Wednesday, Jul. 28, 2010

Trips abroad teach coaches lessons

The old cliché says you can't teach old dogs new tricks, but two youth coaches, who really are not so old, did learn new lessons about sports, themselves and the will to play from unlikely sources.

At 45, Bob Winstead, head football coach at North Raleigh Christian Academy, knows his way around a football field. But a trip to Sydney, Australia, where he coached U.S. high school players in a rousing international game against Australian rugby-turned-football players, took Friday night lights to a whole new playing field.

"They call football 'gridiron' over there. I just love that," he said.

Officials at 365 Sports in Durham recruited Winstead to take a team of high-performing football players from different parts of the United States to Australia to play in the Trans Pacific Australia Cup June 27-July 7. The U.S. won, beating the Australian national team 35-0.

A local player, Shaquille LeMay, who plays for Southern Vance High School, was part of that team, Winstead said.

"The Australian team was made up of dynamite athletes," Winstead said. "They were much bigger than our guys, and if we had tried to play just smashmouth football, they would have killed us."

Instead, the U.S. team developed a strategy that focused on speed and agility, rather than brute force, and basically outran the Australian team, Winstead said.

During the same week Winstead was coaching football in Australia, Don Ledford was teaching lessons in life and basketball in another part of the world.

As part of an Athletes in Action journey to Lithuania, Ledford found himself in one of the great basketball capitals of the world.

"In Lithuania, basketball is the number one sport. It is the only country outside the United States where basketball is the top sport, and not soccer," Ledford said.

Ledford, 39, is the founder and head coach of Coach Ledford Sports, a comprehensive sports program in North Raleigh. His trip to Lithuania was partly to conduct a basketball clinic for athletes there, but also to conduct a Christian ministry.

"During the days of the clinic, we spent the mornings and afternoons teaching basketball skills," Ledford said. "At the end of each session, we discussed life lessons, such as being unselfish, and tying those lessons to basketball."

In a way, the skill sets of the Lithuanian basketball players were in direct contrast to those of the Australian football players, the two coaches said. The football players were highly athletic, but lacked finesse, and the basketball players could shoot like a dream, but were not very athletic.

"Every kid in our camp was a good shooter," Ledford said. "We had 25 kids, and during free throw practice, the first 18 kids in a row made their shot. In all, 23 out of 25 kids made their first round of free throws."

In both programs, football players and basketball players were eager for opportunities to travel to the United States to play in college, with hopes of going pro.

"For the Lithuanian players, if you are from the United States, then you are automatically an expert in basketball," Ledford said. "Most of the kids would, in a heartbeat, leave their families and come here to play high school basketball. And they'd be happy to play at any college."

Each coach was gratified to witness athletes bonding together and forming strong friendships.

For Winstead, the bonding was especially profound. His group of 40 high school football players from 19 states had never performed together as a team.

"These kids came from all walks of life," Winstead said. "They were black, white, Latino, poor, and rich; from urban areas and suburbs."

Under the banner of the USA, they became a family.

"I think the trip changed the majority of these kids' lives," Winstead said. "We (coaches) had an opportunity to sit and talk with them about life outside football, and how football is a tool for them to become men."

He recalled their first gathering.

"The guys were standoffish at first, they were posturing and chest-thumping," he said. "At the end of the trip, they were all best friends, hugging each other, and now they are connected on Facebook and staying in touch outside of football."

Ledford admits that he has never gotten into social media before, but after his trip to Lithuania, he has 25 new young athletes on his Facebook friends list.

"It's really a neat thing to be able to stay in touch with them," he said.

Travel brought out the little kid in both coaches and they are already excited about future opportunities to go abroad.

For Winstead, it's all about the coaching.

"As long as I am coaching ball, I would coach anywhere," he said.

Even Australia.