Dean's Word

[MR.CLEAN]

Dean's Word

 

I was chatting with Clean the other day, and he mentioned that an update on where things are with the US Olympic Sailing Program would be a good idea. I’m happy to share a few thoughts and would love to see a thread follow this piece so we all can chat about what is going on.

 

So here’s where things are from my perspective:

 

We ended 2008 having made a lot of progress in the previous four years. We grew our funding from a total annual budget of about a million in 2004 to a total annual budget of between 3 and 4 million today. That’s a lot of progress in four years, and it’s due to the hard work and support of a lot of people. Our entire leadership team was proud of the medals we won in 2008 – a gold and silver at the Olympics and a gold and bronze at the Paralympics. But as proud as all of us are of our athletes, we were not satisfied with the 2008 performance. “Proud, but not satisfied” was the mantra on the Olympic Sailing Committee in the fall of 2008.

 

The last four years were about changing the funding model, shrinking the size of the team, increasing the focus of the whole program, and starting to build a brand. We were fixing the fundamentals of our business.

 

In the fall of 2008, our leadership group set a whole new set of strategic goals for these next four years. If the last four years were about fixing up the house, these next four years will be about inviting more people over to that house, increasing the “size of the party” so to speak. In other words, we want to raise awareness of our athletes and our program, and build a fan base around the exploits of some amazingly dedicated sailors.

 

So what are we doing to achieve these strategic goals? A number of things:

 

1. We’ve partnered with Atlantis WeatherGear to clothe the team and create a team look. We now compensate our athletes in exchange for their participation in our branding program displaying out title, gold and silver partners on team clothing, and title and gold partners on hulls and sails. It’s an optional program for them, but to date every single athlete that has been offered this agreement has signed it.

 

2. We’ve hired new staff that will be traveling with the team nearly full-time in 2010, updating our Facebook page, tweeting results from regattas, shooting audio and video for posting online, updating our public website… all in an effort to bring more visibility and access to our team.

 

3. We’ve made some changes to our coaching and training model, encouraging our athletes to work more closely together, and train under our program coaches. This reinforces the team culture, builds a squad mentality and builds a more satisfying experience for everyone.

 

4. This winter, we’re taking some of our athletes on a national speaking tour at yacht clubs around the country, in an effort to make our athletes more well-known on a national basis. We’re starting with five clubs and then will expand the program in the subsequent months. We’ll be advertising dates and locations in the next few weeks.

 

This is just a taste of what we’re up to. But we’re focused on all the things that need to be done to broaden our exposure, build a fan base, and create a program with long-term viability.

I care about our performance in 2012. It’s at the top of my list of priorities. But I care just as much about the program we leave to the next Olympic Sailing Committee and the next generation of athletes. Of all the things I think we have achieved these last few years, near the top of the list is that we now have a program that thinks and acts and plans beyond four-year cycles. We’re thinking and planning with one eye on the next Games and the other eye on the long-term.

 

That’s what we’re up to… fire away with the questions.

 

-Dean Brenner, Chairman

US Sailing Team Alphagraphics

 

[PoliticallyIncorrect]

Is James Capron still drinking the coffee for free there at HQ?

 

[moondawg]

Hi Dean,

Thanks for the sum up. I like the motto.

My question is whether the long term picture includes some leadership role in junior and youth sailing? By this, I am not really concerned about the process in which you identify and assist top junior sailors. I am most interested in ideas and plans you may have as to how the Olympic Sailing Program can provide leadership directed at increasing participation in our sport at the junior level. Obviously, Olympic Sailing would benefit from a bigger pool of qualified sailors, but more importantly, your goal of "branding" would benefit from overall growth in the sport.

By this question, I do not mean to imply that this is solely your oar to pull, only that Olympic Sailing is in a unique position to provide some direction.

Thanks.

 

[dmbrenner]

My question is whether the long term picture includes some leadership role in junior and youth sailing? By this, I am not really concerned about the process in which you identify and assist top junior sailors. I am most interested in ideas and plans you may have as to how the Olympic Sailing Program can provide leadership directed at increasing participation in our sport at the junior level... By this question, I do not mean to imply that this is solely your oar to pull, only that Olympic Sailing is in a unique position to provide some direction.

