Archives for March 2024

World Rugby to expand female coach development programme

March 28, 2024 by Tara S

The Gallagher High Performance Academy will improve the pathway for women at elite levels of the sport and increase the prominence of female coaches and other high performance roles at the top level.

The original programme, designed in partnership with Gallagher – an official partner of women’s rugby, WXV 2023 & 2024, and Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 – was launched in 2023 ahead of the inaugural WXV 15s tournament as part of a strategic plan to accelerate the development of women’s rugby, and increase the competitiveness of the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 in England.

Following the success of the initial programme, World Rugby is rolling out the scheme to all formats of the women’s game, with 10 Sevens coaches to be inaugurated into the Gallagher High Performance Academy, in 2024.

World Rugby Chief of Women’s Rugby, Sally Horrox said: “As we celebrate the second year of the Gallagher High Performance Academy by extending the reach of programme to encompass all formats of the women’s game, we are not just shaping coaches; we are sculpting the future of women’s rugby.

“Together with Gallagher, we continue to champion diversity, excellence, and inclusivity on and off the field.

“The Academy enables a clear pathway for aspiring female coaches and provides vitally important coaching opportunities as we strive towards our ambitious target of 40% female high performance coaching roles at Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025.

“We are already starting to see the fruits of our labour as coaches progress into full time roles around the world.”

With a focus on talent identification, professional support and championing the next generation of international coaches, the Gallagher High Performance Academy develops existing coaching talent, and identifies opportunities for new coaches and other high performance roles.

Sixteen women, from 16 different nations, took part in the first Academy in 2023. Each of the participants were fully embedded with their respective nations, before and during WXV, providing them with meaningful professional development opportunities, as well as the opportunity to gain valuable experience of working in a high-performance sporting environment.

Off the field, participants received mentor support and took part in a series of online and in-person workshops, hosted by World Rugby and Gallagher.

Workshops were tailored to cover a variety of topics, ranging from game planning, tactics and skill development, to relationships, communication and creating the right culture; as well as relevant, best practice learnings from Gallagher, sharing transferable skills.

All 10 newly inaugurated coaches took part in a rugby coaching masterclass at Dignity Health Sports Park, in Los Angeles.

The inductees staged a series of live coaching sessions, putting into practice the skills that they have been learning through the Academy and the in game live experience they have gained from being embedded in their respective teams for the HSBC World SVNS Series.

They were joined by players and coaches from grassroots clubs within the local community, who benefitted from being coached by some of the most inspirational women in world rugby.

“We are proud of and excited for the extension of the Gallagher High Performance Academy into all formats of women’s rugby,” added Chris Mead, chief marketing officer for Gallagher.

“The growth of the programme is testament to its success and impact in its inaugural year, providing meaningful career development. Expanding the programme to make it more inclusive will further accelerate the growth of women’s rugby around the world and continue to raise opportunities for women both on and off the field.”

March 26, 2024 by Tara S

Travel Expenses Quickly Add Up For Para Athletes. Tatyana McFadden Wants To Help With That

By: Ryan Wilson | US Paralympics

Para athletes face a ton of obstacles while pursuing an athletic career.

One frequent deterrent for athletes is travel expenses, which is something Tatyana McFadden wants to help the next generation of Para athletes deal with.

That’s why the 20-time Paralympic medalist, in connection with the DICK’s Sporting Goods Foundation, has created the Tatyana McFadden Competitor Award. Recipients of the award will receive up to $500 to help cover travel expenses to any Move United-sanctioned competition (including the Hartford Nationals) taking place this year.

“It’s really just a dream come true that I can do this,” McFadden told USParaTF.org. “It’s what I want to continue doing.”

Often, the barriers of entry into wheelchair racing can be quite high. While the athletes on the national team receive a monthly stipend, younger athletes don’t receive any financial assistance and are responsible for covering the cost of traveling to races. That alone can cost upwards of four figures when factoring in hotels, food, transportation and other costs.

Many athletes raise funds on their own through online resources. Some get help from nonprofit organizations.

