Canada Basketball’s National Elite Development Academy (NEDA) is the national training centre program that has brought together 24 of the top high school basketball players from across Canada to Hamilton, Ontario.  The 12 boys and 12 girls, aged 15-18 are residing with billet families in Hamilton, attend local area high schools and train daily at McMaster University.

Christine Stapleton, the Canada Basketball Women’s Development Coach, does double duty with the national body, serving as both the Head Coach of the Girl’s NEDA and the Canadian Junior National Women’s Team.  The former Head Coach at the University of Regina where she won a CIAU Championship in 2001, Stapleton led the Canadian Junior Women’s Team to a 9th place finish recently at the World Championships.  Beginning its second year the NEDA program is under Stapleton’s watch.  She is responsible for recruiting, counseling, and coaching some of the best young female basketball players in Canada.

Coaches Clipboard:  The NEDA program began its second year recently.  Can you discuss the goals of the program?

Stapleton:  There are a number of goals for the NEDA program.  These include providing an opportunity for top players to compete against each other every day.  Therefore, these athletes have the chance to test themselves, mentally and physically, against many of the best players in the country at their age group.  We attempt to introduce and refine a basketball skill set and style of play.  We also want to provide a high level of competition which includes international competition, college and university teams, and games against high school boy’s teams.  A significant goal is for the athletes to learn to train at an elite level.  This includes introducing a periodized strength and conditioning program in an effort to improve their overall fitness.  The obvious hope is that someday many of these athletes will represent Canada on the Senior Women’s National Team.

Coaches Clipboard:  What would a typical day be like for these young female athletes?

Stapleton:  For the athletes school begins at 8:20 am and goes to 12:30 pm.  They attend class during period 1, 2 and 3, and in period 4, we practice at McMaster University from 1:30 to 4:30 pm; this goes on five days a week.  Within the 1:30 to 4:30 pm. time slot there is also alternative training (weights, conditioning, core, agility, video).  The hope is that each day they are back to the billet’s home for dinner by 5:30 pm.  The athletes also will have individual/small group or positional training once a week from 6:30 – 7:45am.

Coaches Clipboard:  After evaluating the first year what do you believe are the strengths of the program and what are the areas you are looking to improve upon?

Stapleton:  A definite strength of the program is the level of competition the players receive each day in practice – it could not be duplicated at any high school in the country.   We believe the level of coaching is very good, plus Canadian Senior Women’s Head Coach, Allison McNeill will come in for two weeks to work with the kids.  The skill training the players receive is appropriate to the position we envision they will play internationally. So the 6’2 player, who in most high school settings will be a post, will be trained as a perimeter player, or a 6’0 wing may be trained as a point guard.  Our schedule is highly competitive, with the international competition, university games, and games against boys’ teams.  Joan Mlynarczyk has designed an outstanding strength and conditioning program which reaped tremendous benefits to our kids last year. 

There are several areas we are trying to improve.  Though we do have good level of competition we are looking to make it more consistent throughout the year.  We definitely need more individual gym time but have some restrictions because of facilities and schedules.  We also would like to have funding for a full-time, properly remunerated assistant coach. 

Coaches Clipboard:  Though your players are high school kids you do not play in a high school league.  Could you outline your schedule?

Stapleton: Our schedule consists of competing against Canadian University teams in tournaments and single games.  We will play American junior colleges, prep schools, high schools and AAU teams.  We play local high school boy’s teams and senior women’s teams.  As well we will play some of the Quebec colleges (CEGEP) teams.  The highlight of the schedule is the international competition, both on the tour we take in the spring, and against any visiting international teams. 

Coaches Clipboard:  Last year you had two BC players, Kelsey Adrian, from Brookswood now at University of California-Berkeley, and Kaitlyn Burke from Argyle, who is attending University of Nebraska.  Both of them were involved with the National program this summer.  Can you talk about these two kids?

