| By Steve Sherman As printed in
Optinews Summer issue 2005
At the Annapolis Team Trials skippers meeting this year, John
Lambert, Chair of the Regatta Committee for the USODA brought home some
excellent points in an eloquent way.
At the initial Skipper’s meeting, he introduced Annie Haeger, Eliza
Richartz, Sam Williams, Emily Dellenbaugh, Stephanie Roble, and Marshall
Crawford as a few of the top United States Optimists skippers and
briefly reviewed some of their accomplishments in the Opti class. John
went on to say that in this year’s event, “One of you will finish first
and one of you will finish last, and that for some this regatta will be
a very happy occasion and that for others there will be some
disappointment.” Noting that he had the permission of each sailor he had
introduced, to cite their past performances, he reviewed the results of
these sailors as well as those of Emily Lambert and Austin Anderson who
had just left the class. Each of these sailors had finished 100 or
higher in the 121 fleet that sailed at the 2002 Team Trials in Corpus
Christi.
John used these sailors and their results to illustrate the point
that how a competitor finished at this year’s Team Trials said nothing
about the competitor’s future in sailing. The sailors introduced were
living examples of a sailors who had had a poor result and gone on to
achieve a fair measure of success in the class. He encouraged everyone
to remember these examples and even to talk to these sailors if someone
was discouraged. John expressed the hope that by keeping these
individuals in mind, the competitors would be better able to focus on
the real point of Team Trials - to have fun.
McLaughlin Boat Works, World
Champion Boatbuilder For Over 40 Years. |