A Hero's Journey: From Little Norway to Olympia Sports Camp.


Notice the title. I started this blog yesterday with the idea that maybe every Tuesday I would write something about my journey of writing this book. Then I get an email from Olympia full time staffer Michelle  Stockstill and a text from good friend and Olympian Kevin O'Reilly and I came to the conclusion that this journey has no shot clock and I'll write something when I've got something to say. 

Thanks to these two for their support and care about the book, about Olympia, and about getting things right.

Michelle kindly and rightfully pointed out that the title of my book had to change. The official name of the camp  we know and love is Olympia Sports Camp. I had it down as Camp Olympia for brevity purposes I guess. 

Then Kevin's text helped me think that I could take this blog to a whole other level ( Can't you hear Dave saying this with the staff echoing the emphasis ) His son Joel has a link about blog writing that he forwarded and in reading it I got a lot of ideas, and focus.

Anyone having struggles with Covid-19 life? I feel very fortunate that my wife Joy and I live in a house with a back yard, near a park, with lots of walking possibilities and a teacher's pension that allows us to not be pinched financially by loss of job or income like so many others. I feel for people who are living in condo towers and who don't get out much. I feel for people who have young kids and are trying to home school for months while somehow working from home. I feel for people who work in small businesses shut down or doing just enough to eke by. I feel for restaurants that are now counting on take out as a staple of their business plan. That being said I have felt a sense of 'writers block' and frustration for most of this year because with lots of time on my hands I have not been able to write, or didn't feel like writing when the world was in a mess all around us. My days in the spring and summer were filled with long walks, bad golf, and keeping up with Netflix. For a lot of the year I have felt disappointed but if you look at the hero's journey and the 12 steps along the way, it's all part of a process toward the end goal.

The journey is not a straight line but its about one foot in front of the other and my recent meeting with Dave Grace, who I can say is a mentor of mine and has been for a long time, helped in many ways to show me that the journey I am on is awesome. He's excited about the book and I'll  enjoy every minute, and every person I get to interview and get their perspective on Olympia. One of the cool things for me is that I feel a little like a kindred spirit with Dave and that makes me feel good about myself. Dave and I have shared many almost spiritual moments about Heart Math and the Hero's Journey and I'm sure as the book process continues there will be many more. How lucky am I?

Is this too long a posting? No clue but it comes from the heart, as the myriad of stories in the book do. Thanks to Kevin and Michelle and to everyone else who has shared and will share from their soul to the content of the book. Below is a picture of Kevin and other Olympians teaching Curly Neal of the Harlem Globetrotters how do spin the ball. Also, a favourite video of Walker D challenging my son Daniel to come up week 9 and take him on again in 1 on 1. The memories we all have are priceless.  Want to contribute? Email me at coachdools71@gmail.com. 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
 Karl Svoboda began his rugby career at Belleville's Centennial Secondary School and the Belleville Bulldogs club team. When he started with the Bulldogs at 16 he was the club's youngest player. When he retired from the game he was the club's oldest, and probably most accomplished. Karl had success in rugby the world over. He won three OUA championships with the University of Toronto Blues and he first made Canada's national team in 1985. He ended up being team captain of the national team for years and played in the first three Rugby World Cups in 1987, 1991, and 1995. He also played senior rugby for the Ajax Wanderers and attended the prestigious Oxford University in England at the dawn of professional rugby in 1996. I gleaned this information from research because for a decade or more of sharing week 5 coaching duties and sitting around campfires this understated superstar would rather play guitar and talk about fishing or that day's bike ride or swim than boast
Read more
Image
In the summer of 2019,  Blaine Scatcherd  was introducing himself at the opening meeting of week 5 and told the assembly of coaches that he worked as a counsellor at Olympia for 4 ¾ years. People who knew the story, including Dave Grace, roared with laughter at the self-effacing honesty Blaine showed when recounting an incident that may have been the worst in his career, yet a defining moment that changed him forever and made him a better teacher and coach, and a better person.    Blaine Scatcherd is from Ottawa, where he was coached in football at Glebe Collegiate Institute by Olympia coach Skip Riddell. He went on to play football at Acadia University and played professionally in France for 2 years before embarking on his teaching profession.   “Skip recommended to me in grade 11 that I work at Olympia as it was a great place for an athlete and would-be coach, so I applied to Olympia with Skip’s reference. I went down to Toronto for a group interview and thought I aced it. I didn’t g
Read more
Image
They say that a picture tells a thousand words. How about two pictures? In the writing of A Hero's Journey: Beyond Little Norway and Olympia Sports Camp I got to interview a lot of people dedicated to Olympia and to the vision of Dave Grace. Out of this process I learned three things about the 50- year journey of the staff of Olympia: 1- Olympia inspires young people 2- Staff inspire others to do the same 3- Staff move on in their lives, carrying Olympia with them, while others replace  Staff like Randy Kipfer and Kevin O'Reilly This picture of Harlem Globetrotter Curly Neal with some amazing counsellors can be found in the book at the start of Chapter 6-Allies and Ogres . It captures an Olympia moment shared by good friends and a world-class basketball entertainer, but the insert is the key element of an Olympia journey that spans decades.  There are literally hundreds of stories of staff who have graced the lands of Interlaken. Every story is unique, every story is echoed th
Read more