The Record

newsroom@sherbrookerecord.com

T u e s da y , Nov e m b e r 22, 2011

Pa ge 7

Local Sports
By Jesse Feith

I always noticed personality first over talent, we would look into their family background. We were recruiting in a professional way but also in a way similar to college at the same time.

Bishops womens Gaiters basketball team in the presence of renowned international coach
coaching mini-basket by the age of 14 and that became my focus soon after, explained the coach in his thick and heavy Spanish accent. By the age of 22 Coach Vecchio was already the head coach of an Argentinian team that was winning international tournaments while establishing himself as one of the best up-and-coming coaches the country had. For him, coaching the sport he loved came naturally. My personality gave me the possibility to be a coach and God has blessed with the successes Ive had, said Vecchio in an interview. At age 23, he left Argentina to gain his first of many experiences at the helm of a team outside of his homeland as he journeyed to Puerto Rico to coach various teams for several years. As for Perno, he also enjoyed success as a player before a family tragedy forced him to reconsider his path with the sport. I never really knew that I wanted to be a coach. I played right up until university (where he played with the University of New England) and then my father passed away one summer at the end of August right before I was supposed to go back and play for my school. I took time to think about it and decided I had to call my coach and tell him I wouldnt be coming back to give me the chance and the time to cope with my loss. During the time I took off I started coaching, and thats really where it all started. Perno is now recognized as one of the coaches in Quebec who truly coached at every level on his way up, starting his coaching career in 1996 at Polyvalente Deux Montagnes high school, eventually coaching at the AAA provincial level, at the CEGEP level for Montmorency, and now at Bishops. While Perno was gradually climbing the coaching ranks in Quebec, Vecchio was establishing himself as an internationally successful coach and mentor. He eventually became a coach of a group of players referred to as the Golden Project Program in Argentina, a player development program that would ultimately change the face of Argentinian basketball forever, its influence on the sport even reaching out to the National Basketball Association as many of its players currently not only play, but shine for their respective NBA teams. Among the players he coached are Emanuel Ginbili, Andrs Nocioni, Fabricio Oberto and Luis Scola all known as solid NBA players in America, but in Argentina, they are known as the players who ushered in the Golden Generation of basketball by winning the gold medal in the Americas Championship in 2001, the silver medal at the 2002 FIBA World Championship and the gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympic Games, in which they defeated the mighty and heavily favorite Team USA on their way to the championships game against Italy.

nyone who has been following the Bishops womens basketball team this season may have noticed an extra coach sitting on the sidelines during their games, and that would be internationally renowned coach Guillermo Vecchio, who is currently helping the Gaiters for the first half of the season. Originally from Argentina, Vecchio is spending the first half of the Gaiters season in Lennoxville helping out Head Coach Alex Perno after the two developed a relationship over basketball clinics that the Argentinian coach had been giving throughout Quebec. Perno will in turn leave Canada on March 19, following the university season to go help Vecchio coach his professional team. Basketball Quebec had invited him down for clinics and we met through those. Sometimes when you meet people you can feel an instant connection, and we met and started talking and eventually the idea came up. We both felt we had great chemistry and decided wed like to work together again in the future, explained Perno. For Coach Vecchio, the sport of basketball became a part of his life at a very young age, and he began coaching soon afterwards. I started playing basketball at the age of eight for a small club team in Argentina and enjoyed a pretty successful career as a player but I already started

COURTESY

Argentinian basketball coach Guillermo Vecchio has coached four different National Teams including Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico and Panama. He is now helping out the Bishops Gaiters womens team this year and will do so until their last game of the first half of their season.

Brome Lake woman wins four gold medals at Parapan American Games
yne Bessette, a para-cyclist from Brome Lake, was chosen alongside fellow Canadian Robbi Weldon to represent their country as the flag bearers for the closing ceremonies of the 2011 Parapan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico that took place over the weekend. The Canadian tandem had a perfect weekend as they won gold medals in the four cycling events that they participated in. It was such an honour to have been chosen to carry the Canadian flag, said Bessette. These were the best games I have ever participated in ever since I started cycling. For me, they sort of represent the end of my first career and the beginning of my second career. Its been one year since I started para-cycling with Robbi, but its as if its only this week that everything came into place, that our chemistry came together and everything clicked, added the Quebec native. Her amazing performance impressed many people at the games, but perhaps most importantly it impressed her parents, Alfred and Johanne Bessette. We are very happy for her and Weldon. I was pretty convinced that they

THE CANADIAN PRESS/HOMATTHEW MURNAGHAN

Cyclist Robbi Weldon of Thunder Bay, Ont., and pilot Lyne Bessette of Knowlton ride to a gold medal in the 21.1-kilometre mixed time trial for athletes with visual impairment on Sunday November 13. would get their hands on at least one gold medal during the games, but for them to have won four is very impressive, especially because they have only been working together for one year. We are very proud of both girls and we know that Lyne finds it very gratifying to be able to continue her career with Robbi, said Johanne Bessette. Bessette, who had already established herself as a successful cyclist, announced

her retirement from the sport in 2006 after years of performing with professional cycling teams on an international level. She participated in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the 2004 Athens Olympics before beginning to para-cycle a little more than one year ago with Weldon. The tandem won their fourth gold medal Saturday when they won their last race with a time of one hour and 32 minutes, beating their closest competitors by a total of three minutes and 13 seconds. These were truly the greatest games my career. There were people all over the track, which is something that we arent used to seeing. The Mexicans did an exceptional job. Other Quebec athletes were able to win medals at the game, as Saint-JeanSur-Richelieu native Myriam Adam won a gold medal, Granbys Mathieu Parent ranked sixth in singles timed races and Orfords ric Bourgault finished eighth in the C4-5 competition. Canada on a whole finished in eight place at the games, with a total of 63 medals, of which thirteen were gold.

Vecchio coached all of these now international stars before they were NBA standouts, and when asked if he could tell from an early age that they were destined to push their basketball careers further than any Argentinians before them, he claims it was characteristics beyond the court that he looked for in layers. I always noticed personality first over talent, we would look into their family background. We were recruiting in a professional way but also in a way similar to college at the same time, said the coach about recruiting the young men who would eventually go on to be some of the most successful basketball players their country has ever seen. Vecchio eventually left Argentina with a long trail of successes behind him to go coach Panamas national team, a situation he says brought along a fair deal of pressure with it. Panama is a country of proud, proud people and their fans are so excited and passionate. I felt a lot of pressure to succeed with them, once you have won once with one country, the next team has the right to ask you to win again and you can feel like you need to. Besides tasting success with Panama, he has now also coached the Venezuelan and Mexican National Teams as well as a multitude of professional clubs. Vecchios visit to Quebec has brought him all over the province so far with stops in Chicoutimi, Amos and the Townships with future dates in Quebec City and Montreal planned after the last Bishops game of the semester. He will then also travel to Ontario, where Basketball Ontario has set up clinics in Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton and London. To this day, he says he has given more than 700 clinics around the world in Europe, Asia, Africa and America. Read tomorrows Record for more on Coach Vecchios stint with Bishops and his stay in the Townships this fall.