McFadden, now 34 and training for her seventh Paralympic Games this summer in Paris, got her start more than two decades ago with the help of donations from Bennett Blazers, an adaptive sports program run through the Kennedy Krieger Institute in her hometown of Baltimore. On top of providing specialized coaching, the program helped McFadden pay for some of her early racing equipment, another major expense for any racer.

New racing wheelchairs can cost between $5,000 and $10,000. Repairing or replacing individual parts like tires, handrims or seat cushions can cost hundreds of dollars as well. McFadden said tires can cost an additional $1,000 apiece.

Bennett Blazers, similar to other adaptive sports programs, is given spare equipment through donations, and McFadden was able to capitalize on the equipment they had on hand.

In fact, she was able to practice with a chair designed by Bob Hall. Touted as the “father of wheelchair racing,” Hall was one of the first wheelchair racers in the Boston Marathon and paved the way for having wheelchair racers accepted as official participants in the event. Hall eventually went on to design his own chairs. McFadden said using one of Hall’s chairs allowed her to experiment with the design to accommodate her comfort level.

“That took off a great expense right there, because I didn’t have to keep buying racing chairs,” McFadden said.

McFadden and Daniel Romanchuk — a two-time Paralympic medalist wheelchair racer who also got his start with the help of Bennett Blazers — have donated old equipment back to their starting place in Baltimore.

Romanchuk once gave the program a $6,000 chair. Wheelchair basketball player and fellow alum of the program Ryan Neiswender, a 2020 U.S. Paralympian, helped the Blazers secure $20,000 to buy more wheelchairs.

McFadden said adaptive programs now allow new racers to try out elite equipment she did not have access to when she first started.

“It’s amazing that they can also start with carbon wheels and start with really nice things because they have been donated,” McFadden said.

The assistance McFadden received early in her career helped her become a six-time Paralympian and one of the most decorated wheelchair racers in the world. Her 20 Paralympic medals include eight golds, seven silvers and four bronzes from wheelchair racing, and one silver from the Sochi 2014 Winter Games in Nordic skiing. McFadden has also won 23 world championships medals, 16 of which are gold.

She is set to continue her high level of racing in the Paralympic Games Paris 2024 later this year, as she’s already qualified for the marathon event at the Games. McFadden kicked off her 2024 track season in mid-February at the Dubai Grand Prix, where she broke her own world record in the 400-meter T54 by 0.18 seconds.

With no signs of slowing down, McFadden also hopes to compete in the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, where she’d be 39 years old.

McFadden has already elevated the sport of wheelchair racing, and she wants to leave a lasting legacy on the next generation of athletes like herself. The Tatyana McFadden Competitor Award, she said, was another way to do that.

“It means the world to me that I can just help out a little bit,” she said. “Of course, I want to do more, but right now, it’s just a great start.”

https://agsa.org/2024/03/5434/

We always thought of exercise as a punishment — now it feels like fun

March 26, 2024 by Tara S

By: Ella Glover | Metro UK

Before Jasmine Thomas took up surfing, her mental health was at a low point.

In the midst of the pandemic, she found herself slipping into a depression.

‘It was nice to have Zoom calls with friends when we couldn’t do it in person, but one thing led to another and the next minute I’m drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes and taking drugs,’ says Jasmine, 24.

‘And all because I was bored and too lazy to leave the house for my daily exercise. In the end, I had to start therapy.

‘The pandemic was a real turning point in my life. It made me realise I needed to focus on myself, my health and my happiness and to stop trying to please everybody else.’

After saving up during lockdown, the Welsh born Jasmine embarked on an 18-month trip to Asia back in 2022. This is where she discovered the sport that would ‘save [her] life’: surfing.

Jasmine thomas surfing — Jasmine went from no exercise at all to surfing every day (Picture: Jasmine Thomas)

‘I’m happiest when I’m by the sea and there’s good weather,’ she says.

‘It doesn’t feel like exercise because I’m having fun even on the bad days.

Jasmine found surfing through her boyfriend, who is an avid surfer.

‘I feel the time passes so quickly, you go in thinking you’ve only been in the water for 30 minutes and then next thing you know it’s three hours later and your arms are tired from all the paddling.’

