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Summary | Letter from Tom Hollowell | Nov. 2007 team meeting attendees U.S. ORIENTEERING COACHES NAMEDUSOF is hiring Tom Hollowell, Jr as a coach of the Junior and Senior teams, and Eric Bone of the Cascade Orienteering Club as his assistant. The program is starting up right away. Tom started orienteering in Norway as a teenager. He was a member of the USA team to WOC '81 in Switzerland and WOC '83 in Hungary. He lives in Karlstad, Sweden with his wife Tone, a physical therapist. They have three boys. Tom has been both president and elite trainer for OK Tyr, a very large orienteering club in Karlstad. He has also been the USA team leader for the last 4 WOCs. He recently took a new job as the chief of the O'Ringen, Sweden's annual 5-day event. We are very lucky to have him. He will be making regular trips to the U.S. for training camps and to work with individual team members. Eric is well known to all of you. He has been a member of many WOC teams, and he hopes to be a member of many more. He will be assisting Tom in ways that do not conflict with his own competitive plans. We had a good meeting of both teams with Tom and Eric at the U.S. Championships at Quantico in November, 2007. This is a real opportunity to improve over the next couple of years. One of the first things we need to do is make sure that everyone who might be able to benefit from this knows that it is happening, especially our juniors (and their parents) and any club members interested in training and coaching. So I would ask all of you to please pass this information on to members of your club. The first step is to get names and e-mail addresses of interested folks so that we have a way of communicating. For anyone interested, please get in touch with Tom (tom dot hollowell at oringen dot se) and/or me (pg at crocker dot com). Following this are (1) a letter from Tom, (2) a list of who was at the meeting (we have their e-mails addresses and they have already gotten Tom's letter). All athletes interested in this program need to complete an Athlete Evaluation Form (Word doc | html). This is a real opportunity to improve over the next couple of years. Let's take advantage of it. Peter Gagarin PS. Here is a copy of the latest from Tom, to bring you up to date — Hello all! It was nice to meet all of you at the US Champs, even though I didn't get a chance to speak to each and everyone personally. I have started looking at the planning for the coaching program and this mail can be seen as a start-up and initial communication. Although the detailed planning is not set yet, these are the activities I would like to get going during the next year:
In preparation for the first activities, i.e., training camps and individual discussions, I would like everyone who is interested in the coaching program to fill out the Athlete Evaluation Form and send it to me. This will form the basis for the individual discussions and training plans going forward. Get the forms back to me as soon as possible. We don't need to wait until January or February to start this process. For those interested in starting out immediately we can accomplish a lot through e-mail and one or two phone conversations. Let's get going on this! If I don't receive a filled-in document back from you I will assume you are not interested in the coaching program. A couple of other items:
As I said at the meeting in Virginia, a coach is there not to tell you in detail everything you need to do, but to act as a mirror to help you figure out what kinds of things you need to be doing to improve. The keys to a successful coaching program, from the athlete's point of view, are motivation, commitment, and curiosity! We have a great potential in U.S. Orienteering. Let's make some progress both at the National, North American and International levels! I really look forward to working with everyone. Best regards, Here is a list of the folks at the team meeting in November. We have their e-mail addresses. To get on the list, just let us know! Tom Hollowell November 26, 2007 Back to USOF Home |