Parents of athletes in the Cochrane Comets Winter Swim Club are thrilled their head coach, Randi Willisko has been named Development Coach of the Year by Alberta Coaches Council of Swim Alberta.
The presentation was made at the recent 2011 Alberta Aquatic Conference and Banquet.
Sandra Scott, Cochrane Comets board president, said Willisko helps motivate the kids to do their best through her positive, encouraging approach.
“She is hands on, she really gets to know each kid’s individual strengths and weaknesses,” she said. “She is really about sports for life.”
A second time winner, Willisko recently began her third year as head coach with the Comets.
Willisko had great success with the small club of 30 competitive and 30 non-competitive swimmers, advancing technical skills and shaving substantial time off of swimmers’ results.
Under her tutelage, three swimmers qualified and competed in Age Group Nationals last summer in Montreal for the first time in the club’s 18-year history. Ten Comets competed in the Long Course Alberta Age Group and Senior Provincial Championships where the team finished third overall in the small team category.
Willisko also prepared brothers Christian and Stefan Daniel to compete in the Summer Can-Am Para-swimming Championships in Gatineau, Quebec. Christian has been selected to the team to represent Canada in the 2011 Para Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, an event that commences later this month with a staging camp in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Stefan also competed at the Western Canada Summer Games in Kelowna as part of the Team Alberta last August.
The brothers will be competing at the Paralympic Trials in Montreal next March to qualify for the Paralympic Games in London 2012.
Willisko began coaching in Kamloops in 1996 and has been involved with clubs throughout the Okanagan and southern Alberta. She worked for the University of Calgary for six seasons where she was coach of record for an athlete selected to the 2009 IPC World Championships in Rio De Janiero.
On top of her successes, the team, including parents and swimmers, love Willisko.
“She is an amazing coach,” said Jody Dicastri, 13-year-old swimmer Abby’s mom. “She has led our kids to successes that our club had never seen until she came on board. She has a quiet, confident way of guiding these kids.”
Swim parent Donna Matthezing, whose son Connor, 14, earned his first national time allowing him to compete in Montreal last summer, said Willisko has a innate ability to motivate the swimmers.
“She is really on the mindset of the kids for sure and certainly knows them well,” said Matthezing. “My son has never come home and said it was a boring workout. She makes it fun and interesting. Because of her ability to relate to the swimmers, they really dig deep for her.”
Scott said Willisko has inspired passion in her son David, 14.
“My son is very shy and introverted and didn’t think he could do this,” she said. “It is through her that he has decided to do this.”
Scott added the club has really grown under Willisko’s coaching, with many senior swimmers making the decision to train in Cochrane, rather than making the switch to a larger Calgary club.