She quickly went from doing zero exercise to surfing everyday, and even when she can’t surf due to the weather conditions, she is still motivated to stay healthy for when she’s ready to get back on the board.

On top of that, she says, surfing gives her purpose: ‘I get excited about my weekends now knowing that I’m going to head to the beach, exercise, meet up with friends, eat food and watch the sunsets.

‘Now my boyfriend and I go to the beach and surf together, hype each other up, helping each other to improve techniques and just generally build a strong bond whilst creating memories.

‘It’s funny because I travel to see the world and culture, he travels because of the surf spots, so surfing has made us decide a lot of our travel locations from Thailand, Bali, Australia, Portugal, Morocco.

‘I guess it’s not just about the exercise, it’s everything that comes with it.’

Jasmine Thomas holding a surf board — ‘Surfing saved my life’ (Picture: Jasmine Thomas)

Government guidelines for adults aged 19 to 64 suggest getting at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity a week or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity activity a week, as well as two days of strengthening activities for all the main muscle groups.

But not everybody enjoys generic forms of exercise like strength training in the gym or running.

It goes without saying that exercise is difficult, especially for beginners, but if it’s boring and unfulfilling, too? It’s no wonder that just one in 20 adults in England exercise their muscles enough.

But, finding something you love to do, be it a team sport, a community-based exercise class, a niche form of exercise or something else, can help you to reframe exercise as something fun — the physical benefits are simply a bonus of doing something you enjoy. Doing so can help to reframe exercise from something that you have to do – a chore – to something that you want to do: a privilege.

‘Reframing exercise gives us the ability to see where exercise can be an addition to our lives, beyond a single target or objective we are looking to achieve,’ psychologist and wellbeing consultant Lee Chambers previously told Metro.co.uk.

‘It also helps us see the opportunities exercise can provide and be more open to trying new experiences and meeting new people.’

He continued: ‘It can ignite your competitive side, distract you from the feeling of exertion, help you build that social network that provides so much more than moving your body, and also helps you to harness the benefits of play, connection and enjoyment.

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‘It can shift from punishment to self-care, from an obligation that you dread to an activity that you gain joy from.’

Since she was young, Sarah Rose Bright has had a tricky relationship with exercise.

‘I was never good at competitive sports and I was always one of the last kids picked in the team sports sessions [at school], so I started bunking off classes,’ the love, sex and intimacy coach tells Metro.co.uk. ‘Because of that I didn’t have a great relationship with exercise.’

Beyond walking – which she has always loved – and practising yoga ‘on and off’, Sarah, 50, from Somerset, couldn’t find a method of exercise that would stick.

That is until 2012 when, at the age of 39, Sarah discovered chi gung (also known as qigong), a traditional Chinese energy practise involving a system of coordinated body-posture and movement, breathing, and meditation.

Sarah, chi gung practitioner — ‘I plan to do chi gung for as long as I physically can’ (Picture: Sarah Rose Bright)

Sarah first started practising chi gung through public classes taught by her now-fiance, Graeme.

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When his classes stopped, Sarah found another chi gung instructor, Barry Spendlove, and stuck with him for 10 years.

‘All the exercise I’ve done over the years from dancing classes to sports at school, had an element of competitiveness or goal attached to them, such as playing in the school tournament or dancing in the school show,’ says Sarah.

‘I never enjoyed that pressure.’

Conversely, Sarah feels she is able to practise chi gung simply because she loves it and it feels good.

‘It is so relaxing,’ she adds. ‘Even doing a few minutes can transform how I feel.’

Over the years, Sarah has grown extremely passionate about chi gung, even training as an instructor, not because she wanted to teach it but because she loved it so much and wanted to keep learning about it.

Sarah also uses chi gung as a motivator to make other healthy changes in her lifestyle, like only drinking alcohol around two times per year and taking long walks in the countryside, doing yoga and weight training in the week

Now, at the age of 50, Sarah says exercise is more important than ever.

‘As I headed to 50, my body started to change in gentle ways, and these made me aware of how important it is to look after my body,’ she says.

Sarah, qigong practitioner — ‘At the age of 50, exercise is so important to me’ (Picture: Sarah Rose Bright)

‘As someone who didn’t look after their body for years, it is now a priority to me.

