I received this email from Sheri Bain, head coach of Northland Preparatory Academy in Flagstaff Arizona. Gold Medal Squared works with Northland Prep during the summer months. Their coaching staff also attended our clinic at Arizona State University this past January. I asked Sheri if we could share her story in our blog, and she kindly gave us permission…

We receive a lot of questions from coaches who work with Junior High athletes (or younger). Often times coaches wonder if the way they coach should change based on age and gender. Clearly different age groups and genders require different styles from an emotional standpoint. However, from a teaching standpoint not much changes. You can use GMS keys with Olympic athletes or 7th graders. This week we received an email from a clinic client that confirms just that……

GMS would like to say congratulations to Western Nebraska Community College head coach Giovanna Melo for winning the 2010 NJCAA National Championship. Giovanna has been a close friend to GMS for many years, and we are thrilled to see her accomplish this goal. Congrats!!

Fall is always an exciting time for us at Gold Medal Squared. Once the summer camp season ends our focus turns to helping clients achieve success during their high school seasons. We work with a variety of different types of programs each year. Some schools seem like all they know how to do is win State Championships, while others are working hard to build their foundation. Some of our clients have been coaching for 30 years, while others are just getting started. Our goal is to understand each program’s history, and then offer our assistance accordingly.

Dr. Carl McGown, co-founder of Gold Medal Squared, has been selected to the AVCA Hall of Fame in its eighth class.

Chances are if you are reading this blog, you have seen some of our recent efforts to further the reach and connectivity of the Gold Medal Squared community.  We recently launched a new website – GMSChamps.com – to highlight the teams that have been using the GMS systems, and follow some of their successes.

For five years we have been lucky to have Rosie (and Jerry) Honl attend coaching clinics with us in both Washington and Malibu. She has done a wonderful job with her teams, but this year was a special year for her, her players, and the school. She was kind enough to send us a short summary of the season:

Congratulations to Kevin Ring, men’s head coach at UCSD for being named the MPSF Coach of the Year. The MSPF release is here. To follow that up, Kevin also received the Volleyball Magazine Coach of the Year award as well.

We received reports from a number of camp and clinic clients that have had amazing results in their 2008 seasons. If your program won a championship in 2008 or if you simply have a success story to share, we’d love to hear from you.