2017 Annual Awards - New Coach Awards Part 1

The 2017 Annual Awards will take place on 25th November, 6.30pm at JetPark in Auckland.

This week we will look at all the finalists and the nominations for the awards.

The nominations for the New Coach of the year are

• Emma Cormack
• Garth Cleland & Bodean Cowley
• Gary Prentice
• Ian Campion
• Luke Jones
• Quinn Udy

To be eligible for the New Coach award coaches must have been coaching for 2 years or less at any level.

When deciding a judging panel considers the following:

• Coach development - number of modules attended and other learning opportunities taken
• Coach activity - number of hours coached and types of programmes / services offered
• Athlete outcomes - evidence of improving players / teams performances to achieve results
• Coach's impact - influence that the coach has had on participation / membership

The first finalists are Garth Cleland and Bodean Cowley. Garth and Bodean are both part of the Gore Town and Country Club and this is their first year coaching, with them coaching the juniors with some very successful results. Late in 2016 Garth and Bodean actively talked to kids who they could see potential in nominating them for the development squads. They both completed 2 coaching modules this year and Bodean also attended a coaching development course at Sports Southland along with other sports codes coaches. Garth has completed a Growing Leaders course which involved learning team development skills and the growth of leaders.

Over the season Garth and Bodean spent many hours coaching the Development Squads and also our club juniors. Between them they were putting in between 12-25 hours per week (a majority of this was voluntary). This included taking juniors to various tournament and coaching them during their games. They have had a number of improvements in the junior and senior ranks

During the Highlanders series this year Garth and Bodean went to all of the tournaments with 11-14 juniors. 8 of these juniors made the top 20 in Otago and Southland and also taking out 1st, 2nd 3rd and 4th places in the series. One of these juniors also received the personality award.

Garth and Bodean both coached the Eastern development squads and starting with 13 juniors and dropping off to 9 in phase 2. All of the juniors in phase 2 made their respective age group Southland teams. Garth coached the U13 girls and the U15 girls at the South Island Age Groups and both teams came 2nd.

Both Garth and Bodean have had a huge influence on the juniors this year. Their personalities balance out well and they work together extremely well to get the best out of the juniors, this shows in the improvement of their juniors this year.

Congratulations to Garth and Bodean on being a finalist in the New Coach Award.