403.528.5688
[email protected]
Friday, January 22, 2016 — THE MEDICINE HAT NEWS
Success requires every team member pulling the same way
There is no “I” in team. Everyone has heard this saying before.
Teamwork is crucial to the success of an athletic program. I have seen this first-hand working with
the Rattlers men’s basketball team this season. I wear several hats here at Medicine Hat College,
one of which includes strength and conditioning training for the Rattlers. This of course is
separate from the Alberta Sport Development Centre, which is exclusively for emerging athletes
age 13 to 18.
Cory
Coehoorn
Coehoorn’s
Corner
The men’s basketball team has gone from a group of individuals, who could not work well
together, to a well-functioning, well-oiled machine. They even beat Red Deer, the No. 3-ranked
team in the nation by a large margin this past weekend.
Patrick Sharp, the team’s mental skills coach, has been working hard for the last two years, doing
various exercises and team talks to bring this team together. I spoke with him and he mentioned
that “the crucial factor to success is learning to be a team rather than a group of individuals.”
Teamwork is a function of individuals working together, leaving their own ambitions at the door
in exchange for the ambitions of the team.
You may be asking how this relates to the Alberta Sport Development Centre. Well, let me tell
you.
Cory Coehoorn is the
coordinator of the Alberta Sport
Development Centre Southeast.
You can contact him via phone
at 403-504-3547, or email at
[email protected].
We are in the inaugural year of our team athlete enhancement program. We currently have five
teams working with us, and we are providing them with strength and conditioning, mental skills
training, and sport nutrition advice.
In my opinion, there is no substitute to working together as a team in all aspects of training,
competition, and practice. Practice alone is not enough to bring a team together. They need to
train together, work on being mentally strong as a team, and hold each other accountable in their
nutrition. All of these factors strengthen the team bond.
The team athlete enhancement program is for emerging high performance teams to receive
expert support that will improve their sport performance. The program is offered to teams who
have achieved well at the provincial and/or a national level.
Currently, the team athlete enhancement program is available in Medicine Hat, Brooks and Bow
Island.
If you need more information on the team athlete enhancement program, I would love to chat
with you and provide you with any information that you need.
I must also announce that we have an upcoming winning edge seminar on February 25. My
brother Nate Coehoorn from the Edmonton Eskimos will be at Medicine Hat College doing a talk
on leadership, team and sacrifice. Look for more details in the next addition of Coehoorn’s
Corner!