When it comes to speed enhancement there’s no finer coach in California than Chris Asher and he and his staff were at Palisades High on Saturday morning for the first Cal-Hi Sports/Gold Medal Excellence speed training camp.
Almost 40 athletes ranging from fourth to 12th grade showed up to learn from the best how to increase their 40-yard dash times after a hard four-hour workout.
Photo: Steve Galluzzo
“It was a lot of fun and I look forward to coming back,” Asher said after handing out certificates to the five kids named “Campers of the Day” by he and his fellow coaches. “We got very positive reactions from the campers, the coaches were really active and all in all it was a good experience.”
Among the campers was Palisades High lacrosse player Jake Takakjian. Receiving certifcates were 10-year-old Yusuf Ozcan from Culver City, a student at Westwood Charter School; Tyler Webb, a track runner at St. Monica High; Tim Jimenez, a football player and track and field athlete at Carpinteria High; Mary Cooper, a 100-meter sprinter at Palos Verdes High and Justin Johnson, a football and track athlete at Calabasas High.
“It’s amazing when you go to a combine and watch kids run the 40-yard dash,” said Asher, a Hollywood-based speed coach who will be directing the camp and has coached for USA Track & Field. “More than half of them have never been coached how to do it and all of them could do better.”
Asher has worked with NFL players and coached a U.S. 4×400 relay team to a world junior title. An assistant at UCLA, he has coached five NCAA champions and 100 scholarship athletes.
“We did a lot of running technique drills and a lot of standing drills, teaching first-step quickness and how to take off from a 3-point stance,” Asher said. “The facilities person here [Rocky Montz] worked really well with me, they have a turf field and I knew kids would want to come here.”
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