Great question. Thanks for bringing this up.

Our Olympic Sailing Committee has been focused on youth development issues almost from our first day working together back in October 2004. And it took us a couple of years to figure out what our plan would look like and to start executing the plan. For now, our goal is to continue to choose a small number of really talented AND committed sailors each year and get them training along side our Olympic athletes, working with our coaches, and facilitating their racing in Europe. We're talking about a maximum of about 54 kids per year spread out over a number of classes.

Here's a picture to show how we look at it: http://sailingteams.ussailing.org/Path.htm

But your question was about a lot more than this pretty narrow focus. Youth sailing in the USA is very fragmented, with lots of pockets of great work being done all over the country. It would be much harder to have a really centrally organized youth development system in our country. So, our strategy is to provide some great opportunities at the top of the youth development pyramid, and then have strong partnerships and productive dialogue with as many parts of the current youth sailign universe as possible. We don't want anyone to think that we intend to come riding in on our horse and that we will try to take over youth development everywhere. Quite to the contrary... we want to see people who are doing great work to keep doing that great work, but with some dialogue with us so we can start matching up goals. This is already happening with a number of groups around the country. We want everyone to know about our US Sailing Development Team, and for those kids who want to be part of that, we want them to apply for a spot to get involved. The simple fact is that not every kid or family is intereted in the Olympic path, and that's OK. But we want to provide opportunities for the talented AND committed kid.

So that's where we are right now. Is that helpful? I'm open to ideas... where are you on this?

Dean

 

[ScowLover]

Hi Dean,

Thanks for the great update. You mentioned that you are focussing more on a "team" dynamic for training and coaching. What is your ideal balance of using the team coaches and using private coaches? As you know, I work with one of the paralympic teams and I want to be sure our team understands the model to work well within the team.

John Porter

 

[dmbrenner]

Hi Dean,
Thanks for the great update. You mentioned that you are focussing more on a "team" dynamic for training and coaching. What is your ideal balance of using the team coaches and using private coaches? As you know, I work with one of the paralympic teams and I want to be sure our team understands the model to work well within the team.

John Porter

It's a great question. Thanks John.

Ultimately, this is a conversation to have with Paralympic Coach Betsy Alison and our High Performance Director Kenneth Andreasen. Kenneth sets the strategy for our coaching program, and Betsy is our staff coach for the disabled team.

We're really trying to focus on a couple of things:

1. We're trying to bring athletes together in joint training opportunities much more frequently. When everyone goes off on their own, with their own coach, and everyone is doing their own thing all the time, we end up wasting resources as a group. Everyone reinvents their own wheel, and we collect no institutional knowledge to pass on to the next team that comes along. So, first goal is to get USA sailors training together more often.

2. We're switching our coaches around more often so we don't always have the same coach with the same athletes. In any environment (sports, business, etc) it can be healthy to get new perspectives from time to time. Fresh eyes on a problem can be good for the athlete. And a fresh project can be healthy for the coach. Again, ultimately Kenneth and Betsy are in charge here.

So, we're investing a lot more resources in coordnating a staff of full-time and part-time coaches that know each other well, and work for the benefit of our athletes and the program.

Hope this helps.

Dean

 

[Rail Meat]

I have not given this a huge amount of thought, but one thing that I would love to see the organization capitalize on is the atheletes on the team playing an active role in junior sailing. What I am thinking is that if the atheletes were to have an active schedule where part of their team duties involved teaching a one-day race clinic at a junior sailing program (different program each time) some number of times each year, perhaps 5 or 6 times.

The USSailing office could coordinate the schedule and facilitate logistics such that when the athelete's get to the location every thing is organized and ready for them to start coaching. If the clinic schedule were to leverage the atheletes' existing home locations, training locations and competition locations you could end up with a overall program that would have a good geographic dispersion. You could choose to pay the atheletes for their participation, or ask them to volunteer for it in return for the team funding that they are already receiving. My POV would be that if the budget allows, then pay the athelete which both gives a "fair trade" source of income for the athelete as well as gives them and incentive to enthusiastically participate.

