Coaching Structure

[tommyc]

Is it time some kind of coaching structure was put in place worldwide for the benefit of future developement of young players and enhancement of the game??.

[Alan Millhone]

Hi Tommy:

In the past I have advocated being a mentor to younger players. Forthe past two years the ACF has held a youth tournament sponsored by Mr. Victor Niederhoffer in memory of his Father. I found a great opportunity at both youth events to be a mentor and the opportunity to encourage the youth in attendance. In the mid 60's an older man took me under his wing and beat me hundreds of games , then when I got a couple of books from Tommie Wiswell he took me to our County Courthouse to play the better players in the boiler room there. One older player stil lstands out in my mind, Mr. Eddie Block . When he had me beat he had a coffee can under the table the board rested upon full of loose pieces. He would proceed to shake the can from under the table when he had me beaten. While in college I met Mr. Blynn T. Shafer and he was a true mentor and coach. he took a genuine interest in me as a developing player and as a person. He taught me many qualities of being a better player and a better person. He has been departed many years, and I still miss him and his lovely wife Jaunita. I have all his letters in my archives and will always treasure them. I now mentor to my two younger grandsons. Mentoring can be thru Checkers or other places. They both play soccer on teams and I am always stressing being a good sport in winning or in losing their games. Tommie is on the right track for us older players taking the time to reach out to our youth. All of us can mentor at any local tournament where we encounter a youth player. At the recent Illinois Ty. a younger interent player attended forthe first time and won the " B " group . The tourney organizers had been given the Checker books that belonged to the late Mr. Bill Henson to sell and raise money for the Illinois Association. I saw this young man looking at the books and I picked one out for him and bought it for him. He was quite pleased and asked about joining the ACF. I gave him a sample bulletin to have to review and consider joining. There are many ways each of us can mentor ......................................

Sincerely:
Alan Millhone, President
American Checker Federation
" Attracting and keeping youth in Checkers is the future of our game"
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Checkers------- " The mind sport alternative to video games "
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[tommyc]

Thanks Alan for you reply ,altho mentoring is a good thing and as you say many of us do from time to time and there is alot to be said for this.Well at least its something but usually of a short term one off, but with little back-up or continuity. As you say buy someone a book or show them lil things here and there and prob never see them again.

The intention is good and is to be applauded but does it go far enough, has it got lasting substance...im not so sure.!

What i really had in mind was a step further and some type of proper conviction and commitment on the part of us who know better to provide the opportunity to fast-track if you like the younger or new players.

If you think abt it we as an organisation are amongst the few who, who dont have structure running thru our game in this way.

Books are fine but mostly a maze of numbers, that in itself is a massive hurdle to cross for the uninitated.

With all the techniclogical advances the world has become small ,and we are not so far apart if the will was there , but is it?

Sometimes people will say with some kind of deluded pride "we are a non-profit organisation".....it does make me laugh that we could be so naive in the 21 st century to still walk this way.

You may well ask what is wrong with that.......being in business for yourself like i am (and have been all my life).......you know well without profit you cant improve or build a better business and any organisation is no different.

You may ask where is all this leading, your idea of a corporate sponsor is great but they are not hanging abt waiting to give us there hard earned without good reason.

In my opinion we need profit to re-invest into our game be it thru the hiring of coaching pple or other ideas to lift the profile of checkers in general. This may be one way to project a better image and as they say!"Image is Everything" nowadays.

The other option is to just go on our mealy mouth way as our fore-fathers done..thats the choice.!!

Denver or bust.

[Patrick Parker]

what are the ideas for improvement?