OVA News

IN PART ONE we detailed how our programming has been influenced by LTAD for the Durham Attack athletes aged 6 to 12. Here, we will be highlighting how LTAD has guided the principles on which our competitive teams are based.
The following are the objectives and goals set out for our competitive teams:

• Try to maintain as broad a base as possible, with as many as three or four teams at the younger girls age levels. The constraint has always been the number of coaches available.
• Attempt to identify athletes based on future potential, not on current ability or physical attributes.
• Deter early specialization. This is an area of focus for the Club. Inherent in our 13U program this year is a strong focus on skill development and teaching all players all skill sets, avoiding specialization. This will continue with the teams as they move through the years.
• Instill a development philosophy in our coaches and in our players and parents. Our Parent Guide has an explicit definition of success: “success is achieved by the development of each individual athlete on the team to his or her maximum potential within the season, and by the team competing and finishing to the best of its ability at Provincials and Nationals.” In other words it is more important to develop through the season than to win every tournament. This is a work-in-progress! Perhaps the biggest challenge is educating the community on the importance of development over winning. Though an injury or two over the course of a season will underline the importance of developing multiple players at every position.
• Run an ‘elite’ camp for our senior players, and bring in OUA university coaches to provide expert coaching and insight into playing at the post-secondary level.

To educate our coaches on the philosophy and values of LTAD, Durham Attack conducted a full day coaching Symposium last Fall. We brought in expert coaches for sessions on skills acquisition, physical training, structuring play, and nutrition, for each LTAD stage. 60 coaches from across Ontario attended. We will repeat the Symposium in 2009.

Our next step is to formalize the skills taught at each level of our competitive teams. We are in the process of defining a skills continuum that will help us to increase the emphasis on development by giving coaches at each level a specific curriculum, and accountability.

Coaching development is another area of concern. We are developing coaches through our players running the recreational programs, and adult coaches who share a similar philosophy, and mentoring of new coaches who enter the club. This will continue to be an area of focus for the next few years.
All teams submit articles to our web site celebrating their successes. In prior seasons we posted a running medal count, but after our September symposium we found this to be contradictory to our goals and it has been removed.

This season we are encouraging physical training at all levels, and making it mandatory at our 17U and 18U levels. Teams train once per week with a volleyball-specific strength and conditioning coach and athletes are expected to execute the training program on other weekdays. This will expand over the next few seasons.

Our accomplishments at Nationals and constant stream of college recruits are evidence of a good developmental system, but one we strive to make better. We are confident that following these guidelines will help each player within the club reach their potential and enjoy the experience within our club.

Share Durham Attack’s LTAD resourses