GEORGE BROWN HAS UNIQUE CENTRE FOR VOLLEYBALL EXCELLENCE

He was born in the picturesque village of Brussels, went to high school down the highway in Wingham and now Josh Nichol could have a say in developing Canada's future Olympic volleyball players.

Depending on how you look at the task, Nichol - and colleagues across the country - can only improve things - especially at the men's level where Canada hasn't had a team at the Summer Olympics in the past 20 years.

At the World championship two years ago, Canada finished in 19th place. The Pan Am Games, a smaller international event, the results were better with bronze medals - but that was in 1979 in San Juan and again in Winnipeg in 1999.

Nichol, when he's not working at the Ontario Volleyball Association, is the head coach of the men's team at George Brown College.

And when Toronto's downtown post-secondary institution had an opportunity to grab a few dollars from Volleyball Canada via the Nationally-funded Own The Podium program and establish a Centre for Excellence in the country's largest city, Nichol got the nod to make some magic.

In other words, work with high school-age athletes and develop high performance male and female athletes.

"It's certainly a great opportunity to work on fundamentals and build our future athletes and programs for international competition," said Nichol, who is also completing his Level Three of the National Coaching Certification Program.

"As a country, we have consistently fallen short and our men's teams have made the Summer Olympics only three times. Now, we have something special at George Brown that could improve things - our goal is to help young athletes (boys and girls) use this as a pathway to the National team."

A left side hitter when he played high school and club, Nichol was a former two-time Huron-Perth area league all-star, and team MVP in his senior year at F.E. Madill Secondary. Sometime after that, the focus changed from playing to coaching - something he has done for the past nine years.

Nichol, who denied the program was designed to recruit athletes to George Brown College, said Canada has some very talented individual male and female volleyball players, but there was a drastic need for improvement.

Volleyball Canada has set up a series of Centres, similar to George Brown, across the country. The University of Waterloo has the only other program in Ontario.

Emphasis is put on nutrition, strength, conditioning and fundamentals of the sport.

Nichol said open tryouts were held in June and September. Later this month, the 13-week program begins at George Brown with one for those in Grades 8 and 9 while another is aimed for students in grades 10, 11 and 12.

Nichol said the program is not only attracting players from the Greater Toronto Area - but also from Newmarket and Barrie - and at least one student is using it as a school credit.

Lacey Hrynyk lives in Barrie, and is in her graduating year at Innisdale Secondary School, and said the one-hour commute to George Brown College - twice a week - is well worth it.

"I hope to play for Canada one day and when this kind of coaching is available free -it makes sense to benefit from it," said the 17-year old, a 5-foot-9 left-side hitter and libero.

"I like the strength and conditioning component, but really can't go wrong with the coaching and in smaller groups. It's also a school credit for me."

Nichol will coach the men while Matt Harris will deal with the female program.

"We have lots of work to do - and the development of great players doesn't happen overnight," said Nichol. "One day, we hope to do well at the Olympics and maybe we'll be able to look back and say we had a say in the development of those athletes."

Source: George Brown College