‘Whenever I’ve met people in their 70s and 80s who practice to chi gung regularly, they have a sparkle and a vibrancy that is unmistakable.

‘I want to be that person in my old age.

‘I plan to do chi gung for as long as I physically can.’

Lexi Thawley, 27, a PhD student from Manchester also found motivation for other, more generic, forms of exercise through something a little more niche – training in martial arts.

‘I find that now when I do strength training or cardio, I’m doing it because it will actually improve my ability in something I care about, not just because I feel like I have to,’ she says.

Lexi says she had a ‘complex’ relationship with exercise for most of her life.

‘I really enjoyed exercising, but I didn’t feel very confident about it, or about my body in general,’ she says.

‘I didn’t have a great relationship with my body growing up.

‘I’ve always been bigger and I think growing up in the early 2000s, when there was such a toxic culture around body image, definitely played into it.

‘I wasn’t very present in my body and I felt a lot of shame about how it looked and how it moved, so I just thought sport wasn’t for me.’

This all changed when she started going to Brazilian jiu jitsu, mixed martial arts (MMA) and kickboxing lessons around three years ago.

‘Not only is it great for improving your confidence and empowering you, especially because you know how to defend yourself, but people are also open about the condition of their body, whether that’s in terms of injuries or making weight for competition.

‘Conversations about weight and body image and how that affects you in sports can be quite taboo, and the fact that they’re normalised within martial arts is really nice.’

On top of that, Lexi has been able to meet and connect with so many different people through her sport, something she doesn’t think would have been possible without it.

‘It’s really cool, both in terms of enjoyment as well as having fun and making friends from all walks of life,’ she says.

‘This sport really allows you to connect with people in a way that I don’t think a lot of other forms of exercise do.’

This is the thing about finding an exercise-based hobby — it’s about so much more than just exercise. From finding community to developing a passion, there are so many hidden benefits to seeing exercise as more than just something to tick off a list.

Trailblazing female baseball coach from US aims for Japan pro ranks

March 21, 2024 by Tara S

Bianca Smith is on a mission to find out how far her life-long passion for baseball can take her as a coach, and whether her fascination with Japan can make that happen in Nippon Professional Baseball.

The first black woman hired to coach by a Major League Baseball team, Smith is now a world away from America’s minor leagues, in Japan’s northern main island of Hokkaido, working as a sports advisor and coaching elementary school and middle school teams.

With her degrees in business and law, the 33-year-old Smith once saw herself as a future MLB team president, but found her true calling in uniform on the field with players.

When the Boston Red Sox wanted to keep her at the lowest minor-league level for 2023, Smith opted to move on, not knowing a dream opportunity would shortly open up and bring her to Japan.

“I have been fascinated with Japan since I was 12, just like any American kid (through) anime. Then I started reading manga,” Smith said. “I fell in love with Japan, and when I decided I was going to work in baseball, that was top of my list.”

Turned onto baseball by her mother, a New York Yankees fan, Smith’s favorite player was Derek Jeter. She was alerted to a different style of baseball in Japan after Hideki Matsui joined the Yankees.

“I have been following the Japanese national team since the first World Baseball Classic in 2006. The aspects of Japanese baseball are what I’m passionate about, the defense, the base running, the strategy, that’s why I love watching them. That’s why Japan.”

In Higashikawa, Hokkaido, she’s sharing her knowledge and experience with kids and coaches but said it’s hard to tell when coaches and parents buy into her ideas or if they’re only open because the head coach is on board.

“That’s why I’ve got all the information together so I can explain why we need to do it this way. I’ve been picking and choosing,” she said, sounding like the lawyer she trained to be.

Smith’s coaching journey has been a process of learning how to manage her need to control things, and developing communication and teaching skills to better help players.

“I don’t want to come in changing the culture because that never works,” she said. “But I am a player coach. In the pros (in the United States) they’re used to this. Even the coaches that are territorial, they’ll still listen to players. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have a job.”

Despite her deep and sustained interest in Japan, Smith was not prepared for the ritual displays of respect she has witnessed toward coaches, parents and the field itself, or for the culture of fault finding.

