{"id":171839,"date":"2020-11-12T13:11:43","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T11:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypr.co.za\/?p=96301"},"modified":"2020-11-12T13:11:43","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T11:11:43","slug":"former-madibaz-star-takes-over-top-water-polo-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/former-madibaz-star-takes-over-top-water-polo-job\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Madibaz star takes over top water polo job"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_96302\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-96302\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mypr.co.za\/?attachment_id=96302\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt width=\"225\" height=\"300\" class=\"wp-image-96302 size-thumbnail lazyload\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/former-madibaz-star-takes-over-top-water-polo-job.jpg\"><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-96302 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/former-madibaz-star-takes-over-top-water-polo-job.jpg\" alt width=\"225\" height=\"300\"><\/noscript><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-96302\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Former Madibaz water polo star Delaine Mentoor has been appointed head coach of the national women\u2019s team. Photo: Full Stop Communications<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Former Madibaz star Delaine Mentoor will place a strong emphasis on mental preparation after landing the job as head coach for the South African women\u2019s water polo team.<\/p>\n<p>The 27-year-old ex-national player was appointed to the position in October and has already targeted some international tournaments next year as their immediate goals.<\/p>\n<p>To attain success in such a challenging environment, she says it is essential to retain \u201ccalmness in the chaos\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy main coaching philosophy is that I do not panic and prefer to work silently in the background to provide the calmness required,\u201d said Mentoor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI coach the mind just as hard as I coach the physical aspect of the game, because I believe that you must cultivate the mind to achieve the maximum performance from players.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCoaching with integrity is another big part of my thinking and I believe my players should, too, play with integrity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI suppose I also remain calm because I am a big believer in doing the work before the competition to make sure my players are well prepared for all aspects \u2013 the controllable and the uncontrollable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo there is no need to panic; you only need to adapt,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTeaching responsibility and accountability are important as this provides the players with life lessons through sport.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As she looks to next year, Mentoor said their primary objective was to build a squad of fit and conditioned players, with a good work ethic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis will assist in us standing our ground against the many tough teams we will be up against and, most importantly, will allow us to be competitive on the world stage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to be able to build and work towards the 2024 Olympic Games.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She said much of the work had already been done by her predecessor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight now it is all about executing it and ensuring players are meeting the targets set out for them and adapting as we go along. We need to find what works for all national squad players and for that reason the targets have been individualised.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut we are always looking to improve, so there are a number of professionals involved to ensure that we stay on the right track and work towards player development and growth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mentoor, then Christian, started coaching at a young age, during her first year at Nelson Mandela University (2012), and she played provincially and nationally for several years.<\/p>\n<p>She competed in the junior world championships in Greece, senior world championships in Barcelona and Russia as well as at the European Union nations tournaments in Ireland and Prague.<\/p>\n<p>And yet, if it hadn\u2019t been for a talk given to a group of swimmers by some water polo players during her schooldays at Kingsridge in King William\u2019s Town, she might not have found this career path.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is crazy to think of where it all started and where I am now,\u201d recalled Mentoor. \u201cI was a swimmer and a group of high school water polo players came around and called all of the swimmers for a talk when I was 11.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI remember them telling us about the sport, how social it was and how you could travel the world and meet so many people. Well, 16 years later that could not be more true.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFollowing that talk, we attended an introductory training camp at Stirling High School in East London and I fell in love with the game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI could finally use my strength and build with a combination of the swimming I was already doing and I received instant joy from playing \u2013 I knew this was what I wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She was recognised for her playing skills at Nelson Mandela University, twice receiving the Madibaz sportswoman of the year award.<\/p>\n<p>In her last year, she was named the varsity\u2019s coach of the year at the annual Achiever Awards dinner.<\/p>\n<p>Having coached at various national levels, she now looks forward to sharing her knowledge gleaned over the years with the country\u2019s best players.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mypr.co.za\/contact\/featured\/\">CLICK HERE to submit your press release to MyPR.co.za<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-pagination pagination\">Pages: <span class=\"post-page-numbers current\" aria-current=\"page\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Page <\/span>1<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/mypr.co.za\/former-madibaz-star-takes-over-top-water-polo-job\/2\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Page <\/span>2<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mypr.co.za\">Source: MyPR.co.za<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Madibaz water polo star Delaine Mentoor has been appointed head coach of the national women\u2019s team. Photo: Full Stop Communications Former Madibaz star Delaine Mentoor will place a strong emphasis on mental preparation after landing the job as head coach for the South African women\u2019s water polo team. The 27-year-old ex-national player was appointed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":171840,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9021,3330],"tags":[3257],"class_list":{"0":"post-171839","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mypr","8":"category-port-elizabeth","9":"tag-mypr","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/former-madibaz-star-takes-over-top-water-polo-job.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}