All Sport Academy - How Good Do You Want To Be Today?

As I’ve written a few times, my youngest son, Derek, is a pretty good high jumper. Fortunately for me, I’ve been able to help him along his path for the last couple of years and like any father I like to help him with the things that you can only know if you’ve done something yourself. I’ve tried to teach him when to warm up, when to stretch, what height to come in the competition at, how to keep warm between jumps, etc., etc., etc. It’s been fun for us, but I know he rolls his eyes at me a lot (don’t all teenagers?).

When I jumped in both high school and college I was that lone guy wandering around the infield talking to myself (everyone knows high jumpers are flaky…), listening to music with full sweats and a stocking hat on, even if it was 90 degrees out. I had my routine before I jumped, I had my superstitions, I had my music… Bottom line was that I was weird, there’s no denying it. But, in my defense, it worked for me. So, here I am trying to get my son to follow along with some of the things I believe are good, warming up, staying focused, keeping loose, etc. Today, pretty much all my thoughts on what should work for him got thrown out the window and I learned something pretty important, to let the kid be himself and enjoy the ride.

Once again they started the high jump competition as the 4×400 relay was just finishing. If you’ve been to any high school track meet you know that this means that the meet is basically over. Because of this, the entire team was in the infield, standing next to the high jump pit (it was the only thing going on). I was in a semi-panic as his friends were standing right next to him talking to him as he was standing ready to jump. I keep mumbling that someone needed to get them away, let him focus, stop talking to him… As he cleared height after height I could see the interaction between the group get more animated and he seemed more and more relaxed with each jump (I on the other hand got more and more tense). When he cleared 6′, which was a new personal record, he calmly jumped out the of the pit, jogged back to his friends to a mob of high-fives, chest bumps and screams (there were a few girls there too). To see the look on his face and the way his teammates carried on you’d have thought he just won the state meet, but his jumping parter, Sean Lease, cleared 6′2″ to win the competition. Yeah, that 6′ mark is a big one for a high jumper, but as far as I’m concerned it wasn’t the most important thing that came out of that meet. Derek took the next step in his career as a jumper and it was really fun to see his teammates make a big deal out of it for him. Derek’s coach (yeah, that would be me) took an even bigger step as a coach today by learning that we need to let our athletes be themselves and not carbon copies of what we think works. Every athlete is different, every athlete has to find their own style and way of doing things and when it all comes together, big things happen. I’m just glad I was there to see it…

A million years ago my wife and I went to high school together (of course, we weren’t married then, but we did date…). We were both three-sport athletes, one of which was track and field. We both continued our love of the track after high school as I high jumped in college and she was head girls track coach at a high school in Michigan and then later was the head boys and girls track coach at a high school in Wisconsin. In other words, we’ve spent a day or two on a track between us.

In high school one of the big meets we used to compete in was the Prairie du Chien Invitational. We loved going there because there were a lot of schools and they gave medals for placing. Of course, to this day she rolls her eyes when I talk about it because the medals the boys got were, as we like to say, the size of a garbage can lid and the medals the girls got were the size of a silver dollar. Anyway, the point is, the Prairie Invite was always a highlight of our track season and we small-town farm kids loved our garbage-can lid medals!

When I went off to college I found myself in a similar situation I had in high school, my school wasn’t fortunate enough to have a track. As a high jumper, I found myself working out on the basketball court in high school and when I got to Columbia we had an old gym that we could work out in, but most of the time we hopped into vans and went to Randall Island to jump at Downing Stadium.

Skip to the beginning of track season in 2006. My youngest son decides he wants to go out for track instead of baseball and both my wife and I are thrilled, we are going back to the track! Derek has been very successful in his brief career, but he’s in high school now and the slate’s wiped clean…

Last weekend everything sort of hit me, where we’ve been, were we are and where we’re going. When the schedule came out I looked at it and saw a familar place, Randall Island. Downing Stadium isn’t there anymore, it’s been replaced by Icahn Stadium (”Fast Times, Fast Pace, This IS the Place”, say that 400 times and you’ll know what we went through on Saturday…). We jumped in the car and drove up the Turnpike, over the George Washington Bridge, by Yankee Stadium (both Yankee Stadiums), over the Triborough Bridge and onto Randall Island. As we pulled up I remember going there like it was yesterday and it brought back a lot of really great memories, but as we pulled up I also remember thinking, “We’re Not in Prairie du Chien Anymore Toto…” You see, for us to get to Prairie from Fennimore (yeah, we lived in the sticks, I admit it), you basically drive 30 miles through farm land. On the way you go through two or three towns with no more than 200 people in them and I think Prairie has about 4,000. There are no baseball stadiums, there are no toll booths, there are no skyscrapers in the background. There are cows, there are corn fields and there is the smell of farmland USA (yes, we love Wisconsin…). As we sat 50 rows up in the stadium and looked down at the nine-lane, all-weather track, I couldn’t help but realize how much better our son has it than we did. We didn’t have a track, he’s got one of the nicest in the area at South Brunswick. We didn’t get to wear spikes at meets for the most part because most of the tracks in the early 80s in our area were asphalt, he gets to wear spikes in practice and every meet they go to (and he’s wearing my prize possession, my spikes, with signatures of four Olympic high jumpers on them). We went to Prairie du Chien, he’s jumping on Randall Island were Jessie Owens won the 1936 Olympic Trials in front of President Roosevelt and Pele played his first soccer game in the United States in 1975. I only got to practice in our high school gym and only during track season, he works out at ASA or at a track practically year-round. My dad and high school coach (Coach Vince Lease, best coach I ever had!) used to stand in the exact same area at each meet because of some superstition they had (but didn’t tell me about until I graduated), his dad just video tapes and tries to coach him after every jump, before every jump, when to loosen up, when to start, etc., etc., etc… Come to think of it, I win that one, my dad was way cooler than his dad will ever be…

