Scott, you are 100% correct. Development, development, development.

The US has the most juniors, and the most resources devoted to junior
racing of any country in the world. We've stepped it up a notch in
that respect in the last 5 years. Now we need to develop a clear
pipeline and provide viable ways to help talented and dedicated kids
stick with the sport and get the support they need to reach the elite
level.

Because of geography, we need to have regional centers where
knowledgeable coaches can work with promising regional talent. There
needs to be a signficant effort to raise the quality of coaching. We
need to provide education and find ways to share knowledge and
resources. We have an incredible number of dedicated, intelligent
coaches out there, but until recently, there has not been a big effort
to coordinate our efforts.

We fleshed a lot of these things out at the National Coaches Conference
last September and I dropped the ball in not following up with all of
the positive ideas that came out of there. Hopefully with some of the
new resources that are coming available at USST, we'll be able to
tackle this most important aspect - development.

That's how I see it anyway. Any ideas on how to specifically
accomplish some of these goals?