Sunday night saw a highly popular clubman, Wayne Herbstreit awarded life membership for his massive contribution to the St Pauls Mckinnon Junior Football Club over many years.
On behalf of the St Pauls Doggies, We would not only like to congratulate Wayne on his wonderful and well deserved achievment of life membership, but we would also like to say a big thankyou to him for his contribution to both the junior and senior club.
A top bloke and one of those people who mean so much to a football club.
Below is a summary of Waynes career, written by Darren Blenkinsop for the Junior Football Clubs newsletter.
In 2010 the St Paul’s Under 17s were looking for a new coach outside of the dads who had already coached in the younger age groups. Erica Kreymborg, who had a son in the team, also had an older son Jack - who had been coached by Wayne the previous year. She suggested we ask him.
Despite having four boys all playing in different teams, he accepted the role even without having a ‘Herbstreit’ in the side. Wayne was brilliant with the boys, right from the first training session and the end result was a Division 1 premiership!
He has continued to coach the under 18s (now 19s) and shows no sign of stopping. He does this each year whilst also coaching one of the junior teams each season. This means an average footy week is training Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturday under 19s and Sunday under 16s matches... Monday off... or maybe review one of the DVDs. Friday nights are often spent texting players to help build a team for the Saturday.
That’s around 20 hours per week dedicated to his boys.
Wayne possesses the perfect mix for a junior coach:
• He has a temperament that gives parents confidence that their son is in good hands.
• He knows when to lighten things up and when to get the boys’ minds on the job at hand.
• He understands the game and gets his message across in a positive way that encourages each player to get the best out of themselves.
• He is a mentor to many of his players, whether it is their footy ability or something extra that might be troubling them to make sure they feel part of the team.
In 2011, ten players from the under 18s played at least one game in the Senior team that won the premiership that year - a great achievement.
He loves the link between the juniors and seniors and works extra hard to involve senior players at junior training
sessions and has helped organise junior matches at half time in the seniors and got the boys into the clubrooms before the game.
He is a great ambassador for the club and in my opinion he is a most worthy recipient of a life membership.
Darren Blenkinsop - Assistant Coach to Wayne since 2010
Waynes History at the club:
Last Modified on 01/08/2013 11:58