Dan"The Man" Russell's visits THS and shares more than just wrestling

This past weekend I was fortunate to host one of my personal heroes at my home. Coach Dan Russell visited Maple Valley last weekend to put on a clinic for our wrestlers and help prepare several of my boys for the pre season nationals in Iowa this Saturday. For those of you that don’t know coach Russell I should probably give a brief bio. Besides being a man of faith and pastor of the Four Square Church in Battle Ground Washington, he was a 4X NCAA national Champion for Portland State, Greco Roman World Champion, Olympian, and currently on staff with the USA wrestling national team. Additionally, he is one of the most gifted and animated clinicians in the country and I love watching him work. One of my goals as a coach in our community is to expose our athletes to national and world level coaches. I love the fact that our middle school and high school wrestlers in Maple Valley had the opportunity to not only learn wrestling moves from this world class clinician, but to listen to his stories about believing in your dreams and how to motivate yourself in during tough times. Dan tells great stories about his youth, college and international wrestling career and the tales always comes back to two essential questions that Dan thinks all athletes have to ask themselves: “Have I given my best effort in preparation for this competition and am I ready to go out there and do my best?” According to Dan, if you can answer yes to both questions you have already won and you are already a champion. I love the message related to the questions and one of my program goals this year is to get all coaches in the Maple Valley wrestling community to share the message and questions with our wrestlers. I want our wrestlers to not only take Dan's questions and use them to help prepare for there athletics, but for their challenges and competions off the mat as they prepare for life outside of school.


Though I have seen Dan put on clinics before, I have not had an opportunity to visit and converse with him until last Friday night. After sharing a meal with my family, we sat in the kitchen and shared wrestling and coaching stories for a while. Our conversation started by discussing the upcoming wrestling season and how tough THS wrestling is going to be. Coach Russell follows 4A wrestling in our state closely and wanted to discuss the process that the THS wrestling program has gone through over the past 6 years to be in a position to contend for a state title this year. One of the first things I identified for him is that fact that there is a lot of support for wrestling in our community and we have great programs in place for all ages and skill levels of wrestlers. As I answered his questions and followed up with questions of my own, I realized that we were talking less and less about wrestling and more about making gains and improvements at a systems level. At the end of the conversation, I was energized and excited about the direction of the Maple Valley wrestling program and about the work I am doing as a teacher and leader in our learning community. It is not enough to be a good coach or teacher if your goal is to make significant and lasting gains consistently; you have to have both program support and an effective system. I feel good about the fact that I am in the correct system and programs as a coach and educator in relation to the professional and personal goals I have set for myself.

The High School Wrestling Season is only 18 days away,

GO BEARS!

Tahoma Sr HS Maple Valley Wa Homecoming Week 2009

THS homecoming is this week and there is lots going on in our school. Today was our annual coronation assembly and I was excited to see what the staff and students put together for the community. This year’s theme is Harry Potter. Each year our activities coordinator and a horde of student and parent volunteers transform our gym into something from another world. This year was no different; the coronation assembly went well and the students did a great job decorating and scripting the coronation. Our staff was well represented in the production as well. Ann Hobson and Mike Jackson were excellent MC’s and Mr. Hagg made a great Haggert from the Harry Potter series. All three teachers made their characters come to life.

For me, the students’ musical performances put this year’s coronation over the top. I told our activity coordinator, Dave Peters, and several students that this was my favorite homecoming assembly in the nine years I have worked at THS. After reflecting on why I enjoyed this assembly so much I realized that all the effort and energy I saw displayed today was an affirmation that we are moving in the right direction as we try to improve the levels of respect, engagement and relationships.

Two student musical groups performed together today and I feel like the musicians were a great example of the “One School” message and initiative students and staff are working toward this year. "Afterward" is a rock/punk band and "Knuckles Impact" is a rap group that at first glance does not seem to have much in common besides a love for music. Last year both groups performed separately and did so very well but this year we were surprised with a collaborative effort. Though the groups taste in music and other interests are very different, they took the time to develop relationships that allowed them to take something that was already good and make it even better. I really appreciated the risk they took and the energy they committed to homecoming week.

Tomorrow is Toga day and we have the Fall Fling celebration to support homecoming week. I am looking forward to the staff Sumo wrestling matches that are going to take place in the name of “One School”.

Thank you to the graphic arts students that worked on the "One School" logo at the top of this post.

power point for Deliberate Practice- Moving from Good to Great!

I forgot to add the power point that I referenced in my last blog . Here you go.
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Level Of Practice

View more presentations from chris feist.

Deliberate Practice- Moving from Good to Great!

I spoke to two different coaches this week regarding what it takes to move a team forward and to accomplish shared goals. Both coaches’ answers were influenced by the work that has been done within our school system to move closer to classroom 10 learning. The 1st coach shared his new practice template with me and I was surprised to see that he had basically taken the classroom 10 handout that we all received at THS during our last half day and reworked it so it applied to his basketball practices. Pretty cool stuff!




I was even more impressed the next day when another coach sent me a power point to help me answer the question of “how do we move from good to great?”



During a conversation I had with Coach Burnham last week while we were driving kids to Ellensburg for a practice, we identified our athletes’ practice effort and intensity as an area that we would like to improve. Don’t get me wrong, I was pleased with our team's 4th place finish at the state wrestling tournament last year but we can do better. If our boys are truly going to have the opportunity to win it all this year, changes to my practice plans and coaching style need to be made. During the drive to Eburg( GO WildCats!), Doug pointed out that the technique we teach is good but we had neglected to teach them skills that will elevate their level of practice to a championship level( aka Tahoma Style practice room )



Three days later I received an email with an awesome power point presentation on Deliberate Practice from Doug. The power point presentation is going to help both the wrestling team and a group of student athletes that our athletic director and I are working with this year on leadership and influencer skills.



My point is, both the practice plan and power point that the two educators/coaches created were influenced by the “planning templates, influencer strategies, system thinking, and the capacity to engage in skillful conversations” that are a major piece of what makes us Tahoma.



GO BEARS!!!!

special thanks to my friend coach Burnham for creating the poster on this post and also for inspiring me to be a better coach!