Cornwall Sports Awards 2012

Storm Head Coach David White has won the Performance & Development Coach of the Year 2012 Award at the Cornwall Sports Awards.

The event, which took place at the Headland Hotel in Newquay, was attended by over 250 people and saw David presented with the award by Olympic rower Annie Vernon.

The category recognises the achievements of a coach who is working to develop emerging and young performers within their sport. It includes player centred high quality coaching that encourages the development of performance and nurturing talent.

David was delighted to receive the award. "I'm incredibly honoured and I must admit completely shocked," he said. "To be recognised at the Awards is a great achievement but for me personally to be recognised in this particular category means the world to me as this is something I've been working towards for a while now."

Part of the club's development has been to take it's Hurricanes team into the South West U16 Regional League for the past two seasons, a feat which the new U16 team The Tornadoes has matched this year.

As part of the Awards ceremony the audience was shown a short film of the winners which included interviews with club members. One of the players interviewed was former Hurricanes captain Beth Thomas who has been with Storm since she was 10. "Every training session is different," she said. "David always tells us why we're doing something and what we're going to do. You never, ever get bored at a training session."

Emma Stevenson is Storm's 2nd team Goal Keeper and has previously played in the armed forces netball teams. "I have to admit I've never, ever found a coach like the coaches I've had in the forces .. and I've finally found one in David," she said. "His coaching is on a par with their coaching and to be honest with you probably higher."

David has been working hard with the club's young members to continue their learning of the game whilst making sure they still enjoy playing the sport.

This has included the introduction of an Elite Athlete Development Academy which gives players their own strength and conditioning programme, mental training, nutrition advice plus various other workshops and fitness sessions on and off the court to develop their game.

The Academy was developed with help from former Cornish Pirates High Performance Manager Chris Stirling who gave David invaluable advice and materials on running a high performance club. "To be able to sit down with Chris and talk through my ideas was an extremely useful experience and I was then able to take that back and implement it at our club," said David.

The Development Academy runs out of the club's home base at Carn Brea Leisure Centre who's manager Barry Holding nominated Storm for the Cornwall Awards this year.