You could also take it the next step and potentially ask the clubs who are a beneficiary of such a clinic to host a fund raiser to coincide with the clinic. After a day on the water with the kids, the Club or organization hosts the athelete at a cocktail party or dinner where the club covers costs and the cover charge is a tax deductable donation to the Olympic program. US Sailing could provide the atheletes with a deck or talking points, and the athelete could provide the audience with an update about the Olympic efforts for the entire team as well as their own program.

This idea would offer the program, atheletes and donors incremental benefits. More exposure for the atheletes and Olympic sailing. Support for junior sailing in the form sailors with knowledge and experience to impart but also sailors the juniors can look up to. A chance for the atheletes to "give something back". And a chance to raise some funds.

 

[Tcatman]

[/quote name=DeanBrenner' date='Dec 21 2009, 10:31 AM' post='2628275]

My question i............. So, our strategy is to provide some great opportunities at the top of the youth development pyramid, and then have strong partnerships and productive dialogue with as many parts of the current youth sailign universe as possible. We don't want anyone to think that we intend to come riding in on our horse and that we will try to take over youth development everywhere. Quite to the contrary... we want to see people who are doing great work to keep doing that great work, but with some dialogue with us so we can start matching up goals. This is already happening with a number of groups around the country. We want everyone to know about our US Sailing Development Team, and for those kids who want to be part of that, we want them to apply for a spot to get involved. The simple fact is that not every kid or family is intereted in the Olympic path, and that's OK. But we want to provide opportunities for the talented AND committed kid.
So that's where we are right now. Is that helpful? I'm open to ideas... where are you on this?

Dean

Hello Dean

The events have yet to be determined beyond the next cycle. How do you think about junior training and development at the top of the pyramid in this situation? Specifically, are you banking on the 5 discipline solution in your training program? Are sailors slotted for an event at an early stage?

Multihulls are out for the next cycle 2012 and while some in ISAF have decided that this was a mistake and should be corrected as soon as next year with decisions on events for 2016. The situation is fluid. What is your thinking on the junior multihull pipeline and training?

US Multihull classes are a fractious lot and we don't have many Yacht Clubs that we could point to as a center of excellence for Multihull racing. In this enviorment.... the junior program is the Hobie 16 Class Association junior NA's and the CISA clinics in CA. What guidance would you give the cat sailing clubs as to the kind of program that could produce elite sailors in 6 years?

Personally, I believe that what's needed is a cross training program that gives accomplished junior sailors an exposure to multihulls and olympic caliber coaching in high performance sailing at key stages in their sailing development. If the speed bug bites and they see the chance for success... who knows... another Smyth or Lovell could emerge. I have no idea how to build such a program. Thoughts on the idea and way forward?

(Can I repost your answers on the catamaran formum catsailor?)

Tcatman

 

[laserichard]

I have not given this a huge amount of thought, but one thing that I would love to see the organization capitalize on is the atheletes on the team playing an active role in junior sailing. What I am thinking is that if the atheletes were to have an active schedule where part of their team duties involved teaching a one-day race clinic at a junior sailing program (different program each time) some number of times each year, perhaps 5 or 6 times.
The USSailing office could coordinate the schedule and facilitate logistics such that when the athelete's get to the location every thing is organized and ready for them to start coaching. If the clinic schedule were to leverage the atheletes' existing home locations, training locations and competition locations you could end up with a overall program that would have a good geographic dispersion. You could choose to pay the atheletes for their participation, or ask them to volunteer for it in return for the team funding that they are already receiving. My POV would be that if the budget allows, then pay the athelete which both gives a "fair trade" source of income for the athelete as well as gives them and incentive to enthusiastically participate.

You could also take it the next step and potentially ask the clubs who are a beneficiary of such a clinic to host a fund raiser to coincide with the clinic. After a day on the water with the kids, the Club or organization hosts the athelete at a cocktail party or dinner where the club covers costs and the cover charge is a tax deductable donation to the Olympic program. US Sailing could provide the atheletes with a deck or talking points, and the athelete could provide the audience with an update about the Olympic efforts for the entire team as well as their own program.

