Meeting Olympians from the United States

This weekend was very exciting as I had the honor of meeting two Olympians, see again one of the best coaches in the history of swimming, and meet some other high performance athletes as well.

Brian Goodell called me two weeks ago after he read the Orange County Register article about the Afghanistan National Water Polo Team. He wanted to find out more information about our project and to see how he could help.

Brian is working on a project with a company called the Pacific Institute to help athletes and people in general visualize success. He was hosting a PX2 clinic in Mission Viejo, California and invited me to attend. This would be a great opportunity for me and the Afghanistan National Water Polo Team. Brian is one of the best distance swimmers in history. He has help many world records, won two gold medals in the Olympic Games, and is one of my favorite swimmers. When he called me on the phone, I tried not to sound too excited to hear from him.

When I arrived, there were a number of athletes there and Coach Bill Rose, from Mission Viejo Nadadores Swimming. I remember Coach Rose from my swim days when he had athletes swimming like James Davidson, Philippe Demers, and David Schmidt, just to name a few that I remember. It was nice to see that he was doing quite well. Some of his athletes were there as well, to include an Olympian and other high performance swimmers. It was great to meet these inspirational athletes and hear their stories.

The course that Brian taught was outstanding. It took a lot of the bits and pieces of useful information that I learned along my athletic and coaching careers about visualization and fit them together nicely. Brian then gave me the other 80% of the information I was missing and I finally understood the big picture. I walked away from this class feeling knowledgeable and I also felt good knowing that in my past coaching positions, I used similar techniques on athletes and teams and that other coaches believe and teach these types of programs.