Coaching – Ventura Canoe & Kayak Club

What It Takes to Build a Sprint Paddling Club

Drew Story — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 00:49:05 +0000

Perhaps the title should include “in the United States of America” as the requirements are vastly different in other countries. The United States prioritizes sports played in our high schools, and especially sports that have collegiate and professional leagues like basketball, baseball, and American football. Most Americans have never heard of sprint canoe and kayak. Coach Drew here.

Source

Spring Update 2025

Drew Story — Mon, 19 May 2025 15:58:20 +0000

Spring is the start of our racing season in sprint canoe and kayak, and our paddlers are taking part in races that they can find in California. We had a U16 athlete take part in the Junior World Team Trials in Chula Vista in April, competing against athletes two to four years older knowing this would be a learning opportunity with little hope of making the team at this early stage in his career.

Source

Fall 2024 Update

Drew Story — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 15:14:37 +0000

We’ve got three new members to the club this Fall — one adult, two youth. With the addition this summer of a club member from the late 80s and early 90s returning to paddle, plus our second and third year paddlers, we have a steady group of paddlers showing up to our off-season practices now. Once we lost our afternoon daylight, we have moved to club workouts being only on Sunday mornings…

Source

Summer and Nationals 2024 Update

Drew Story — Sat, 07 Sep 2024 21:46:41 +0000

We had a very successful trip to Lake Lanier for Nationals at the first week of August, with the club earning roughly 18 medals in all. Gus Peterson, a Masters athlete and Ventura club member from the 70s and 80s, came to race with us traveling from San Jose by himself and was our high point winner with 4 gold medals, 2 silvers, and a bronze to his credit. Not bad for a guy that hasn’t been to a…

Source

Spring 2024 Club Update

Drew Story — Sat, 01 Jun 2024 21:39:56 +0000

Spring and early summer are the primary recruiting times of new athletes for our club. While one can indeed paddle year round in southern California, the water in the Ventura Harbor gets cold enough that only the very hardy would consider a sport where one is likely to be swimming a fair amount of the time at the start. Just before our local school district went on Spring Break…

Source

2023 Summer Update

Drew Story — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 14:43:33 +0000

The club did not send any paddlers to the Nationals at Nathan Benderson Park this summer. This choice was made mostly because it’s an expensive trip to get an athlete to Sarasota, Florida. To go to Nationals, one must consider airfare (or gas & time), car rental, spending a minimum of five days in a hotel, money on race fees, and either paying to trailer/carry your own boats to the race or renting…

Source

Spring 2023 Update – June Youth Classes!

Drew Story — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 20:16:26 +0000

With the increase of daylight hours, the club is back to meeting three times a week and our soon to be second year paddlers are showing great progress, as our new adult paddlers, too. The club will be looking to purchase at least two new “beginner” boats in the coming months and will have some fundraising activities to cover these costs. We are looking to host a club race in the Channel…

Source

Goal Setting

Drew Story — Sat, 27 Aug 2022 19:32:00 +0000

It’s the end of the sprint canoe and kayak racing season in America. Our Nationals were at the beginning of the month, our Junior World and U23 athletes are competing now, and the Olympic Hopes Regatta will finish soon, too. For most paddlers, now is the time to set goals for the next season. This post will try to distill the lessons taught by our club founder, Bill Bragg.

Source

Spring 2022 – Learn to Paddle Class for Youth!

Drew Story — Sat, 19 Mar 2022 14:21:55 +0000

We’re offering a special class over six consecutive Saturdays for youth 12 to 18 years old to learn some sprint paddling skills. The class will provide lessons for both sprint canoe and kayak paddling, safety instruction, paddling technique, and more! This is a great opportunity to learn about an Olympic sport that can be done for a lifetime. We are limiting the class to only six individuals.

Source

Web Resources for Sprint Canoe & Kayak Clubs

Drew Story — Sat, 10 Jul 2021 14:37:40 +0000

Drew Story, the current head coach for our club, has a long background in web development and information technologies. He’s put together a Google Doc that is intended to provide a list of web resources clubs can use to improve their communication, infrastructure, and operations. Most if not all of these resources are free to non-profit organizations, too. Here’s a link to this document…

Source