The USEF Search Committee can finally breathe a sigh of relief today knowing they will get at least two applications for the US coaching job. David’s experience and achievements make him an incredibly strong applicant, and I have outlined a few of my thoughts about David’s potential role as US Coach in this post.
In my mind, there are two types of accomplishments that are important for the next US coach: success as a rider, and success as a coach. David has achieved both of these in spades. In a three-day eventing career that spanned 20 years, David won 18 three-day events. David’s riding resume includes a team gold at the ’02 WEGs, a win at the ’01 Rolex CCI4*, a victory at Badminton in 1997, six Fair Hill CCI3* victories, two Rolex CCI3* victories, Olympic team silver and bronze medals, and of course the individual Olympic gold medal in Sydney.
As for coaching, I have said it before and I will say it again: I expect David to win more international medals as a coach than he did as a rider. I still fully expect that to be true whether or not the USEF decides to make him the next US coach. When David took over the reins at Team Canada four years ago, the Canadian eventing program was a mess. Canada hadn’t won a WEG medal since 1978, and their last Olympic team medal had come in 1956. It was a popular joke among my friends in 2004 that since we were two-star riders we should all just marry a Canadian and go to the Olympics–not anymore. In 2006 David developed a step-by-step written four-year plan to build a winning program for Canada. The support staff, team directors, and riders believed in and executed David’s plan to perfection, and we all saw the results in Lexington. The USEF Search Committee will certainly ask themselves what they think David’s next four-year plan could produce for the US if he started with better funding, a squad of excellent veteran riders, and a greater depth of talent with which to build a program.
When I talk to top riders about David’s potential as the US coach, they are, in general, very complimentary about his coaching skills and his ability to build a winning program. The most common concern they raise is whether or not the system that David used in Canada would work as well in the US. David took a very direct and technical coaching approach with the Canadians, but he told me this morning that he sees the role of the US coach as being more about guiding and helping the riders to make a plan in coordination with their personal coaches. This suggests to me that David understands that the US team will need to be handled differently than the Canadian team in the sense that the US coach will have less of a pure instructional role and more of an emphasis on guiding the considerable talents of the US riders.
One issue that will be raised with any candidate from within the US is a discussion about conflict of interest. With David, that question has a lot to do with Karen being a High Performance rider and a perennial member of the US Team. It is my educated guess that Karen will retire after 2012, and this would almost certainly have to be a requirement if David is chosen to be the US coach.
A lot of people might disagree with me on this, but I think that one of the reasons that David makes such a good coach is that he wasn’t an extremely natural rider. I’m pretty sure that Bruce Davidson could have ridden around a 4* course when he was 7 years old–and probably made the time. David, on the other hand, had to spend his career studying how to ride and how horses think. The result is that David possesses the most developed and refined theory of riding that I have ever seen. David is an intellectual, he’s a thinker, and he will never ask you as a rider to do something without providing a conceptual framework for understanding what you are doing.
Personally, I’m very excited that the USEF will have the opportunity to consider David’s application because, in all honesty, I wasn’t sure whether David would apply for the US job after the Canadians did so well at the WEGs. I know that David truly loves his Canadian squad and those riders would ride through the gates of hell for him. Our Canadian readers are undoubtedly really disappointed at the prospect of losing their coach, but remember that either way David will coach Canada through the 2012 Olympics, and Team Canada has unquestionably reemerged as an eventing power.
David told me this morning that he has been preparing his entire life to coach the US Team, and his career certainly feels that way; studied under Jimmy Wofford and Jack Le Goff, international competitor for the US, won Olympic gold, became coach of the Canadian Team, led the Canadians to WEG silver…doesn’t it seem like the next step on that list is coaching the US Team?
After the January 31st application deadline, the candidates will be ranked by the selection committee using the applications and phone interviews to create a working short list. The short list will be passed to the USEF Active Athletes Committee, which will make a recommendation to the High Performance Committee, which will make a final recommendation to USEF CEO John Long, who will make the final hiring decision.
There is a long way to go before the USEF names our next eventing coach, and I expect that at least a couple more very strong candidates will apply. But, I think that we can all start getting excited that US eventing has some fantastic potential leaders. Go eventing.