“It’s one of the first things I saw. In a practice game, a kid makes one mistake, they pull them and make them practice for 30 minutes, next to the game, that same mistake they messed up,” Smith said.

When the head coach eventually asked how mistakes are dealt with in America, Smith told him.

“You put him back in,” she said. “You talk to him quickly and then put him back in. If they know that if they make one mistake they’re going to get pulled, they’re going to be afraid to make a mistake. They’re going to play it safe on every play.”

Smith has been willing to lead by example through her efforts to learn languages and communicate in them as best she can, mistakes and all.

How analogous is a willingness to make mistakes in a foreign language and a willingness to make mistakes in baseball?

“It’s completely the same,” Smith said. “You’re not going to get better if you don’t push your limits and try to go past them.”

Coaching kids has pushed her to be even better at simplifying techniques in order to demonstrate them.

“It comes in handy as a coach, particularly working with people who don’t speak your language,” she said.

“A good coach is able to take a complicated idea and simplify it for anybody. Being a lawyer is just like being a coach,” she said. “A lawyer has to break down the law for someone who doesn’t understand it and take the important parts that actually apply to them.”

As an advocate of the player-first coaching that is gradually making headway in Japanese pro baseball and who shares its compulsion to plan everything that can be controlled, Smith would seem to be an attractive hire for a Japanese pro team.

But she said, the team would have to genuinely want her to empower players to develop their own styles rather than lecture them on doctrine and dogma.

“I want you to take control of your own development because you know your body better than I do,” she said. “I could not coach for an organization that would not let me have that kind of freedom with my players.”

(By Jim Allen)

Fairfield runs into March Madness on a 29-game win streak

March 19, 2024 by Tara S

By Sam Federman | Mid Major Madness

Stags rally to down Niagara in MAAC women’s championship game.

In the famous cartoon series, Wile E. Coyote would meticulously design cunning traps to catch his presumed prey, the cunning road runner. Every single time, without fail, the road runner would find a hilarious loophole, leaving the coyote bewildered and oftentimes injured.

In this MAAC women’s basketball season, the Fairfield Stags played the role of road runner, escaping every different wrinkle that the other 10 Wile E. Coyotes threw their way en route to a perfect conference season, and a ticket to the NCAA Tournament. The Stags came from 13 points down in the second half to defeat Niagara, 70-62, in overtime in the MAAC Championship game on Saturday. It extends their winning streak to 29 games, and leaves no hard questions for the NCAA’s Selection Committee.

The road runner analogy isn’t just that, it’s the entire identity of this team. Assistant coach Blake DuDonis coined the term to refer to the team’s versatile post players. It’s even listed as the position for all of the players that would typically be considered forwards on the official roster.

The offensive style and fast pace that the Stags play at don’t call for typical post players. It requires players capable of running the floor, rebounding, and defending multiple positions.

“Blake is our position coach for the Road Runners and I challenged him over the summer,” Stags head coach Carly Thibault-DuDonis said. “Because we knew we were gonna play a little bit differently, we recruited in a way that we have posts that are mobile, versatile, and can play on the perimeter, can play inside and out, and we wanted to have a more true identity for that than your traditional posts.”

Today, it was all about toughness. Coming from behind against a team that presses and traps as aggressively as Niagara does, the Stags needed their Road Runners to vacate the paint and allow for Nellie Brown and Kaety L’Amoreaux to attack the basket. However, it took the Stags a long time to get comfortable.

Brown, the MAAC’s Player of the Year, committed an offensive foul on the first possession of the game, and two minutes later, committed an intentional foul. The Purple Eagles jumped out to a 6-2 lead, and then it was 10-4. But Fairfield stayed in the game, even with Brown out, and despite poor shooting.

Even when Niagara pushed the lead up to double digits in the second quarter, Thibault-DuDonis didn’t call a timeout, despite having the opportunity.

“It’s tough to take a timeout against Niagara because their pressure is able to dig in a little bit more,” Thibault-DuDonis said. “But that’s something that this entire season, I’ve opted not to take a timeout when a team makes a run because of our pace, and the way we’re able to run it back at people.”

