2008 Woodie Awards
TU student coaches national kayak team
Lisa Adams instructs youth, recognized for talent, earns experience for future
Katharine Martin
Issue date: 9/21/07 Section: Sports
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This summer, Lisa Adams, junior, spent two weeks coaching the fifteen girls and boys that comprise the American Junior National Wild-Water team, a group of the best kayak and canoe racers ages 15 to 18 from all over the United States. She spent one week training them in Charlotte, N.C., and one week coaching them through the Junior National Championship races for their various events in Columbia, S.C.
Adams is more than qualified for the job, having practically grown up in a canoe. As a very young child, she first sat in one while shopping with her father in a sporting goods store. She probably did not know then that she would be a three-time Junior National Champion for wild-water kayaking before she ever even attended college. Her father, however, may have had a premonition of this because he bought the canoe and instituted a family obsession with riding the wild waves of Colorado's rivers which would eventually take Adams to Austria in 2002 and Italy in 2003 to represent America's junior kayaking teams.
"She worked with the kids who weren't getting prime attention," said Dennis Adams, Lisa's father and fellow coach. "At the end of the races, the kids that Lisa was coaching did better than the kids who were supposed to be the starters."
To train the young racers, Adams says that she would scout the course and help them find how best to go through the rapids fast, but without flipping. She also helped them deal with the pressures of racing, something she has a lot of experience with.
Also according to Adams, training the racers was interesting on a personal level as well as an athletic one.
"Two of our guys were interesting because they'd been paddling the [double-person canoe] for six weeks, and it usually takes years to train," Adams said. "They were the Colorado hippie types. Like, they had dreads and all. They did alright, but it was mostly fun for them because they got a third place medal in an international event in the team races."
Adams is more than qualified for the job, having practically grown up in a canoe. As a very young child, she first sat in one while shopping with her father in a sporting goods store. She probably did not know then that she would be a three-time Junior National Champion for wild-water kayaking before she ever even attended college. Her father, however, may have had a premonition of this because he bought the canoe and instituted a family obsession with riding the wild waves of Colorado's rivers which would eventually take Adams to Austria in 2002 and Italy in 2003 to represent America's junior kayaking teams.
"She worked with the kids who weren't getting prime attention," said Dennis Adams, Lisa's father and fellow coach. "At the end of the races, the kids that Lisa was coaching did better than the kids who were supposed to be the starters."
To train the young racers, Adams says that she would scout the course and help them find how best to go through the rapids fast, but without flipping. She also helped them deal with the pressures of racing, something she has a lot of experience with.
Also according to Adams, training the racers was interesting on a personal level as well as an athletic one.
"Two of our guys were interesting because they'd been paddling the [double-person canoe] for six weeks, and it usually takes years to train," Adams said. "They were the Colorado hippie types. Like, they had dreads and all. They did alright, but it was mostly fun for them because they got a third place medal in an international event in the team races."
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