Developing professional athletes

Posted by admin on Mar 21, 2007 in Sports | 0 comments

HAMILTON, Ont. (CUP) — With the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) men’s volleyball season wrapping up with the national championships in Hamilton, Ont. on March 4, many graduating seniors are wondering where their university athletic careers will take them.

CIS volleyball players often have aspirations of taking the next step; to play for the Canadian senior national team. And that seems to be a goal within their reach, as 18 out of 22 athletes on Team Canada’s extended training roster have gone through the Canadian university system.

Since 1996, the CIS has pretty much been the only option for Canadian prospects. However, now that Team Canada’s full-time training centre was recently re-established in Winnipeg after a decade-long absence, players are faced with a new question regarding how they will reach the next level.

National team head coach Glenn Hoag thinks that for Canada to excel on the international stage, its best young players should spend at least a year or two at the centre.

“[The CIS] is a pretty good training ground, but it’s not perfect obviously because they’re student-athletes; their emphasis is not volleyball, their emphasis is academic,” says Hoag. “We just cannot take a CIS athlete, put him on the international stage and expect him to perform.”

Offering a different perspective are players like Josh Howatson, this year’s CIS MVP, who used all five years of his university eligibility at Trinity Western University.

Howatson, a 6-foot-7 setter, also dreams of becoming a national team member. He got a taste of what that’s like when he played for Canada-2 at an exhibition international tournament last September in Ottawa.

“As far as competition level, playing pro would probably be better for your overall development as a player, but I think as a whole person, you definitely want to go CIS,” says Howatson, noting that “one thing I like about CIS is that you get a degree as well.”

Larry McKay, head coach of the 2007 national-champion Winnipeg Wesmen and also an assistant with Team Canada, also likes the idea of players competing in the CIS and then moving on to the centre once they’re done at university.

“[The CIS] is the highest level of volleyball in the country beneath the national team,” he notes. “It is the place where kids, for anywhere from one to five years, can get the highest-level training possible prior to the national team level.”

However, he agrees with Hoag that most players can’t make the jump from the CIS right onto the national team and says they need to encourage grads to go to the full-time centre to bridge the gap.

Hoag does recognize that the CIS will remain the main feeder system for the national team at least for the foreseeable future, and that it’s really going to be up to each individual young player to help Canada move up from its current ranking of 12th in the world.