In the first half, Niagara forced 17 turnovers with their insane full court press and trap. Their aggressive hedges were able to get steal after steal, and the Stags were in their own head.

At the third quarter media timeout, co-captain Lauren Beach pulled the other captains, Brown and Izabela Nicoletti-Leite over to the side.

“She really gave us that fire,” Brown said of that conversation. “She gave us that energy to keep going, and as soon as she said that, that’s when we were just hitting our shots, we were getting defensive stops, and we were playing our game.”

In the second half, Brown took over the game. She scored 15 points on 4-8 shooting, attacking the rim at will and attempting eight free throws. She and L’Amoreaux were able to blow by Niagara’s exhausted guards and create space at the rim to score and dish.

“I think once we realized how we can drive and dish,” L’Amoreaux said. “Once we realized to jump stop, that’s how we can get the job done.”

The jump stops have been a point of emphasis for Thibault-DuDonis and staff since the first day of practice, and it allowed the Stag guards to survey the floor and draw fouls in the paint.

Brown gave Fairfield its first lead of the game with a layup with 1:50 to play, and then tacked on a free throw with 1:08. After Angel Parker tied the game at the line with 29 seconds left, Fairfield had the opportunity to hold for one last shot.

With the ball in her hands, the MAAC Player of the Year drove down the lane and was called for an offensive foul, her fifth, sending her out of the game.

*Fred Savage Princess Bride voice.*

Wait, that’s not how the story was supposed to go — she was supposed to win it at the buzzer, right? No, that’s not the story, because this Stags team showed grit and depth, and overtime was theirs.

Fairfield scored the first nine points of overtime and could sense victory with under a minute to play. When the buzzer sounded, it was a culmination of all of the work put in by this group, and 29 straight wins.

There is no more doubt in the eyes of the selection committee, the Fairfield Stags are going to the NCAA Tournament, and they’re not done yet.

“There’s not any other team in the country besides South Carolina that has gone on a 29 game win streak,” Thibault-DuDonis said. “We’re top 10 in a ton of defensive categories, top 25 in a ton of offensive categories, we’ve scheduled aspirationally, I think we’ve done everything we can to be in position for a 12 seed.”

But regardless of seeding or draw, Fairfield is dangerous, because winners win.

“This team is gonna be hungry and not satisfied,” Thibault-DuDonis said. “We’re ready to play whoever.”

Coco Gauff is first U.S. tennis player to clinch Olympic spot

March 19, 2024 by Tara S

By
OlympicTalk

Coco Gauff is the first U.S. tennis player to mathematically clinch a spot in the Olympic field, setting up for her Olympic debut in Paris.

Gauff has accumulated enough points so that she is guaranteed to be among the top four U.S. women’s singles players at the end of the 12-month Olympic qualifying window, which runs through the end of the French Open in early June.

A nation can qualify no more than four singles players per gender. The U.S. is expected to earn the full four spots for men and women. Players can also qualify separately in doubles.

After Gauff, the highest-ranked American women in singles qualifying are Jessica Pegula, Emma Navarro and Madison Keys.

Gauff made the Olympic team for Tokyo in 2021 at age 17, but announced five days before the Opening Ceremony that she had to withdraw after testing positive for COVID-19.

She would have been the youngest Olympic tennis player since 2000 – when Croatia’s Mario Ancic competed at 16 years old – according to the OlyMADMen.

Gauff won her first Grand Slam singles title at the U.S. Open in September and is ranked third in the world.

In January, Gauff said that, ideally, she wants to play singles, doubles and mixed doubles at the Paris Games.

Olympic tennis will be at Roland Garros, where Gauff was runner-up at the 2022 French Open in singles and doubles.

“One of the goals I wrote down on my vision thing, vision note, in my phone, was to win a medal in the Olympics,” she said in January. “I’ll be completely honest, I don’t really care what event it is in. I feel like a gold, silver or bronze, whatever medal it is, is one of those things it doesn’t matter. Well, it does matter. Obviously I want to win in singles. I feel like I would appreciate it just as much whether it was in singles or doubles. It’s not the same to me as a Slam, I guess, in a way. I just put ‘I want a medal at any of the events.’”

