Gen32 Coaches on a Dream Path

Over the last nine months, New South Wales Institute of Sports (NSWIS) Snowboard Cross coach Jackson Holtham has taken significant strides towards one day fulfilling his goal to guide a Winter Olympic athlete to winning a gold medal in the snowboard cross event.

Holtham, who is one of NSWIS’s six coaches involved in the Generation 32 Coaching Program, a key initiative of the National High Performance Coaching Strategy led by the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in conjunction with the National Institute Network (NIN) and National Sporting Organisations (NSO), to ensure Australia is a world leader in coach development ahead of the 2032 Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Alan McConnell, who is the AIS Coach Development Lead (NSWIS), and formerly the coaching director at the Greater Western Sydney Giants AFL club, is overseeing the Institute’s Gen32 scholarship holders which include Holtham, Nicole Parks (Freestyle Moguls), Kate Jenner (Hockey), Jay Thompson (Surfing), Hally Chapman (Rowing), and James Greathead (Triathlon).

The coaches have what is effectively a two-year paid working apprenticeship, which includes being immersed in a high performance sport environment under the guidance of a mentor coach. The program also provides the young coaches with residential learning and network support from the AIS, NIN, and their NSO.

Should the program fulfill its aim, the 2022 intake of 31 Gen32 scholarship holders from across Australia will be in the thick of the action in Brisbane 2032.

For Holtham, who started as a snowboard instructor at Thredbo Resort in 2014, the program, which provided the opportunity to work with the national Winter Sport team overseas, and to have access to a network of senior coaches, has sparked tremendous growth.

“A lot of maturity and adapting to systems in my new role as a coach, and also a lot of information to take forward,” was Holtham’s assessment of the benefits he’s taken from the first nine months of his scholarship.

“The amount of learning I’ve done has been great.”

“I was fortunate enough to receive an AIS Elevate Learning Grant and some Personal Development funding from NSWIS which allowed for me to go [overseas] in November and December. That allowed for me to work with, and alongside, our Olympic Winter Institute of Australia (OWIA) Head Coach, Harald Benselin at a number of World Cups.”

“[It allowed me to] take some really good learnings from that and apply it to my program throughout the start of this year. It was a massive benefit to have that, and to have the support from the organisation. It allowed me to build the program in a positive way.”

Holtham was joined by 2014 Sochi Winter Olympian, Nicole Parks, and other scholarship holders in Sydney last week for a development session hosted by the AIS’s Lúcás Ó’Ceallacháin – who’s career includes working for Leinster Rugby, the Special Olympics Ireland, Central Asia, Russia, and Finland Rugby Union, the Irish Handball Association; and Wrestling Canada – on the most beneficial way to work and engage with stakeholders. The development session also included hearing from AFL Swans CEO Tom Harley.

“I’ve met some really awesome people and some amazing coaches, and I’m really enjoying expanding my network with other coaches,” said Park. “I think the biggest thing I’ve taken away from the [first] nine months is my goals:  I’ve created a clearer picture of what I want to achieve.”

Park said the program provided her with one huge challenge – being sent overseas for the longest time she’s spent away from home.

“I was overseas for four months and it’s the longest time I’ve been overseas in one stint, and the biggest thing was the support network I created,” said Park.

“Knowing I have the support, and that I can reach out to these amazing people around me and to help me get through a really, really big camp [was important].”

“I have met so many people, people at NSWIS who are supporting me, and who I know I can reach out to. I work closely with Kate Blamey and Pete McNeill – who are amazing coaches. They’re right by my side and are very accessible as well, they’ve been helping me in my career.

“My ambitions? I have so many of them, but I would like to coach at an Olympic Games. That’s my biggest ambition, but right now it’s helping the athletes I coach with their goals inside of sport and in life.

“I was an athlete for a very long time, and I feel like I can connect with them that way; the athlete side of things.

Holtham said the greatest challenge the program had so far presented him was ‘isolating the ‘learnings’ he’s taking from a number of coaches and networks and applying them to his own philosophies. He’s realised that benefiting from the wealth of knowledge at his disposal is realising what clicks for him.

“It’s about taking what’s important to you – what applies to you – and running with that instead of thinking you need to incorporate everything,” he said.

Nevertheless, he’s confident the knowledge and experiences his gaining through Gen32, and support through the Elevate program, and NSWIS is allowing him to get even closer to reaching his goal.

“[Being a] gold medal coach has always been the goal,” he enthused. “Always has been and always will be.

“I think the important part for me now is building a very strong development program and continuing to aid the development pathway.

“I think, with that, we’ll build a good stream of athletes and really build the sport. Wherever that lands me . . . or lands the athlete that comes through that . . .  I think it will somehow influence a gold medal, or an athlete who achieves that.”

Daniel Lane, NSWIS