To say that I’m jealous would be and understatement! To say that we are looking forward to the next four years would be a gross understatement…

Just about anyone that’s been in our gym knows that I have a small group of young high jumpers that I work with. There are three freshmen and a sophomore, all very talented, all with huge potential as jumpers. As I’ve written before, my son, one of those jumpers, has already had a lot of success and is the “experienced” one of the group with his two years of school and AAU/USATF experience. The rest have no more than two years experience and are working hard to improve their jumping skills with me and their leaping ability with our strength coach, J.R. Papernik. I like to tell them that I’ll get them to the bar, JR will get them over the bar…

Anyway, this weekend we had another one of our jumpers move up the ranks as Brooke Sassman (South Brunswick freshman) finished tied for second place in the Central Group IV Sectional in Toms River. Brooke has worked with us now for almost a year and I can’t even begin to express the transformation this young woman has had as a jumper in that short period of time. By finishing second in the Sectional meet she qualified for the Group IV State meet this weekend, again in Toms River, and I think she’s got a great shot at finishing in the top six there which would send her to the Meet of Champions.

As I told Brooke yesterday, the months of hard work will all be worthwhile when she steps on the track on Saturday to compete. So was seeing her name on the Jumbotron at the Bennett Center!

Speaking of the Bennett Center, if you have any interest in track, you have to see this place. Toms River Regional Schools built a bubbled track complex between and Elementary School and a Middle School that is just unbelievable. I’m trying to comprehend how and why they built it since it doesn’t look like they’ll be able to use it for winter workouts for baseball, softball, etc., but I could be wrong (I’m not guessing they are going to let baseballs fly around in there with that Jumbotron positioned where it is…). It had to have cost a small fortune to build it and to keep the bubble up and heat the place can’t be cheap. It’s amazing and I’m glad they have it, I just hope it’s successful.

There are occasions (not very often, thankfully) that I find myself wondering if the ridiculous hours I put in here at the gym are worth it. I wonder if the efforts of our instructors are appreciated, if they are beneficial, if the athletes they are training appreciate what they do for them. I wonder if those that come in to work out are getting anything out of what they do here and I wonder if having All Sport Academy open is a good thing. Usually those thoughts last about 3 seconds and I realize that it’s probably just sleep deprivation… Then, something happens to remind me just why we do what we do, in the last couple of days, I was fortunate enough to have two such events.

On Sunday I was having a discussion with a young lady about her new helmet as she waited her turn to hit. If I’m not mistaken, she’s 11 playing on a 12u team. We were discussing some of the helmets I’ve seen lately that have been airbrushed by a local artist and a few other things. She called her mom over so I could tell her about it and she jumped in the cage. As I spoke to her mom, I watched her take 15 swings or so. When she finished she came bouncing up to her mom all excited about how well the round in the cage was, speaking about a thousand words a minute, smiling from ear to ear. She finished with mom and ran over to her friends still thrilled. So I said something to her mom about it being nice to see her so excited, to which she said her too since she’s had some rough times with softball and it seems like she’s finally starting to really enjoy it and things are coming together for her from all the hard work she’s put in. It’s funny how hitting a few softballs in a cage can make a young girl that excited, but it’s fun to see a young girl get so excited from just hitting a few softballs…

Yesterday my son had a basketball game at JP Stevens. We knew the track team was there as well and I had hoped to catch one of the girls that has been working out here with us. I figured they were outside and it wasn’t going to work, but as we were leaving I noticed a few girls walking into another gym. Knowing that only a couple of events are usually held in a gym I thought I’d see if she might be in there. Turns out they were just starting the high jump and she was about to take her first jump. As the event progressed I made a prediction as to what she was going to jump based on what I was seeing in her early jumps, a prediction that would have her beating her personal best by 4 inches. As she made consecutive jumps is was clear that this was going to be one of those days you remember for a long time as jump after jump she seemed to get more comfortable. When she cleared her first jump for a personal best, she flew off the pit and was met by a few teammates with the typical teenage girl screams and hugs. When she made the next height (the height I predicted), it was a mad house. The best part was that she actually cleared the next height but brushed the bar off with her heals on the way over, which tells me that she’s going to have an amazing 2008 on the track. As her coach, I was thrilled that I was able to be there to see the pay off from the year of incredibly hard work that this young woman has put in to improve her skills and physical strength. It was even better to see how excited she was after, to get her text messages and to get the phone call from her mom how excited they all were…

That why we do it. That’s why we put in the time and effort. That’s the pay off we get.