This idea would offer the program, atheletes and donors incremental benefits. More exposure for the atheletes and Olympic sailing. Support for junior sailing in the form sailors with knowledge and experience to impart but also sailors the juniors can look up to. A chance for the atheletes to "give something back". And a chance to raise some funds.

that sounds like a great idea, RM

 

[dmbrenner]

I have not given this a huge amount of thought, but one thing that I would love to see the organization capitalize on is the atheletes on the team playing an active role in junior sailing. What I am thinking is that if the atheletes were to have an active schedule where part of their team duties involved teaching a one-day race clinic at a junior sailing program (different program each time) some number of times each year, perhaps 5 or 6 times.
The USSailing office could coordinate the schedule and facilitate logistics such that when the athelete's get to the location every thing is organized and ready for them to start coaching. If the clinic schedule were to leverage the atheletes' existing home locations, training locations and competition locations you could end up with a overall program that would have a good geographic dispersion. You could choose to pay the atheletes for their participation, or ask them to volunteer for it in return for the team funding that they are already receiving. My POV would be that if the budget allows, then pay the athelete which both gives a "fair trade" source of income for the athelete as well as gives them and incentive to enthusiastically participate.

You could also take it the next step and potentially ask the clubs who are a beneficiary of such a clinic to host a fund raiser to coincide with the clinic. After a day on the water with the kids, the Club or organization hosts the athelete at a cocktail party or dinner where the club covers costs and the cover charge is a tax deductable donation to the Olympic program. US Sailing could provide the atheletes with a deck or talking points, and the athelete could provide the audience with an update about the Olympic efforts for the entire team as well as their own program.

This idea would offer the program, atheletes and donors incremental benefits. More exposure for the atheletes and Olympic sailing. Support for junior sailing in the form sailors with knowledge and experience to impart but also sailors the juniors can look up to. A chance for the atheletes to "give something back". And a chance to raise some funds.

Great minds think alike...

This sounds a lot like our national speaking tour concept that we are rolling out in 2010. We have five dates on the calendar with clubs around the country, where we go to the club with 2 or 3 athletes, and there is a junior clinic component/chalk talk along with a presentation to the entire club. The athletes are paid for their time. These are not fundraisers, but they are ways to build relationships, profile our athletes, and perhaps some day come back to the club for a more formal event.

There are a lot of ways to do this... and we are going to test drive some models this winter/spring. And if it seems to have some legs to it, we'll expand it more in 2010/2011.

I do hesitate to mandate that our athletes spend any amount of time out there coaching, and paying them to do that, for two reasons:

1. Many of our athletes are already out doing that anyway, on their own, as a way to augment their own income, and I don't want to cannibalize their efforts.

2. I want to be respectful of their time, and ultimately we want to compensating our athletes to perform on the water. We have a really tight focus right now and I don't want to lose that. If we start adding lots of other "stuff" to their plates, life for our athletes could become even more demanding and confusing than it already is.

But my bottom line answer is that your idea is a good one. We are rolling out a similar idea this year, combining a speaking event with junior clinics/talks. We think it will be a win for all involved... the clubs, our athletes and our national program.

Thanks for the idea. Happy to keep chatting about it if you want to push back a bit.

Dean

 

[laserichard]

dean,

this is a laser specific question, not sure if it applys to other classes. ive noticed that some of our top folks can completely dominate here in the states, like win the NA's or finish top 3 in a major (or top 10 at sail melbourne in AUS), and then they head to europe and cant manage a top 50 at a holland regatta or at Semaine Olympique Française or Kiel. This has happened for many years. Is the talent gap really that wide, and european fleets that deep or what? Does it hurt that the US talent is spread over such a wide geographic area, thus making it hard to get all the talent together in one location for anything besides MOCR and NA's/Nat's?

cheers,

PG

ps-

keep up the great work. USTAG seems to definitely be a bright spot at USSA these days...

 

[jon159785]

 

2. We've hired new staff that will be traveling with the team nearly full-time in 2010, updating our Facebook page, tweeting results from regattas, shooting audio and video for posting online, updating our public website… all in an effort to bring more visibility and access to our team.

Would it be possible for your website to offer an RSS feed of your news to make it easier to get news from your website?

 

[haha!]

4. This winter, we’re taking some of our athletes on a national speaking tour at yacht clubs around the country, in an effort to make our athletes more well-known on a national basis. We’re starting with five clubs and then will expand the program in the subsequent months. We’ll be advertising dates and locations in the next few weeks.

