Developing Our Athletes: New Integration Creates Career Path\nfor Harker Athletes<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This article originally appeared in the spring 2012 Harker Quarterly<\/a> and was reprinted in Harker News Online<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Harker\u2019s athletic department is making a concerted effort to\nmake available the best sport-specific training possible to lower and middle\nschool athletes. The integrated program will enhance player skills, introduce\nthem to varsity coaches and training techniques and should result in higher\ncaliber teams for Harker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Solid Staff<\/p>\n\n\n\n The integration has become possible with the careful\nexpansion of the athletic staff. Dan Molin, athletic director, joined Harker in\n2005 and recognized the benefit of harnessing Harker\u2019s potential for an\nintegrated athletic program. \u201cWe\u2019d like our younger athletes to see themselves\ncontributing someday to the upper school program,\u201d he said. \u201cThey see the\nwonderful student and coach role models in the upper school and want to emulate\nthem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The integration, gradually introduced where appropriate over\nthe last few years, provides a smooth transition for student athletes as they\nprogress towards and enter the upper school. \u201cThe main goals are to have\nsimilar skills taught at the lower and middle school programs as are taught in\nthe upper school programs,\u201d Molin said. \u201cWhen those students come\u2028to the upper school, there is a\nseamless transition regarding those skills.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Molin is a certified athletic administrator,\u2028 a member of the American\nVolleyball Coaches Association and a lifetime member of the National\nInterscholastic Athletic Administrators Association. At Harker he has led\nnumerous athletic improvement projects, helped turn the football program around\nand coached the first boys athletic team to a Harker league championship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of his first steps was bringing a higher level of\ntraining to the varsity teams, and \u2028to\nthat end, in 2007 Jaron Olson joined the department. Olson is a certified\nathletic trainer and a National Academy of Sports Medicine performance\nenhancement specialist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The integration program took a long stride forward when Ron\nForbes joined the athletic department in 2010. Forbes has national chops as a\nleader in developing winning athletic programs. He comes to Harker from\nStanford University, where he was director of sports performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRon has been an outstanding addition\u2028to our athletic department,\u201d\nsaid Molin. \u201cHe continually sets the bar to a\nhigher standard.\u201d In the last 15-plus years, Forbes has trained more than 60\nathletes later drafted by the National Football League. He helped the\nUniversity of Florida Gators to seven consecutive bowl games and helped\nStanford secure its spot as one of the top teams in the NCAA\u2019s PAC 10 division.\nHis organizational ability and deep knowledge of sports programming give the\nathletic department the administrative depth \u2028to\ncoordinate the additional program elements effectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Summer Sports Camps<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2028Three\nprograms \u2013 swimming, tennis and soccer \u2013 have long had summer camps that put\nathletes of all ages together, providing a de facto integrated program for\neach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Swimming, a natural summer activity, benefitted from the\nopening of the Singh Aquatic Center at the upper school campus in 2008. This\nyear a special competitive element, Junior Swim Team, was added for\nintermediate swimmers to practice competitive strokes and build endurance and\nfitness as part of a summer team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The summer tennis program, directed by Harker\u2019s tennis\ncoach, Craig Pasqua (United States Professional Tennis Association certified),\nhas been naturally integrated with the upper school tennis team as Pasqua\ntrains young students during the summer, then sees them as they continue to\ncompete and reach high school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Competitive tennis players ages 6-18\u2028 train in the summer at Pasqua\u2019s Harker Oakwood Tennis Training System (HOTTS), with team\npractices and interclub matches, in addition to instruction on advanced techniques,\nstrategy, footwork and sports psychology. When students reach the upper school,\nthey are fully acquainted with Pasqua\u2019s methods and he with their strengths and\nweaknesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Harker also has long had a strong summer soccer program,\ndrawing players from other schools and clubs, and enhancing the upper school\u2019s\nsoccer team, run by varsity coach Shaun Tsakiris. \u201cMy aim every year has been\nto create more and more of a buzz on campus about the sport,\u201d says Tsakiris, a\nmember of the 1997 U.S. National Team and winner of UCLA\u2019s MVP Award in 2000.\n(For more on Tsakiris, see page 11.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\u2028\nIntegration<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2028Across\nthe sports, integration \u2028has\nthree\u2028 elements.