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Wisconin-Whitewater Coach Aims to Help Beginning Throws Coaches

Published by
Martin Bingisser   Dec 28th 2009, 7:38pm
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When University of Wisconsin-Whitewater coach Dave Hahn goes to the NCAA Championships, he always runs into a lot of local faces. Anyone that follows Division III track and field knows that no throws competition is complete without the Wisconsin schools. Every year, throwers from Wisconsin still outnumber throwers from nearly every state at the NCAA Division III Championships. Some years, the NCAA finals don’t look that much different than the WIAC conference finals.

Coach Hahn feels that the success of throwers throughout Wisconsin can be attributed to coaching. Throughout the conference, great coaches have been able to produce some of the nation’s best throwers. Coach Hahn himself is no exception. Since taking the reins at Whitewater during the 2002 season, he has coached over thirty All-American throwers. His star pupil in the hammer throw was Jeremy Wendt, whose career highlights included multiple NCAA titles, NCAA records in the hammer throw and weight throw, and Athlete of the Meet honors at the 2004 NCAA Outdoor Championships. With all his success, Coach Hahn has quickly become recognized as one of the top young throws coaches in the nation.

Coach Hahn’s career started as a hammer thrower for University of Wisconsin-Platteville. After earning four Division III All-American honors, he began working as a coach at Whitewater while fulfilling his student teaching requirements at a nearby school. What he planned as a one-year adventure has continued for the past seven years. “I really got hooked on coaching, and started finding other work that would allow me to continue coaching,” says Hahn. He now works full-time for the university, splitting time between coaching and work in Whitewater’s admission office.

As the years passed by, Hahn began to coach coaches in addition to his athletes. Hahn frequently hears from many beginning high school and college coaches that are looking for help but don’t have the time or money to invest in attending clinics. With this in mind, he launched Coachthethrows.com. Hahn hopes the site can help out those coaches who don’t know where they can turn for help. “My goal is to provide resources that emphasize fundamental principles and allow young coaches to develop their technical philosophies,” says Hahn. “I think the site can shorten their learning curve in developing a successful throws crew.” While Hahn had a solid idea of what he wanted on the site, start-up was slow because he didn’t have a strong background in computers. It wasn’t until this past year that Hahn had both the time and knowledge to begin putting his vision together in full.

Hahn’s site is just one of many that now provide different resources for throwers and coaches. Hahn hopes that his site will become a go-to site for beginning coaches and he is working hard to provide weekly tips on coaching and helpful videos that demonstrate drills. Hahn himself is always learning more about coaching as he coaches his own athletes, and is quick to share his knowledge with others. This year is no different for him. His squad returns two All-Americans on the men’s side (discus thrower Ben Stringer and discus/hammer runner-up Shaun Davis) and a former NCAA champion (discus thrower Dana Thompson) on the women’s side. Hahn is excited about the season. “We’ve got a good crew of guys who will also make a big impact at our conference meet as well as the national list,” Hahn says. But, as with every year, the road to the NCAA Championships starts against some great local competition.


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