to adjust their schedules as much as possible to attend. Once again, they are not mandatory but will help us gain the edge we need to achieve our goals. 

Lastly, participation in The Legacy Water Polo Club is strongly encouraged. The Junior Olympic Tournament is held in July and is an incredible opportunity to experience high level water polo. Encourage your teammates to participate in Legacy this summer. If you know any new freshman planning on playing for Carmel High get them evolved. Lets get as many players playing water polo this summer as possible.

Coach Graham

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