Stapleton:  We were VERY fortunate to get athletes, players and people like Kelsey and Kaitlyn to attend the NEDA program in the first year.  They were well trained mentally and physically and helped to lead the new program.  As the NEDA program becomes more widely understood it is critical to continue to attract the top athletes from across Canada.  A centralized training program for age group athletes is not new to basketball around the world but is new to basketball in Canada.  Kelsey and Kaitlyn had a successful billet experience.  Kelsey stayed with family and Kaitlyn stayed with a family who now have become like family.  Both were also Ontario Scholars meaning they achieved an over 80% average in their classes.  Canada Basketball was very pleased with their progress in the NEDA year and what they were both able to contribute to their respective national teams - Kelsey started with the senior team and Kaitlyn was the starting point guard with Junior National team

Coaches Clipboard:  This year Felicia Wijenberg, from Maple Ridge, the BC High School Girls’ AAA MVP, and Julie Seabrook, from Carson Graham, who went to the World Championships with Junior National Team have chosen to attend NEDA.  How are these two doing after the first few weeks of this year’s program?

Stapleton:  Again we are very excited that these two players from BC made the decision to attend NEDA and move to Hamilton.  Julie is continuing on her successful summer with the Junior National Team and is one of the leaders in all off-court conditioning.  On the court she is vocal, intelligent, competitive, tough and skilled.  Unfortunately, Felicia got mono over the summer and could not compete for her provincial team.  She is attacking the off-court training and though behind because of the mono she has made real gains in her conditioning.  On the court she is skilled, intelligent, competitive, and has a great understanding of her skill set.

Coaches Clipboard:  How does an athlete get selected to attend NEDA?

Stapleton:  The most direct way is through the provincial programs – RTC’s, CP’s, provincial teams.  The easiest way for the coaches to evaluate age group talent is when they play against each other.  However NEDA athletes are not selected only for the athletic and basketball potential, we are also looking for characteristics we believe make up a national team athlete.  (self discipline, competitiveness, work ethic, passion, commitment, belief in themselves, low maintenance, pride in representing region, sense of sacrifice, teachable, mentally tough, loyal, responsible, positive, desire to be excellent).  The only way to identify these character traits is if the athletes work with coaches who communicate with provincial and national level coaches

Coaches Clipboard:  Joan Mlynarczyk, who has been with the Canadian Women’s Program for over 20 years as the team physiotherapist, designed an age appropriate strength and conditioning program for NEDA.  What kind of results did you see from the program?

Stapleton:  To put it simply it was incredible.  Some of the girls gained over 15 pounds of lean body weight in the year they were at NEDA.  Those athletes now have a better understanding of how to train their bodies and what demands they should place on the programs they attend to build and maintain their strength and conditioning.  Joan’s program is routine based so once the girls learn the movements they become self sufficient with their training.  The program is also concise – they train basketball specific movements and do not waste time in the weight room

Coaches Clipboard:  From a technical standpoint what are you trying to accomplish with the NEDA athletes?

Stapleton:  There are a number of things we are trying to accomplish.  We certainly are trying to teach athletes to read and react to the game quicker.  We have identified a number of things we do not do well in comparison to the better countries in the world: 
1) We do not take the ball to the hoop well and we are training the athletes to become more competitive at this part of their game.
2) We do not take care of the ball so we are equipping athletes, from the point guards to posts, with ball skills to help us become better in this area.
3) We do not shoot the ball as well as most international team so we shoot the ball LOTS at NEDA.
4) We need to become better at finishing plays after we have picked the ball up – pivoting, faking and be physical with our finish.
Our offence is a motion offence so we teach LOTS of screening action – down, flare, cross, and ball screens.  We teach the correct offensive reads and can also learn to guard every type of screening action we see.

Coaches Clipboard:  Last year you traveled to France and Belgium to play against their Junior Teams.  Did you find any differences between our Canadian athletes and the European teams you played?

Stapleton:  We were bigger, stronger and more skilled than the Belgium U18 team. 
France U16, U18 and Belgium U18 team had far more international experience than us.  Each summer they play in European qualifiers and during the year they play in professional women’s leagues.  Our Canadian athletes do not have access to this consistent, high level competition.  The France U18 team was more skilled and had trained for longer together.  The athletes in this program had been at the centralized INSEP program for at least two years.