From Volunteer to Leader: Muneerah Balesaria’s Journey with Salaam Peace

March 12, 2024 by Tara S

This International Women’s Day we’re shining a light on the success stories of young women and girls within the StreetGames network to inspire and motivate others.

In Leyton and Waltham Forest, Muneerah Balesaria’s path from volunteer to key staff member at Salaam Peace shows us just how much sports can shape personal growth and community leadership. Through her commitment and hard work, Muneerah has become a true inspiration for everyone around her.

Muneerah’s connection to Salaam Peace began unexpectedly when her maths teacher referred her to the organisation before the Covid-19 lockdown. Intrigued by its mission, she stepped into Salaam Peace, beginning her journey of self-discovery and volunteering.

Initially grappling with confidence issues, Muneerah faced the challenge of taking on a leadership role. With Salaam Peace’s supportive staff, she found the courage to overcome these hurdles, leveraging her love for sports and natural leadership abilities to leave a lasting impact.

Motivated to give back to her community and inspired by her mentors, Muneerah embraced training and mentorship opportunities. Through hard work, she emerged as a champion for safeguarding and inclusivity within her sessions.

At Salaam Peace, Muneerah isn’t just a participant; she’s deeply committed to making a difference. Her “can-do” attitude and unwavering dedication have earned her respect from leading primary school programmes to spearheading girls’ football sessions.

Giulietta DeLissandri, schoolteacher told us, “Muneerah has an exceptional attitude whilst working with the girl’s team and my daughter and all the other girls, love her sessions.”

Juggling part-time work and university studies, Muneerah remains a steady presence in her community. Her achievements, including the StreetGames London and South East ‘Us Girls’ award in 2023, reflect her determination and commitment to excellence.

Today, Muneerah’s influence is felt far and wide in her community, inspiring others to see the amazing possibilities that sports can bring. Her story shows how powerful it is to follow your heart and never give up. Looking forward, Muneerah is dedicated to growing as a person and giving back to her community. With plans for more learning and helping others, she’s excited to see what the future holds.

“Muneerah has been a huge asset to Salaam Peace. Her current work includes study support programmes, Gender specific sports sessions, parent and child programmes and school-based delivery. Muneerah is very hard working and a quick learner. A very good role model for our participants.”

Sabir Bham, Founder/CEO Salaam Peace

Angela Martin named MVC Men’s and Women’s Indoor Track and Field Coach of the Year

March 12, 2024 by Tara S

Kieran Intemann | GoSycamores.com

ST. LOUIS – Indiana State Cross Country and Track and Field Program Director and Head Coach Angela Martin was selected as the 2024 MVC Men’s and Women’s Indoor Track and Field Coach of the Year, as announced Monday by the conference office.

Martin, who led the Sycamores to a sweep of the 2024 MVC Indoor Championships, was selected by the league’s head coaches as the Coach of the Year on both the men’s and women’s side. It was Indiana State’s second indoor championship sweep in the last three years and marks the seventh MVC Championships, indoor or outdoor, won by the Indiana State program since 2022 (five men’s, two women’s).

Under Martin’s watch, Indiana State finished with an indoor program record 183.5 points on the men’s side on its way to a third consecutive MVC Indoor Championship. The Indiana State women finished with 121 points and won their second MVC Indoor Championship in the last three seasons.

As a team, Indiana State finished with seven individual conference champions and 19 additional all-conference honorees. The Sycamores finished the championships with 57 athletes in point-scoring positions, picking up points in nearly every event that they had a participant in.

For the season, Indiana State had 32 additions to its all-time top-10 list, with more than have of those additions being top-five program marks. The Sycamores went wire-to-wire atop the MVC ratings index on both the men’s and women’s side and were consistently among the highest-ranked teams in the Great Lakes region, reaching as high as No. 1 on the men’s side.

Indiana State also racked up multiple specialty awards, finishing with the MVC’s Most Outstanding Men’s Field Athlete and Women’s Field Athlete in Will Staggs and Niesha Anderson, respectively. Staggs, who was a Second Team All-American in 2024, also earned MVC Elite 17 honors, while Shomari Rogers-Walton was the MVC’s Most Valuable Athlete at the championships.

