Sailing in College

John Vandemoer, Stanford Head Sailing Coach, gave a talk on sailing in college. John's talk was very informative, for both the parents and sailors. Some major take-aways:

• look at www.collegesailing.org to see the different college team examples from across the country to do your first filter.
• Contact coaches by the winter of your junior year (sophomore for Ivy League). When contacting them be succinct and to the point (they're overwhelmed with the amount of requests from students, make it easy for them).
• Do "extra curricular" sailing, get out of your area, compete and train with a bigger pool of sailors to get better and get more exposure.
• Sail multiple boats, be well rounded.

Some examples of clinics from around the country:

• CISA Clinic: Elite level, Resume based. CFJ, C420, 29er, Radial, I420
• Neill Clinic: Advanced Level. C420. http://neilladvancedsailingclinic.com
• Brooke Gonzalez Clinic: Elite Level, Resume based. C420, Radial, I420, Bytes, F16.http://www.sailnewport.org/clinics/gonzalezclinic
• Regional Clinics: associated per class, and per National Championship. Ida Lewis: Women's Doublehanded National Championship
• Leiter Cup: Women's Singlehanded National Championship
• Sears Championship: Triple handed Junior Championship
• Bemis Championship: Double Handed Junior Championship
• Smythe Championship: Single Handed Junior Championship
• Northern CA Championship: (hosted by PYSF!) http://www.club420.org/calendar/calendar_list.php

No one gets "good" by simply hoping it so. Like anything you would like to succeed in, you must plan ahead and make a commitment. Make a commitment to yourself, your team, your parents, etc. Lay out some big picture goals you would like for your sailing career in the next 2-3 years. Then plug in the steps needed to attain those. I am happy to help you come up with the missing pieces. But you must come up with a plan in the first place. When you watch a committed athlete work on their sport, it's amazing how quickly the improvement comes.