Throughout Development Coach Peta Searle’s two week trip to the USA, she will keep a diary that SAINTS.com.au will publish on a regular basis. Part two covers the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth days of her trip.

Tour Diary: Part I

Day 5

If I thought the US Navy Seals experience was enlightening, then the University of San Diego (USD) was similarly inspiring.

Firstly, the facilities are beautiful and breathtaking. They truly are amazing and of the highest quality. Here, we got to speak to the basketball coaching staff including Coach Lamont. He spoke to us about the high performance environment he runs at USD whereby accountability is a fundamental principal.

He also discussed his coaching methods which include training by consequence, where every action has a positive reward or a punishment. Again, this creates accountability. His strength is his relationship with his players and coaching staff and it’s not hard to see why.

Right now I’m sitting on the plane on the way to San Francisco – the city of trams, the Golden Gate Bridge and Jarryd Hayne’s 49ers. I’ve so many good things about San Fran and can’t wait to see it for myself.

Day 6

Tonight we headed to Levi’s Stadium to watch the San Francisco 49ers host the Seattle Seahawks. We were hoping to see Jarryd Hayne play but on the way to the game we heard on the radio that he was out.

That epitomised the story of the night as the 49ers were belted by the Seahawks 20-3. It was probably not the best introduction to NFL (I’d never been to an American football game before), but as a sport I can definitely understand its appeal and why people get hooked on it.

Like footy, these athletes are incredibly courageous. They put their bodies on the line contest after contest. The speed and tactical side of the game whereby playing your role is paramount makes it a very interesting sport. I loved the defensive, offensive and special teams aspect of the game and how the whole team plays their role in order to get one pass off.

 Day 7

This morning we headed to Saint Mary’s University which is a small catholic college with an incredibly strong basketball program. Here we spoke to Coach Thomas who is Head Coach of the girls basketball team.

There are 15 roster spots in the team, four of which are filled by Aussie girls. We met them and they seemed pleased to hear some Australian accents.

The essence of Coach Thomas’ chat revolved around the culture he’s created. He turned a pretty poor culture in an exceptional one simply by staying true to his coaching philosophies. Like Coach Lamont at USD, Coach Thomas trains on consequence. He coaches on the principle that if you do your 20 per cent (remembering that there are five players on the team), and the rest of the team does their 20 per cent, then the side will function well both offensively and defensively. “It doesn’t matter if you have the ball or not. What’s important is that you do your 20 per cent,” Coach Thomas said.

Probably the most valuable part of being at Saint Mary’s was the opportunity to watch one of his training sessions and steal some drills that could transfer to footy.

We also had insights into their soccer program, which although not as strong as basketball, is still very healthy.

Day 8

Today we headed back to Saint Mary’s to hear from Marty Clark, the associate head coach of the men’s basketball team.

Clark has an Australian connection too, having served as head coach of the Adelaide 36ers in our NBL competition. He spent four seasons as an assistant coach for the Australian national team and was on the bench during the Boomers quarter-final run at the 2012 London Olympics. So clearly Marty knows what he is talking about and has plenty of experience at the elite level.

We watched the Saint Mary’s men train for about two hours, again picking up drills and ideas to transfer back to Linen House Centre and running into Alistair Clarkson who was also analysing their session. Even though they have a match tomorrow, their training environment created game like consequences which resulted in game-like intensity and competitiveness. I found this very interesting as there seems to be no such thing as a ‘light session’ at Saint Mary’s. These guys usually train for two hours per day Monday – Friday at a high intensity.

In what was a great end to a very busy day, tonight we visited Stanford University. While Stanford is probably better known for its educational and research facilities, I was extremely impressed by its sporting facilities.

Here we spoke to their head water polo coach and watched a game. Even though it is a sport that is very different to ours, I took away aspects of the way they zone and defend that we could potentially transfer back to Australia in some capacity.

Stanford’s football team was playing tonight in what also happened to also be Homecoming night, where the University welcomed back alumni from previous years. It’s quite a tradition in the US and tonight it coincided with a 50-year class reunion.

The atmosphere at the game, together with the pre-game entertainment, creates a family festival feeling of belonging and association.

Very quickly I came to understand the strong allegiance to the college and the importance of following tradition. Probably the highlight of the night was pre-game, when the football team paraded among its fans down to the stadium along with the cheerleaders and band. Fans were giving them high fives along the way and it’s not hard to see why some people prefer College Football to NFL given the fan interaction and the way they embrace supporters. At St Kilda we want fans to feel similarly a part of the journey.

All in all it’s been a terrific few days and I’m really looking forward to getting to see some more NFL franchises close-up over the next week.

Thanks for reading,

Peta.