PAN AM NOTEBOOK
Coaches Make the Difference: Profile of Team USA Coaches
For immediate release to SquashTalk, reporting from Winnipeg, By Kimberly Tunney.
Photos: top and bottom, by Kimberly Tunney, Paul Assainte by Ron Beck, Sharon Bradey by Debra Tessier, all © 1999
August 10 1999
Bradey and Assaiante Proud of Teams
The duties of being a Pan Am Team Squash Coach run from counseling a down-and-out team member after a loss, distributing the team uniforms, to making sure there's gas in the team van. As coaches for the 1999 Pan Am Games Women's and Men's Teams, Sharon Bradey and Paul Assaiante have done all this and more.
Double duty for Assiante: Men's team and Trinity.
Paul Assaiante is the Pan Am Games Men's Team Head Coach and can add this accomplishment to his over 20 years of coaching experience. When not in Winnipeg or Cairo (site of the Men's Worlds in September), he is Head Coach at Trinity College in Hartford. Under his leadership, the Trinity College men's squash team won two consecutive Intercollegiate Team Championships titles (1999 and 1998). (The workaholic Assiante also coaches Tennis at Trinity) Earlier in his career, he worked as Head Coach of the United States Military Academy at West Point and as the Head Teaching Pro at the Princeton Club in New York.
Coach of the year.
Recently named Coach of the Year by the USOC, Assaiante says, "I'm proud to be a part of the Games." Though he feels that the men's team pulled an 'unlucky draw' in facing Argentina early in pool play, he finds that, "the boys are playing as hard as they can." Assaiante thinks Argentina should really have been seeded at two instead of the sixth position.
Personable Bradey.
Born in Adelaide, Australia, Sharon Bradey serves as the 1999 Women's Pan Am team Head Coach and has also coached the 1998 United States Women's World team and the 1997 Women's United States Pan Am Federation team that won a team gold medal. As a touring pro on the WISPA circuit, she was ranked as high as No. 12 so she knows what the pressure of international competition feels like. " At this level, I know that the athletes have trained enough so my job becomes more psychological. After a loss, it's my responsibility to get them fired back up again."
Connection with the Australian Institute of Sport.
Bradey has worked as Coach-in-residence at the world-renowned Australian Institute of Sport so she understands the value of a solid national squash coaching and training system. There, an athlete receives time with a sports psychologist, a nutritionist and a medical advisor in addition to top level coaching. Given her Australian squash training perspective, she feels that America is a "long way away from this. In Australia, there's a lot of government support for squash and for individual athletes."
Now headed to Bowdoin...
At 31 years of age, Bradey is a delightful and lovely person. Although she currently works as the Head Women's Squash Professional at the Chatham Club in New Jersey, she would like to settle into a collegiate coaching position. " I'm very excited about the outlook in America amongst the juniors and look forward to helping to develop that talent."
Following the games, Bradey was appointed the new Squash Coach at Bowdoin College. Bowdoin, a long-time squash playing school, had the position vacated earlier this spring when Satinder Bajwa took the prestigious position at Harvard. Bowdoin was anxious to secure a great coach, as they have a fine new facility in the final planning stages.
The USOC also provides team members with a medic who attends to everything from blisters, strained muscles and lower back pain. "It's really helpful to have that medical attention at hand. Over the course of the week, an athlete may end up playing eight to twelve matches and that really can take it out of them physically," Bradey says.
Looking to the future.
Both Assaiante and Bradey are proud to be a part of these Games and look forward to further developing squash in America and building upon their experiences here for coaching in future US team events.
