Actively coaching success out of a busy year

Herzlia matriculant Nicholas Arelisky may have had an intense matric year, but it didn’t stop him from committing himself to sport including voluntarily coaching the school’s U14 water polo team. On top of this, he did water polo, swimming, soccer, and futsal during the year. And if that wasn’t enough, he also played futsal for South Africa at the Maccabi Games in Israel.

“I love to be involved in all aspects of school sport. I got to play and coach polo, and managed to do my school work as well,” he says. “I was also honoured to win the Service to Sport Award.”

Arelisky thought changes could be made to the coaching of the U14 water polo team, and approached the school to help. Herzlia agreed, and Arelisky was inspired to teach what he himself had been taught.

“I trained the U14 team as a first team. We first focused on fitness, then structure and set games. They had to work hard.” In addition, he would wake up at 05:30 to coach, and the weather often didn’t co-operate. “But every Friday when we won a game and I saw how happy they were, it was worth it, for me and for them.” They landed up winning all nine of their games.

He says being close in age meant that the team could identify with him, and they formed a close bond. He believes Herzlia has an excellent future in water polo, especially now that it’s building a new indoor aquatics centre, meaning that the weather will no longer interfere with training.

His biggest challenge in matric was “finding a good balance between school work, sport, coaching and making time to have fun”, but he “never got stressed out”. He enjoyed learning, especially his favourite subjects of accounting and IT.

His advice to future matrics is to “stay focused on all lessons, have fun, but keep up with homework and assignments that are due. And take it easy, find time for things you like.”

He says what makes Herzlia unique is that “it’s a Jewish community school where we’re nurtured by excellent staff members. They are always willing to help you succeed in matric and want the best for you.”

Continuing his busy, active path, he’s planning to take a gap year and go overseas to work on super yachts. His hopes and dreams for the future are to “be successful, happy, and do what I love”, and that could include some more coaching.