UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The Penn State cross country and track & field program proudly welcomed international coaches through the International Coaching Enrichment Certificate Program (ICECP) to Happy Valley this week to get a glimpse at their astounding program, and for both the home coaches and visitors, it was a positive experience.
On Monday, three international coaches arrived to State College to learn more about Penn State's strategies and tactics. While educating these professional coaches, our program shared its training schedule and daily workouts. In return, the foreign instructors educated our staff, including Head Coach John Gondak, about how they strive for excellence with their athletes back at home.
"We have been involved with this for over 10 years now. It is always enjoyable to have the international coaches come and visit with for a week. It has been really enjoyable to meet them, hear their stories and listen to where they come from. In a lot of ways this makes our program realize how lucky we are," Gondak said.
The ICECP helps Penn State give back to communities while also learning about new ways to enhance our student-athletes. Coach Gondak has guided these coaches around Penn State's facilities so they can learn from our successful team.
"It is interesting to hear what they do and how they do it. It is very beneficial to our coaching staff so that we can grow as a program. We got to learn some things they do which makes us think how we could take their training methods and use it to benefit our program," Gondak added.
These three international coaches come from all different backgrounds and cultures but have traveled to the United States to better their programs back at home. Rui Norte, from Portugal, has understood the importance of the ICECP three-week program and utilizes all the information that he has learned.
"This program is multi-sport in the beginning. We spend three weeks in Colorado in a group of 35 coaches of 13 Olympic sports. By changing knowledge from different sports to different perspectives with different seasons it makes the program much more important and interesting. In the last part, being able to see our specific sports is incredible to watch.
Norte has a deep interest for track but specifically hurdles and sprints. While being coach collaborator in the national federation, he is a vital asset to his club team.
"The season here is a little bit different than it is in Europe. Here they have a lot of investment and money for these big, amazing facilities which really helps the athletes. We see a big team around including all the athletes, coaches and other staff a part of the program. Everything dealing with the athletes is very well programed and very interesting to see," Norte said.
A second coach, Prabhakaran Radhakrishnan, is from India and has been working with the Indian team for years.
"I am the throws coach back in India. I have seen some very different throws activities that I have not seen in my country by coming here," Radhakrishnan said. "I am enjoying this time here and learning every day. In my country, we train this age group for much more hours than they do here. At this school they make a lot of time for academics and in my country, sports always come first."
The final international coach that is in Happy Valley this week is Mogomotsi Otsetswe from Botswana. He specifically coaches the sprints and hurdlers in his home country. Otsetswe is a very prestigious coach who has had the opportunity to train many national athletes.
"I have been going around the place so far and everything so far has been fantastic. At home I coach sprints. I have learned a lot about athletes' profiles which I plan on using when I go back home. Everything here is much more organized," Otsetswe said.
No matter where the coach is from, Gondak enjoys being able to show his facilities and team pride to other countries and experienced coaches. Being able to do just that with the help of the ICECP for the past ten years, Penn State has provided valuable information to other programs around the world.
"Our mission is to give back to the community and in this way, it is not necessarily our direct community but the coach community around the world. For them to come in and see what we do here is going to only help them back at home and I'm thankful to being able to give this to them," Gondak said.
