Friday, October 26, 2012
The Smoke Signal
www.thesmokesignal.org
Sports 27
Valerie Saito: Model Coach By Hannah Shih Staff Writer
Valerie Saito, the coach of the MSJ Gym-
nastics team, is well known for her excellence in coaching. Her tactful coaching techniques and strong motivating skills have translated into enormous team success, and very happy individual players. The Smoke Signal sat down with Saito to find out more about the model coach’s ideals and practices, as well as the success of the gymnastics team. Smoke Signal: How long and where have you been coaching? Valerie Saito: This is my sixth year coaching for MSJ, and third year as the head coach. I started assistant coaching with the team in 2007. I have over 10 years of experience coaching all together. I started coaching as a part-time job in high school. SS: What gymnastics experience do you personally have? VS: I played in the sport of gymnastics for about seven years. I did recreational gymnastics and then competed for a private club for four years. I love the sport and coaching is a great way for me to stay involved in the sport. SS: What are your coaching strategies? VS: As a coach, I like to push my kids to achieve goals that they may think are out of their reach. I like to focus on personal bests and improving their skills rather than scores and placements at meets. One thing my assistant coach, Laurel Masatsugu, and I constantly remind our team about is to not get caught up on their scores. Scores can fluctuate from meet to meet since judging is subjective. We want our team to focus on making the corrections we’ve been giving them in practice and building upon that. You can only
do gymnastics for such a short time of your life. My hope is that there are things that my team will take with them after they graduate and stop doing gymnastics, things such as having a good work ethic, selfdiscipline, challenging yourself and never giving up. SS: How has your coaching philosophy changed over the years? VS: One thing that I’ve had to adapt to as a coach is the Gymnastics Coach Valerie Saito spots stand. different learning styles of my team. Some girls can make corrections just by me telling them something. Others need a visual to understand what I’m trying to say. Instead of getting frustrated when they aren’t understanding what I’m saying, I try to think of alternative ways to communicate what I’m trying to say. I have had to learn to adapt to different group’s needs. SS: How do you see yourself as a coach?
MSJ wins Elmer Brown Award By Vishak Menon Sports Editor
VS: I think I’m a tough but fair coach. I like to set the standard for my team high and expect a lot from my girls. While I have very high expectations, I like to think of myself as an encouraging coach that supports and cheers on her team. I like to get to know my team on an individual level as well. I want them to know that I care not only about their gymnastics but also about how courtesy melina robinson the rest of their Senior Melina Robinson during a hand- life is going too! One thing I’ve really enjoyed is getting to keep in touch with gymnasts that have graduated from Mission. I’ve been working so long with the team now that some girls have even graduated from college! It makes me feel like I’ve made a difference in their lives when they take the time to keep me updated with what’s going on in their life and the new adventures they’re embarking on. So many of our alumni still have a great affinity for the MSJ Gymnas-
Rock Climbers Ascend to New Heights By Aamir Rasheed Staff Writer When it comes to sports, humans love the x-axis. Soccer, basketball, football, swimming, running, and most other athletics tend to accommodate rather than fight gravity. Rock climbing, however, is one of the few sports that doesn’t fit that mold. MSJ Sophomores Spencer Whaley and Christiaan Wustenhoff travel up and down the y-axis almost 10 hours a week, and compete on a traveling rock climbing team. Whaley first stumbled upon rock climbing eight years ago at his brother’s birthday party, where he experienced his first artificial rock
staff writer jason chen
Athletic Director Tom Thomsen (left) and Principal Sandra Prairie (right) hold the Elmer Brown award banner, which will be displayed in the gym.
On Tuesday, Oct. 16 at the MSJ staff meeting, Gil Lemmon, the commissioner of the North Coast Section, came to present the Elmer Brown Award of Excellence in Academics and Athletics. This award, which was presented to MSJ for the second consecutive year, is given to the school with the most high school championships in combination with outstanding academic performance. Scholarship is important to NCS, and Lemmon stated that more pennants are given annually from NCS for academics than for athletics. This prestigious accolade is named after Elmer Brown, a former NCS commissioner and long time head coach at Santa Rosa High School. Brown was known to be
a strong advocate of combining passion for athletics with an equal fervor for education. With 169 high schools, NCS is the fourth largest conference in California and stretches from MSJ to the south to Del Norte High School in Crescent City to the north. NCS created this award to recognize one school whose performance embodied both athletic and academic excellence. Last year MSJ set a new record of 100 points which were tallied based on athletic championships and academic success. MSJ’s student athletes can stand proud as they continue to keep up the good work and remain serious contenders for next year’s award. ▪
tics team and have come back to visit us at practice or support us at meets. I think this shows how influential and impactful the MSJ Gymnastics team has been on different students’ lives. SS: What is a typical practice like for the MSJ Gymnastics team? VS: Our team practices two hours every day. We start practice in the middle of August and go until the first week of November. Some days, we work out at Washington, the only high school that has gymnastics equipment. And a couple days a week we have the privilege of working out at Bay Aerials, a local club gym. The girls always start with warming up and stretching. During a practice, we try and have the girls work in their groups ( JV, Varsity, Varsity Elite) and get practice time on at least two apparatuses. Practice makes perfect! We have the girls practice lots of skills and routines. We end practice with cardio (to help with endurance for floor routines) or strength conditioning. Sometimes if we have time we will play a game to just blow of some steam and have fun! SS: Has MSJ encountered much success in the gymnastics league? VS: Yes. Since I’ve been coaching with Mission, they have won MVAL’s every year except for one. Last year, one of our gymnasts, Ariel Cheng, won the AA at the MVAL championship meet. I am very proud of the team and all they have accomplished in the past few years. ▪
courtesy spencer whaley
Sophomores Christiaan Wustenhoff (left) and Spencer Whaley (right) are MSJ’s resident rock climbers.
climbing wall. Wustenhoff learned about rock climbing last year through a friend in his freshman P.E. class, who encouraged him to join the rock climbing team. Both Whaley
and Wustenhoff fell in love with the sport the first time they tried it and have been climbing ever since. But it wasn’t an easy beginning. “Kids and adults come into the climbing gym all the time who play football, baseball, and other sports,” said their rock climbing coach and climbing veteran, Jacob Padilla. “After they start climbing with us, they realize it’s a completely new experience that challenges their whole body and mind.” Since they have joined City Beach’s competitive team, Whaley and Wustenhoff have grown to be core members of the team. Wustenhoff placed 23rd at the American Bouldering Series (ABS) Youth Local, which covers the Bay Area. Whaley placed first at the ABS Youth Divisional, which covers the entire West Coast of the US. “There was this one route I could not climb,” said Whaley, describing a memorable experience at the competition. “So I decided to jump up past the hard part, and I ended up skipping the part of the route that was troubling me! It was probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but it worked out.” Whaley and Wustenhoff ’s achievements in their rock climbing careers, however, are not the reason why they enjoy climbing so much. It’s the spiritual and emotional experiences, both on and off the wall, that keep them coming month after month to hard, grueling practices. “The team is smaller; there’s no ball to worry about,” says Wustenhoff, “I like rock climbing because there’s a sense of family when you’re on the team.” The duo plan to rock climb for as long as their bodies will allow it. As for now, they’re focusing on training for this year’s ABS competition. They work off each other during practices and have a cohesive bond that helps them become better climbers. “If we don’t succeed at a competition, but still support one another and have a good day, then that’s all I care about, honestly,” says Padilla. “It’s all about being a team and working together.” ▪