We recently connected with Rebekah Alenduff and have shared our conversation below.

Rebekah, appreciate you joining us today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

Since becoming head coach of the Jax Fire Dragons, our club has grown from 15 members to 50 active club members, with the majority of the growth occurring this past year. Initially, I was the only coach for the club; however, last year I added four assistant coaches, which has given me time to focus on developing our elite athletes.

I would credit the addition of these four coaches, specifically the two coaches responsible for developing our novice paddlers, with the recent growth of our club. Because I had these two competent and organized individuals, I have been able to dedicate my time to making our club a lot more competitive. Our goal is to become the premier dragon boat club in the state, and the paddlers my two assistant coaches have been bringing in our helping to make this goal a reality.

Initially, it was difficult for me to let go of managing all coaching aspects of the club. I soon realized that the four individuals I had selected as coaches were more than competent to handle the jobs they had been assigned. With their help our club has nearly doubled in size in less than a year, our paddlers are now competent outrigger paddlers as well as dragon boat paddlers, and our race times have improved dramatically.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am the head coach for the Jax Fire Dragons Dragon Boat Club. Dragon Boating has it’s origins in China, but is now an extremely competitive international sport. It is one of the fastest growing sports in the world, and Florida has many highly competitive and world renowned teams. It is the ultimate team sport – 20 paddlers working together in unison to get these boats up to speed and to the finish line as quickly as possible.

I was a Collegiate rower, and came to dragon boating after college. I competed on the U.S. Premier Women’s National Team in 2015, and became the Head Coach for the Jax Fire Dragons in 2019, when the club had less than 15 active members. Since becoming head Coach, we have attended the US National Championships in Sarasota, with our premier boat earning two Bronze medals. We have also attended the Club Crew World Championships in Sarasota this past summer. While we didn’t make the podium, our crew posted their fastest times to date in all racing distances.

Our club is always welcoming new things paddlers, and no background in this sport is necessary. We have highly skilled coaches who will teach you proper technique, and we have recreational and competitive crews. The great thing about the Jax Fire Dragons is that we are inclusive and welcoming of everyone; this is one of the few sports you can compete in as a youth or a senior.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

We have been able to grow our membership by holding free, bi-weekly introductory paddling events. Our two coaches responsible for these events have done a phenomenal job. They begin with on land demonstrations, followed by an hour of instruction (and most days, a little racing) on the water. We are very fornutate to have Joe Longobordi (our club founder and former head coach) and Mike Grubbs as our two coaches responsible for developing our newest and most inexperienced paddlers.

Once an individual decides to join, we have special nights dedicated for our newest paddlers to get on the water and practice good technique, learn drills they will be doing once on our competitive crew. Our outrigger coach also works with new paddlers on getting familiar with, and competent on our oc-1 canoes (the best way for dragon boat paddlers to practice their technique when training alone).

Another reason for our growth has been our current club members. We are a very diverse group, but everyone is friendly, welcoming, and is there because we all absolutely love this sport. We have members who range in ages from the early 20’s to mid 70’s; some are former collegiate athletes while others have never played an organized sport, but everyone is supportive and encouraging.

Any advice for managing a team?

I would say that the best way to maintain high morale among your team is to genuinely love what you do. If you are truly passionate about your work it will show.

Because we are transitioning into a competitive program, there have definitely been some growing pains. I’ve found that it’s important to divide time between my recreational athletes and my elite athletes. Both groups are important and add value to our club as a whole, and many of our recreational paddlers have the goal of making our elite crews. It’s important for me as the Head Coach to make sure that the training programs for both the recreational boat and elite boat are challenging but attainable, and that they lead to growth for paddlers in both groups.

We now hold specific paddler evaluation days where paddlers get written feedback on what aspects of the stroke they are doing well, as well as areas where they could still improve. This feedback gives each athlete dedicated time with the coaches, allows them to see their progress, and helps them set goals as they prepare for upcoming evaluations and time trials.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://jaxfiredragons.org/
• Instagram: @jaxfiredragons
• Facebook: Http://www..Facebook.com/jaxfiredragons
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/user/JaxFireDragons
• Other: https://linktr.ee/jaxfiredragons