\u2028 The first\u2028 is a series \u2028of weekend \u2028training \u2028sessions during the season open\nto boys and girls in grades 4-8, run by varsity coaches. The middle school\u2019s\nvarsity A teams also practice with upper school teams. \u201cI felt that it was\nextremely important for our lower and middle school athletes to see how we do\nthings at the varsity level, see where we train and who we are as a coaching\nstaff,\u201d Tsakiris said. The soccer teams held an inaugural combined practice\nsession in January, while girls basketball weekend training sessions for lower\nand middle school students started in early February. In addition, upper school\ntrack coaches will help with middle school track meets, and Molin, as boys\nvarsity volleyball coach, plans to run training sessions with the grade 8 boys\nvolleyball team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The training sessions have enjoyed great attendance, with\nthe basketball sessions attracting as many as 28 lower school and middle school\nathletes, said Molin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alfredo Alves, girls varsity basketball coach, noted the age\ngroups mesh well. \u201cAt the workouts we have all four high school coaches and\nsome varsity girls each week,\u201d he said. \u201cThe varsity girls know everything we\ndo and how we run things, so the coaches have full trust in the high school\nkids to teach the younger kids, and I feel like that is a key component to the\nworkouts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe were able to get the girls basketball clinics and boys\nsoccer training sessions up and running for the third sports season of our\nlower and middle school calendar,\u201d said Theresa \u201cSmitty\u201d Smith, the athletic\ndirector for grades 4-8. \u201cLast season coach Butch Keller invited members of the\nlower and middle school boys basketball teams to sit on the bench at his upper\nschool varsity basketball games.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition, Smith said, \u201cWrestling coach Karriem Stinson\nruns middle school wrestling prior to upper school wrestling practice with a\nslight overlap so middle schoolers are integrated with upper schoolers. In the\nfall, we ran a grade 7 and 8 flag football tournament at the Saratoga campus,\nand the upper school football players helped out with everything from chain\ngang to scoring to clean up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are other overlaps being added as schedules and\npersonnel sync up. \u201cIn the fall,\u201d Smith said, \u201cupper school softball coach Raul\nRios also coached the middle school softball team, and this spring we will have\nmembers of the upper school girls volleyball coaching staff, Alisa Vinkour and\nDiana Melendez, coach our middle school girls volleyball teams.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also this spring upper school water polo coaches Ted Ujifusa\n(boys) and Amelia Lamb (girls) will be coaching the middle school water polo\nteams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n New Programs<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the jewels of the program is the new Harker Football\nSchool, taking place on Davis Field, March through May. The coed school is open\nto students from any school, grades 6-8, looking to improve their skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Forbes, who directs the football school, noted that the\nschool has made the commitment to develop stronger players. \u201cSuccess in\nproducing football players who can compete on the highest level is the direct\nresult of a consistent commitment to developing athletes who are sound in the\nfundamental skills of\u2028their\nrespective positions,\u201d he said. The athletic department\nis applying that maxim to as many sports as it can by presenting advanced\ntechniques to younger players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second integration element is the plethora of sports\ncamps Harker is running this summer. Along with tennis, swimming and soccer are\nnow volleyball, football, basketball and water polo camps all run by Harker\nvarsity coaches (see page 8 for details or visit www.harker.org).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition, Harker\u2019s Summer Sports Conditioning (formerly\nEagle Iron), a drop-in program that lasts most of the summer, meets daily and\nis managed by Olsen, Forbes and Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The third element is the outreach upper school athletes do\nto the middle and lower school campuses, visiting to read or to help deliver\ncore value messages along with school administrators. In addition, at the end\nof November, about 40 upper school athletes joined middle school students for\nlunch to get them excited about high school sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The advantages of the system are straightforward, said\nMolin. First, athletes will grow into their sports faster, gaining confidence\nand the ability to become better players \u2013 all good for the students\u2019 personal\ngrowth. Second, the system will help Harker sports programs as coaches are\nbetter able to build on strengths and eliminate weaknesses of athletes, as well\nas better plan team play as skills build and are refined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe want there to be familiarity with\u2028the upper school program when students enter,\u201d said Molin. \u201cAnd\nnaturally this will make our teams more competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zach Jones contributed to this article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Developing Our Athletes: New Integration Creates Career Path for Harker Athletes This article originally appeared in the spring 2012 Harker Quarterly and was reprinted in Harker News Online. Harker\u2019s athletic department is making a concerted effort to make available the best sport-specific training possible to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[193],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-and-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=978"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":980,"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978\/revisions\/980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fnsreporting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}