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve written, it’s been incredibly busy here at ASA now that everyone is getting inside for winter workouts. Not only that, but we’ve got a million new things happening here, so I figured I should write about it all.

Baseball - First of all, we have two new baseball instructors, Ron Sutter and Andre Harris. Ron’s been doing lessons here for a few months, Andre only about a month and a half. Both guys come to ASA with a wealth of knowledge and experience and both guys are amazing instructors. Ron’s background is varied as he was a head coach, an athletic trainer, an athletic director, an instructor with the New York Yankees Youth Clinics (at Yankee Stadium!) and has been doing private lessons for about 25 years. He’s currently a principal in Brick, so he’s yet another professional teacher that we have on staff. Ron will be holding his annual baseball school at ASA starting January 19th, the nine-week school will meet twice a week for an hour and 15 minutes.

Andre Harris is an ex professional player that was most recently in the New York Mets organization (AAA). He’s played in the Minnesota Twins system and was on the Yankees spring training roster in ‘04 before an unfortunate car accident put him out of the game for a couple of years. Andre’s done lessons since ‘02 and has a steadily growing group he’s working with at ASA. Andre and Ron are currently planning our summer clinics and classes.

ASA is also forming 8u, 10u and 12u teams to play tournaments and games in ‘08.

Softball - Jodie Ricciardi, ASA’s softball coordinator, has recently finished a four week hitting clinic and has scheduled another one for January (10th thru 31st). Jodie’s been doing more and more lessons at ASA and will be working with a number of teams and individuals over the winter months. She’s also in the process of planning ASA’s summer softball camps and clinics.

Mixed Martial Arts - ASA is home to the NJ Combat Club, which is a competitive fight team. We’ve had three guys compete in the recent Grapplers Quest and have two guys competing this coming weekend in kickboxing matches in Rahway. At Grapplers Quest NJCC came home with two second places and a third place! The team trains three days a week at ASA and has grown to 15 members in two months. Head trainer and co-owner Tony Andreocci was recently certified by Shawn Tompkins as a trainer and affiliate of Team Tompkins Katsudo Fight Systems.

Wrestling - ASA has joined up with the recreation departments of New Brunswick and North Brunswick to start rec. wrestling programs for both communities. As a first year program we are looking to just get the group started and teach basic wrestling skills. We hope to get involved with a wrestling league, but will just pick up matches with local towns as we can. Coaches Chris Marshall and Jason McLean are both head wrestling coaches at local high schools (Marshall at Asbury Park and McLean at New Brunswick)

Cheerleading - The ASA Dragons Cheerleading squad has recently formed and will be competing in cheer competitions in ‘08. Coach Nicole Cecchini will lead the Dragons.

Soccer - Louis Ken-Kwofie has recently joined the ASA instructors crew and will be offering individual and team soccer training. Louis formerly played professional soccer in Europe and was a member of the MetroStars in the 90s.

Track - ASA will start a track club in the spring so that the athletes that are training here can compete as a team in the ‘08 AAU and USATF track meets. We currently have four high jumpers training here that all have tremendous potential to be amazing jumpers over their high school careers. ASA’s own, Derek Forthun (yes, my son), finished the ‘07 season officially ranked 19th in the USA in his age group by an independent ranking organization, which qualified him for All-American status. His middle school record jump of 5′9″ would move him up to a tie for 12th place in the country, but because school meets aren’t recognized, it’s wasn’t accepted. We believe the four jumpers (three freshmen and a sophomore) we have will not only do well in the summer meets but will compete for points in their counties. We are looking for more athletes to join the ASA track club in any event, as we get members, we’ll bring in coaches.

Personal Training and weightlifting clubs - ASA strength and conditioning instructor JR Papernik will be starting a weightlifting club. Individuals interested in Olympic lifting or Powerlifting are welcome to join the group. JR is a former NJ State record holder in the bench press and has trained numerous lifters.

Misc. - As many know, we’ve brought in a variety of pieces of equipment here at ASA to allow us to offer different items to our clients. We have embroidery, screen printing, photo enlargements, full color banners and recently purchased equipment to make a variety of personalized items such as plaques, mouse pads, car license plates, clocks, etc