Mr. Brenner,

I hope that you will consider including some of the many community sailing organizations that do so much to promote sailing around the country. Only visiting yacht clubs is very much a preaching to the choir prospect. THe community sailing organizations are where the real growth potential for the sport lies and having olympic athletes helping in the push to grow interest in the sport would add some much needed visibility that would not only promote the olympic team, but the sport in general.

THanks for taking the time to brave the waters of SA.

 

[Rail Meat]

Great minds think alike...
This sounds a lot like our national speaking tour concept that we are rolling out in 2010. We have five dates on the calendar with clubs around the country, where we go to the club with 2 or 3 athletes, and there is a junior clinic component/chalk talk along with a presentation to the entire club. The athletes are paid for their time. These are not fundraisers, but they are ways to build relationships, profile our athletes, and perhaps some day come back to the club for a more formal event.

There are a lot of ways to do this... and we are going to test drive some models this winter/spring. And if it seems to have some legs to it, we'll expand it more in 2010/2011.

I do hesitate to mandate that our athletes spend any amount of time out there coaching, and paying them to do that, for two reasons:

1. Many of our athletes are already out doing that anyway, on their own, as a way to augment their own income, and I don't want to cannibalize their efforts.

2. I want to be respectful of their time, and ultimately we want to compensating our athletes to perform on the water. We have a really tight focus right now and I don't want to lose that. If we start adding lots of other "stuff" to their plates, life for our athletes could become even more demanding and confusing than it already is.

But my bottom line answer is that your idea is a good one. We are rolling out a similar idea this year, combining a speaking event with junior clinics/talks. We think it will be a win for all involved... the clubs, our athletes and our national program.

Thanks for the idea. Happy to keep chatting about it if you want to push back a bit.

Dean

I hardly qualify as a great mind, but thanks for the benefit of doubt.

Good to hear that something like this is under consideration / pilot. A couple of suggestions:

• I would package this less as a speaking tour and more as a clinic tour. It may simply be an issue of how you market and present the events, and have no impact on the planned agenda but if you stress the clinic aspect of it the event is more interesting to the kids, and the parents will see value coming to their children and give credit to US Sailing for that. If you lead with the "speaking" part of it in the marketing of the event the kids will be less interested and those adults that are cynical might just view it as a PR move.
  
• I would include 1 or 2 "test" sites this year where you do it with one athlete and not the 2 - 3 person teams that you speak of here. Reason being is that if this concept is to get real traction, you can't sustain a large schedule of these events and haul 2 or 3 athletes to each event... instead you will need to be able to send one person to a club or organization and have them be able to pull off the event with nothing but remote logistical support from your home office. If you stick to the 2-3 person format you will never be able to do more than a relatively small handful of events in any given year. If you do 1 person events then you will be able to cover a much larger universe of events.
  
• You may want to consider offering your atheletes speaking / media coaching as a value added benefit for participating in this program. That will help them learn the skills to speak in front of different types of audiences and formats which will help these events be successful, but also will give them skills to use for the rest of their lives.
  
• I agree with your comment about not wanting to infringe on their own income generating coaching. Perhaps the answer is to be careful to avoid asking them to do any events in their home waters / club? Also, by virtue of the fact that you will only ask them to do a limited number of these and do them as larger clinics, it will limit any impact on their own earning efforts and maybe even serve as an opportunity for them to market their own coaching services.
  
• I agree with your concerns about not wanting to distract them or cause them to lose focus. Perhaps if you limit the "ask" of them to a very tight number of events in any given year. I don't know what the number is, but 4 sounds reasonable. 4 days in return for everything else? I would make that trade, personally (just in case the Class 40 is ever an Olympic class!)
  

Just some thoughts.

 

[dmbrenner]

Would it be possible for your website to offer an RSS feed of your news to make it easier to get news from your website?

Yep... working on it within our template design.

