Learning from the Ground Up

How coaching the Unity Woodsmen made me a better competitor.

In the fall of 2010, I faced a dilemma. I had just been accepted to compete in the Northeast Qualifier for the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series scheduled for April of 2011. Having spent the better part of the prior 4 years not actively competing in the sport, I knew that I needed an indoor training facility that winter to polish up my act a bit or I was bound to embarrass myself at the contest (incase you‘re wondering, Maine is really cold and full of snow from December to March!). Although I had not competed actively for some time, I always stayed involved with the college competitions. Because there aren’t many professional competitors nearby, I knew that I’d have to train at a college facility if I was to prepare for my big competition. My Alma mater Umaine was not an option, as they didn’t have an indoor facility and were barely functioning as a team at that point due to some poor leadership that has thankfully since been resolved. For that reason, I approached Unity college to offer my services as a coach in exchange for the use of their training area. They agreed and we embarked on a journey that has been more rewarding to me that I would have ever imagined.

I had always taken an interest in coaching up-and-coming axemen from the collegiate ranks, but my efforts were usually only devoted to one or two dedicated individuals that I felt had the potential and drive to win the STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series Collegiate Championship and compete in the professional ranks. Never before had I attempted to coach an entire team - I certainly had my work cut out for me. The first time I went up to train, I demonstrated how to do the basics of all the chopping and sawing events. Although they had some of the basics down in chopping, I was astonished at how little they knew about sawing. The first time I explained that the most important part of two man sawing actually involved weighting the saw with tail pressure and I saw the light bulbs go off in their heads, I realized how little knowledge they actually possessed. It’s amazing how collective team knowledge can get lost with the quick turnover in collegiate lumberjack sports.

Within a couple of months of training in Unity, I realized a few things. First, because I lived 2 hours away and couldn’t be there to coach them as frequently as I‘d like, there was no way that I could work with all the team members. There simply wasn’t enough time. So I decided that I would stick with the Men’s “A Team” and hope that they could act as coaches for all the other students that I didn’t have time to help. Second, it’s really hard to coach people that don’t share my physical attributes. I guess I never realized it before, but I always gravitated towards helping the big guys. It was easier to teach them because they could employ my techniques fairly easily. In the bowsaw, I’ve realized that telling a 160 pound guy to “keep the blade in the wood and weight the crap out of it!” isn’t going to work. Because of that, I’ve had to put a lot more thought into all the events to attempt to cater to different body styles and sizes. The third thing I realized was that their team was very motivated, worked extremely hard and had the talent to win Spring Meet. I knew that it wasn’t possible to win it in 2011, but with a lot of hard work it was a very real possibility in 2012.

For those not familiar with it, Spring Meet in the Northeast is what I would consider the Superbowl of collegiate lumberjack sports. There are many top notch collegiate athletes throughout North America, but from the team perspective, no other region comes close to the skill level seen in the Northeastern US and Canada. At the culmination of the year, these teams travel to Spring Meet to find out who is the best in the land. Having never won it myself while I was in school or even heard about a school from New England winning it in the modern era, I was excited for the opportunity to help Unity attempt the feat. We drew up a long-term plan, and put it into action.

There were a lot of obstacles to overcome, but we looked at things from the long-term perspective and got our affairs in order. They needed to get their gear squared away and make a structured practice schedule focusing on the team events to become competitive all-around. Log roll and pulp pit are far from being glory events, but you have to be proficient at them to compete for a title. They realized that to win spring meet, they’d have to save their best gear for the end of the year. No team wants to bring practice gear to a competition, but they were willing. I also knew that for them to continue to improve, they needed to talk with other pro competitors so that they could learn from someone other than myself. I did not want my limitations as a coach to impede their ability to succeed, so I encouraged them to attend some competitions over the summer. This helped to get them more experience and also to learn from folks like Herb Gingras and Vincent Maciel, competitors far more skilled in many of the events than I. Also, just when I got stumped on a couple of chopping problems, Nathan Waterfield’s training camps were offered this winter. A couple of the guys went down and within a matter of minutes, Nathan was able to fix the problems that I had struggled to help them with for months. The guys were training long hours every week, and Head Coach Pat Clark was doing an excellent job of keeping everyone from killing each other as team members can fight like brothers when they spend so much time together. Things were coming together.

Fast forward a couple months and dozens of practices later and we are only days away from Spring Meet 2012. As I look forward to the competition I realize that win, lose or draw, it doesn’t really matter. They accomplished more during the journey to attempt to win this competition than winning the competition will ever do. The work that they have done to prepare for this contest will benefit themselves and their school for many years. The younger members on the team will feed off this energy and coupled with the knowledge that they’ve gained, they will continue to be a contender for many years. Looking at videos from 18 months ago I see incredible improvements - cuts that used to be 40 stokes in the bowsaw are now 9, crosscuts that used to be 12 strokes are now 5, chops that used to be 20-25 hits are now 11-16. Watching them cut now, I am in awe of how much they have accomplished. And as much as I’d like to take the credit, it has been their hard work that has brought them this far. You know, in the process of trying to adapt to coach them, I think that I’ve learned more about the sport and myself than I ever taught them. It’s funny how things work out that way sometimes, don’t you think?

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