Monday’s announcement marks Martin’s seventh MVC Indoor Track and Field Coach of the Year honors (four women’s, three men’s).

How a small Illinois college became a women’s wrestling powerhouse

March 6, 2024 by Tara S

Northern Public Radio | By Peter Medlin

North Central College in Naperville — a small liberal arts school of fewer than 3,000 students — has become one of the premier women’s wrestling programs in the country. And the program only started five years ago.

Last spring, the North Central team took home their first national title. And three Cardinals wrestlers secured individual championships on top of that.

Yelena Makoyed won her third consecutivenational championship in 2023 AND was named the first-ever USA Wrestling Women’s College Wrestler of the Year.

She’s also one of at least six North Central women’s wrestlers who will compete at the Olympic Trialslater this spring with a shot to make it to the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris this July.

Makoyed andNCC head coach Joe Norton understand the significance of the opportunity.

“That’s the pinnacle of our sport,” said Norton. “It’s not the NFL or the NBA or whatever. And you can go to a Division-3 school and qualify for the Olympic trials? There’s not a lot of dudes going D-3 and going to the NFL.”

But, just a few years ago, when the program just began, there was no hardware Norton could point to during the recruiting process. No national titles. No Olympics. Just a small, Division-3 school in the Midwest with a good men’s program and without any scholarships to offer.

“We were just selling dreams back then,” he said.

Makoyed remembers his pitch very well.

“It was like, ‘I love wrestling. I want to coach, I want to start a woman’s program.’ And we kind of just had to have faith that he would follow through,” she said.

To make recruiting more complicated, girl’s wrestling wasn’t an official IHSA sport at the high school level in Illinois until just 3 years ago. So, there weren’t many local programs to pull from.

Makoyed is from California. She didn’t start wrestling until high school. Her school didn’t have enough girls for their own team, so they’d practice with the boys’ team and then compete against other girls in tournaments.

“And I honestly liked it like that,” she said. “Because the coaches treated us equally, the same as the guys, and it was really challenging but it made us really strong.”

She says she wasn’t that heavily recruited, since she started so late. She didn’t really know about many programs with women’s teams until she got the call from coach Norton.

Over the course of her college career Makoyed has seen women’s wrestling grow exponentially. There’s more opportunity in high school. There are more and more colleges at every level with women’s programs. It’s listed as an Emerging Sport by the NCAA, meaning it’s on track for an official NCAA Championship soon.

The North Central program has taken off too. That first year in 2019, they had 9 wrestlers. Now they have 52 women from nearly two dozen different states, and 21 All-Americans on the roster.

But, with the women’s wrestling scene becoming stronger and stronger, that comes with new challenges for a small school like North Central.

Division-3 schools can’t offer athletic scholarships. Norton says they’re competing against Division-1 & 2 programs that can offer full-ride scholarships and high-end gear sponsorships. But, Norton stresses, the scholarship doesn’t make you a better wrestler — it’s the coaches and training.

“’Well, coach, this school is free. I’m on a full ride.’ All right, well, that doesn’t put you in the Olympic trials, that doesn’t put you on top of the podium at the NCAA championships,” he said.

And the competition is tougher. This year, the University of Iowa started a women’s program. Makoyed says it’s a huge deal. Iowa has one of the most successful Division-1 men’s programs in the nation.

Amani Jones, another All-American on the team, says competing against the likes of Iowa keeps them motivated. They still have something to chase, even when defending their national championship.

“We just won the national tournament, and I feel like we don’t have the credit we deserve still,” said Jones. “Everyone expects them to win. So, I like it. It feels like we’re still the underdog going after them.”

The Cardinals clinched their second-consecutive regional title. The North Central team looks to bring home back-to-back championships at the national tournament coming up March 8 and 9.

Just five years ago, Coach Norton was selling dreams to Makoyed and the other women joining the brand-new program. Now, those Olympic dreams are reality. The national championships are on the shelf. And the chance to compete at the highest level is right in front of them.