Hello NCS Coaches,
I’m happy to be able to share with you that North Carolina swimming now has money to support a coach mentor program!
Along with a grant from USA Swimming, NCS is contributing money to reimburse coaches for hotel, food, and travel to and from a location where they spend time with a mentor coach.
- The NCS Coach Mentor program will be offered to all coach members in
NCS who apply to the Coach Rep via email. Following approval by both NCS and the requested mentor coach, applicants will make
arrangements with their mentor coach for the visit. Mentor coaches will be
senior level professionals with 15 years or more experience coaching swimmers who have achieved national level
recognition, or who possess demonstrated skills in the particular technical
field in which the applicant has expressed interest. Examples of specific
areas of focus are:
- Working with novice, entry-level athletes
- Good dryland program
- Running a learn-to-swim program
- Writing workouts for senior level athletes
- Season planning
- Managing a satellite program
- Coaching advanced age-group athletes
- Recruiting new swimmers
- Running the business side of the club
- Moving athletes from Sectionals to Junior Nationals
- Technical skills (teaching specific swimming skills)
- How to become a good head age group coach
- Developing a progressive age group program
- How to make age group practices exciting and fun
- How to help a swimmer with college recruiting
- Length of reimbursed visits will be, at minimum a 1/2 day (lunch/dinner + practice) up to a maximum of 1.5 days (up to 3 meals and 3 practices, plus 1 night’s accommodations assuming the mentoring sessions are more than 1 hour from the mentored coach’s home.) The goal of the visit is to be determined by the mentored coach and the mentor, and a brief outline of the mentoring session(s) will be submitted to the NCS Coach Rep in advance of the visit.
- After the visit, along with their reimbursement request and receipts for transportation, hotel, and food, the mentored coach will provide a brief written report to the NCS Coach Rep. The report will summarize the visit, highlight the learning, and recommend any improvements for the mentoring experience. The NCS Coach Rep will submit approved expenses to the NCS Treasurer for reimbursement and submit the mentored coach’s report to the LSC BOD during a regularly scheduled meeting.
- Reimbursement will be provided for hotel, up to $50 per day for meals prorated for partial days, and $.50 per mile for transportation (distance from mentored coach’s home to mentor coach’s pool as determined by Google Maps.) NCS will provide the mentor coach with a $50 honorarium.
Please let me know if you are interested!
