Below is the email we received from Ross, nominating Joanne as our Elite Sportswear Coach of the Week.
Hi Jason,
Here is a nomination for your coach of the week program. My son and daughter both train with the club.
The Greater Edmonton Racing Canoe and Kayak club is a small but very dedicated group of children, youth and adults who are strongly held together by their coach, Joanne Devlin-Morrison. Joanne guides and trains her athletes as if they were Olympians, which she someday hopes they are. Her dedication to her athletes is immense and includes; setting up weekly programs for her athletes which includes both paddling and dry-land training. She is present for all 11 training sessions a week (2X a day during the week and a long Saturday practice), often with her 2 children in tow.
During the winter she travels to the locations that the athletes use for weight training, making sure that they are doing everything in a safe and productive manner as well as leading them in cardio activities including cross country skiing, trail running and swimming. During the summer there are very few regattas in the Edmonton area, consequently Joanne needs to travel with the team to these events. This year alone the team travelled to Seattle, New York, B.C. twice, Saskatoon, Regina twice, Ontario and Halifax. Again she often went to these events, living out of a hotel room, with her own children joining her.
The sport also has the unique challenge of that everywhere you go you need to take your boats with you, and they are not easy to transport. Often this task also falls to Joanne. Following the trip out to Ontario Joanne finished off the trip by spending almost a week on the road driving the trailer full of boats back to Alberta. In Edmonton she often has a boat or two strapped to the roof of her car transporting them between the river and a small lake used for training. Joanne is a talented, upbeat individual who brings the best out of her athletes. The athletes she works with are a very diverse group that includes everything from children who have never paddled before up to para-olympic athletes competing at world championships, and every athlete in between.
I hope you consider Joanne for your coach of the week.
Ross Ehalt
Congratulations, Joanne!
If you would like to nominate a deserving coach, email gregor@theteam1260.com
