Lisa Thomaidis is the Coach for the Canadian Women's National Team and she had an incredible year this year. I thought I would highlight her as I read an interesting article about her this week. I really like what a powerful and successful coach she is. Some of the tactics and ideas are really perspective changing like the way she structures her timeouts. Most players are on the bench and the coach is in front of them facing them directly and providing direction. Coach Thomaidis angles her chair so that she is sitting beside her players to provide feedback and guidance. It gives the perspective that we are in this together instead of the way other coaches typically handle time outs where they are at the helm. To me it makes the circle much more inclusive in a way because of the room it opens up for other players to be able to see what she is talking about. Her back is only to a couple of players rather than all of them except for the five players in front of her. It is a small change that can really shifted my perspective in terms of thinking about a different way to do a very common basketball things. She looks like the hub of the wheel in a way which is a much more inspiring and collaborative leadership style. Given her success with her teams it seems to be working.
Huskies Head Coach Has Year for the Ages
by Scott Larson
Sasktoon Starphoenix
Lisa Thomaidis will have a very hard time repeating the success she has enjoyed over the past year or so.
The Saskatchewan Huskies women’s basketball team’s head coach, who carries the same title with Canada’s national team, piled one success on top of another.
Thomaidis started by guiding the national team to a Pan Am Games gold medal where they went 5-0. She followed that up with Team Canada winning the 2015 FIBA Americas Women’s Championship in Edmonton (again going undefeated,) which also qualified the team for the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Then she spent a historic season with the Huskies who won their first-ever CIS national title this past March, downing the Ryerson University Rams 85-71 in the final.
Then it was back with Team Canada at the Rio Olympics this summer, where they made it to the quarter-finals before bowing out to France.
“It has been a whirlwind,” said Thomaidis, whose Huskies played their home-opener Friday night against Winnipeg. “It was one highlight after another. All I can do is sit back and feel so fortunate and grateful to have had all of these opportunities … Once in a lifetime experiences. I don’t think it is possible to top that.”
Thomaidis says the national team’s success has given them some well-deserved attention.
But, that success didn’t come overnight. It was a four-year build off the 2012 London Olympics.
And the same can be said for the Huskies run toward a national championship.
“We knew from the get-go that we had the talent to be able to do it, but so much has to go your way,” said Thomaidis, who is in her 17th year as the Huskies head coach.
“You can have the talent, but so many more things have to come together for you — you have to stay injury-free, you have to be playing well at the right time — to see all that come to fruition.”
She was especially happy for the veterans, who had put so much time into making the Huskies the best team in the country.
“To see someone like Dalyce (Emmerson, who is third all-time in Huskie points) finish off her career like that. She has a special place in my heart, in what she was able to accomplish here at the U of S. And someone like a Laura Dally (a transfer from Western), who took a chance on us and moved halfway across the country to join our team and have a shot at a national championship, and to do it.
“And then getting an email from Sabine (Dukate from Latvia who asked to join the team) and all of a sudden she becomes our starting point guard and a huge piece of the puzzle.”
Dukate is the Huskies’ only returning starter, as they begin a new chapter in their history. And that suits Thomaidis just fine.
“It was probably good to have so many highlights last year, winning the national championship and then with the Olympic team. It seemed like it was a natural end point,” says Thomaidis. “It was the end of a (four-year cycle) with the national team, it was the end of an era with the Huskie team. And now we are starting something new.
“Coming into this year I actually felt quite rejuvenated. Anytime you get a chance to start from scratch with a group of young players; help mold them and build a new team with a very different look. To see if you can do it all over again with different personnel.”
That challenge has helped take away any Olympic hangover she may have had coming into this season.
“I was tired by the end of (the Olympics), but coming here and seeing a bunch of new faces and new prospects helped me get over that post-Olympic depression or letdown that they talk about.”
She looks at her young squad as underdogs this season, but know other teams still see them as national champions.
“Even though this is a very different team than last year, we still have that S on our chests,” she said. “We have had a very good run over the last four to five years … so everyone is going to get up to play us.”
The Huskies resume their two-game set with Winnipeg Saturday at 6:15 p.m. (the men play at 8 p.m.).
Their national-championship banner raising goes next weekend, when they host the Brandon Bobcats.
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