Dean

 

[dmbrenner]

dean,this is a laser specific question, not sure if it applys to other classes. ive noticed that some of our top folks can completely dominate here in the states, like win the NA's or finish top 3 in a major (or top 10 at sail melbourne in AUS), and then they head to europe and cant manage a top 50 at a holland regatta or at Semaine Olympique Française or Kiel. This has happened for many years. Is the talent gap really that wide, and european fleets that deep or what? Does it hurt that the US talent is spread over such a wide geographic area, thus making it hard to get all the talent together in one location for anything besides MOCR and NA's/Nat's?

cheers,

PG

ps-

keep up the great work. USTAG seems to definitely be a bright spot at USSA these days...

I'll both agree and disagree with your point. I agree that any serious Laser sailor needs to get outside the USA to really sail against the best. Our whole program funding model incentivizes and mandates that our sailors get outside of the USA to compete.

But I'll disagree that our sailors can't manage a top 50. We've seen some good results last quad from Andrew Campbell and Brad Funk, and Clay Johnson is starting to make some noise now.

The biggest mistake we see is young sailors convincing themselves that college laser sailing is a prep for international laser sailing. They are two very different animals, and the college laser scene is not really connected in any significant way to the international laser scene. To become a top international laser sailor, you really need to be in ridiculous physical condition, and sail in large fleets on long courses a lot. If the best college laser sailor in the country ignored international laser sailing during his college career, and then came out and wanted to win a medal at the Games, he is realistically a minimum of five years away from even having a prayer.

We think the solution is to combine the two. We don't encourage people to skip college sailing because we see value there. But we also think it is a mistake to completely ignore olympic sailing. We see more and more sailors having goals for college sailing and olympic sailing, and those types of sailors are gravitating towards college programs that are open-minded to both types of goals.

This is a longer conversation, but a good one. Thanks for bringing it up.

Dean

 

[dmbrenner]

Hello Dean
The events have yet to be determined beyond the next cycle. How do you think about junior training and development at the top of the pyramid in this situation? Specifically, are you banking on the 5 discipline solution in your training program? Are sailors slotted for an event at an early stage?

Multihulls are out for the next cycle 2012 and while some in ISAF have decided that this was a mistake and should be corrected as soon as next year with decisions on events for 2016. The situation is fluid. What is your thinking on the junior multihull pipeline and training?

US Multihull classes are a fractious lot and we don't have many Yacht Clubs that we could point to as a center of excellence for Multihull racing. In this enviorment.... the junior program is the Hobie 16 Class Association junior NA's and the CISA clinics in CA. What guidance would you give the cat sailing clubs as to the kind of program that could produce elite sailors in 6 years?

Personally, I believe that what's needed is a cross training program that gives accomplished junior sailors an exposure to multihulls and olympic caliber coaching in high performance sailing at key stages in their sailing development. If the speed bug bites and they see the chance for success... who knows... another Smyth or Lovell could emerge. I have no idea how to build such a program. Thoughts on the idea and way forward?

(Can I repost your answers on the catamaran formum catsailor?)

Tcatman

Hey there... happy to have post this elsewhere as long as you commit to posting our entire exchange, and not pull out bits and pieces. OK? I want people to see the full context of our discussion. I'm trusting you on this one!

So here's our philosophy on this topic, and it's a great question. We no longer think of athletes in terms of the types of boats they sail. We don't develop laser sailors, or 470 sailors or board sailors or multi-hull sailors. Rather, we are working hard to think about training "olympic" sailors. We think there are certain skill sets and personality traits that are required for olympic success, and if the sailor has those things there are probably multiple types of boats they could succeed in. Take Lovell and Ogletree. Were they trained from a young age to be multi-hull sailors? No. They just raced, lots of types of boats as much as they could, and eventually gravitated towards a niche that worked for them. I've convinved that those two guys could have and would have been olympians in other types of boats if they had decided to pursue another event. They had what it took to be olympians.

The Brits are a good model here... they have successfully moved athletes around a few times from class to class, and those athletes have continued to succeed. Why? In my opinion because those athletes are committed, and know how to succeed at that level.

We do make some decisions based on the equipment currently being used at the Games, but our true goal is to develop athletes, not class-specific sailors.

Make sense?

Great question. Thanks.

Dean

 

[laserichard]

thanks for your response, dean.

ps- any shot you could encourage some of your fellow USSA colleagues that run other departments to come on these boards and engage the vast SA readership in the open and honest way you have? that would be very cool.

 

[waterboy]

bump