Hey Mark,
I hope all is well with you and the family. How is Chris doing this season. I’m sure this will be a great year for him.
I wanted to keep you up-to-date with one of your former students. A couple of weeks ago Sam won the Ivy League Championships at Princeton.
He not only took home the top prize but broke the Ivy League Heps record as well. He threw 191″5′. Incidentally, a few months earlier, he set the University of Pennsylvania school record on his very first toss in his very first meet for the school.
Anyway, the reason I’m writing is to tell you that as I watched him accomplish all these great things for himself, and as he continues to get great coaching, one thing remains absolutely true; everything that he does technically after all these years still come back the Mirabelli training approach.
I went back to his videos from 2009 and compared them to current videos and I can see him applying the exact same fundamental technical elements that he learned from you. All he’s doing now is fine tuning the positions and developing greater speed and strength around those core fundamentals. I can almost hear you telling him to “don’t rush it, get the hips up and slap the discus out there.”
It’s like you laid the foundation properly to a great building and the structure around the strong foundation may change and grow but the foundation is still the thing that keeps it all strong and standing. I have to say, I am still thankful that we connected with you and that you continue to play such a key role in the success that Sam has seen. Anyway, he is currently ranked the #1 Freshman in the country and is the top 20 throwers nationally. He goes off to the NCCA regionals next week and hopefully moves on to Eugene in June for the Division 1 national Championships.
You may not always hear back from your students and parents; however, each time one of your former students picks up an implement and tosses it further than they had before, you laid the ground work for making that happen and that has to be quite gratifying to you. Take care Mark and thanks for all that you have done. I’ll continue to keep you posted as the post season wraps up.
Regards,
Marlon Mattis