Welcome to the ANA Synchro Blog – your resource for all
things synchro and ANA Synchro-related!
To kick off our new blog, we check in Leah Pinette, on
her first 5 months on the job as ANA Synchro’s Head Coach…
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| Leah Pinette Head Coach, ANA Synchro |
ANA Synchro:
What’s harder, Leah…winning the team
competition at collegiate national championship your senior year at Ohio State,
swimming for Team USA all over the world, being Captain of the US Olympic
Selection Team, or taking over as head coach for one of the largest youth
synchronized swim teams in the nation?
Leah Pinette (Head
Coach):
(smiling) You know, coaching
is not as hard physically, but, honestly, taking over as head coach has been
the hardest! It's a lot easier just to
show up for practice and have someone tell you what to do. There’s a lot that goes into planning a full
year of swimming, and everything is so new with this first year. But I’m very excited!
ANA Synchro: Well, to be fair, maybe we should ask you
that again after you’ve coached as many years as you swam!
Leah Pinette (Head
Coach): That will be over twenty
years from now! Things are getting
easier all the time. It used to take me
a long time to cut music and write all the coaching plans for each practice,
but now I’m doing all that more efficiently.
Next year, I'll know more what to expect with the girls on the team and
with the competition schedule of our region and zone.
ANA Synchro: With everything else you have to do, why
did you want to do a blog?
Leah Pinette (Head
Coach): I want this blog to be a resource to really open up about our
sport in general and our team. There are
a lot of great aspects of being an athlete, being part of a team, and being
part of a YMCA. I want to put it all
together out there for people to see and read.
There’s just so much information to convey to the athletes and to the
parents that is really hard to convey at a practice or in a quick
conversation. This will be a way to
convey our team philosophy and what we want to bring out in the athletes.
ANA Synchro: Are you worried about divulging too many
of our ANA secrets to success?
Leah Pinette (Head
Coach): No, not at all. With synchro, I want everyone to improve,
whether they’re on this team or not. I’d
love to help build the sport of synchronized swimming. The more girls who are interested in it and
competing, the better!
ANA Synchro: What’s your vision for ANA Synchro?
Leah Pinette (Head
Coach): We are already one of the
top programs on the east coast, and I believe we have the resources and the
coaching staff in place to become the top program in the east. It’ll take some work to get there, and we may
not see it for a couple years, but I believe we can develop our sport, build
strong athletes, and give the other teams in the east a run for their money! And then, how do we compete better with the west?
We can certainly do it! We have a lot of great resources in the east,
and maybe we can work better together to make everyone’s team more competitive.
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| Head Coach Leah Pinette confers with her athletes after an exciting swim. |
ANA Synchro: Do you have one overriding philosophy to
your coaching you’d like to share?
Leah Pinette (Head
Coach): Yes, it’s something I
learned from Chris Carver at Santa Clara, who is one of my biggest mentors,
especially in helping me follow my Olympic dream. In fact, it may be the biggest thing that
being on the national team has taught me.
She always used to say “A ballet leg being straight isn’t important in
the grand scheme of things. Yes, that’s what I coach you on, and that’s what I
want you to do perfectly every time, but I just want you to give your best,
100%, every time.” Giving your best was
what she was mostly trying to teach us.
And so that’s the biggest thing I want to do – inspire everyone, whether
it’s an athlete, a co-worker, or a friend to give their all. I would love to have everyone become
Olympians with synchronized swimming, but that’s not what everyone wants. So, inspiring others to realize goals –
whatever they may be – is what I want to do.
ANA Synchro: Can you give us a glimpse of what’s
coming up in this blog?
For
more information on Leah Pinette and the coaching staff at ANA Synchro, click
here: http://anasynchro.org/coaches/index.php
ANA
Synchro is the competitive synchronized swimming team of the Merrimack Valley
YMCA’s Andover/North Andover Branch. To
visit the ANA YMCA, click here: http://andover.mvymca.org/ANASynchro
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