The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Mb . WAl'ERUJU CHRONICLE . Wednesday, March 5. 2008 "hum-um -mM0TtMr"tBtME swarm - - Fitness When You Travel - TRAVEL SAFE! Continued from page 23 worked at the historic high school in downtown Kitchener, which has since closed down, and see if they could pat- tern the program after its successes. "l had retired from 35 years of teaching and coaching when Wally called me," said Benson, who coached the St. Jerome's midget program before handing the player over to junior coach Vince Denomme and senior coach Tom Kieswetter, who now runs the University of Waterloo Warriors men's program. "We broke it up according to our abilities and strengths. "We knew what G, wanted to do, but it took constant communication and a lot of hours to put it _togetlter.'r Together they recruited another for, mer St. Jerome's alum, Dave MacNeil the founder of the Waterloo Wildhawks basketball club, to take on the senior program and that started a collabora- tive coaching experiment that sought to bring continuity to the Celtics bas- ketball philosophy. Coupled with a supportive school administration, and the support of the players' parents, and the Celtics finally had a plan in place. "It's starts with the leadership at the top and emphasizing the right things." said MacNeil, who has been a major cog in the new basketball machinery. "lt's about developing kids the way they needed to be developed." The junior team would teach funda- mentals, such as proper conditioning, team work and the basics of the Celtics coaching philosophy and playing style. They would be a pipeline to develop talent for the senior ranks Celtics starting to establish basketball tradition "I look back to the St. Jerome's Canadian Boxing Champion Ben Shamoon from The Whip Boxing Academy has returned home from a boxing tournament in Liverpool. Shamoon beats England light middleweight champ Along mth today's Waterloo Chronicle, your Carrier will be delivering the Convenient Pay Envelope. It you have yet to contribute towards the delivery your Community Newspaper aM have been intending to do so, please mail your envelope today. For further convenience. you may fill in your inlormation below and return it to our office. ATTENTION WATERLOO CHRONICLE READERS: For those of you who have already made a contribution, please accept our sincere thanks. New Is your chance to contribute w using the Convenient Pay Envelope. t , Cty: 'i',g2tltgtl't wMiiiEj'iiii'iii'iiuu smmoammsm 279%terStN.,Saiea_t,trlN2l3H8 YEspmmmmMEfifi 'pu"t"ttr:tua)ettkyt'rami"' E whTiiirji"j"iui'iii5jdai 0nteisirdeeert1oalmnrttrrrarmu"m rdlitrtrptty Om O mmcm experience," said MacNeil, who was an assistant to Kieswetter in the late 1980s. "By the time the kids got to the senior level they were all fundamental- ly sound and ready to step in and con- tribute right away. " With those diamonds polished. it was hoped they would make the senior Celtics a prestige program where they would challenge for titles on an annual basis and make some noise on the provincial stage. The seniors started to live up to that potential this year with the Celtics challenging for the league lead in the demanding District-d, asso- ciation, and they followed that up by finishing as a surprise finalists. Ht was kind of miraculous in a way," said Benson about the Celtics success in both junior and senior finals. "But it was everybody doing their part. "lt takes in community to win at CWOSSA and we wanted to sham it all with everybody." _ - The Celtics were tied 38-38 with eventual CWOSSA champs Brantford's North Park late in the contest when star point guard Bryson Johnson fouled out. It was only after the Celtics lost 69- 55 that it was found that he fouled out on a scorer's error. “I think this is the tip of the iceberg... We just started our run and hopefully we can keep this tradition going." - Tyson lavigne Forward Sr. David Celtics junior boys basketball team England with an important international win in his fledgling boxing career. With his exceptional basing skills and determi- nation to win, Shamoon drew a convinc- ing victory over the English amateur light middleweight champion, lonson n McClumpha, easily defeating him 14 - 6. There were no hard feelings for Johnson, who has had a run of off-the- court judgments go against him including a league ruling that he was ineligible to play for the Celtics last year after moving to the area from the east coast. With the help of his trainer, Kitchen- er's own fonnet Wodd Boxing Champi- on Fitz "The Whip" Vanderpool, Shamoon also may won the Canadi- an Light Middleweight Championship in Windsor to bring home his second consecutive national title. "This is not an ordinary team," he said. "This is a high-performance. tight-knit team that are an excellent group ofyoung men. "Now that we're in it we want to win it," said Johnson, after a mini-pep rally in support of the team last Friday. "We'te not just happy to be there. "Hopefully wi/dan go in there an upset some teams." As for the juniors, seven players from the CWOSSA champs will make the jump to senior next year and Gangl said they now know how to win. "lt's the whole package... It was a high-performance team that delivered when it was supposed to deliver. This was big for these kids - this was histo- The last word was left to Tyson lavi- gne, one of the stars of the junior pro- gram who will make the jump to the senior ranks next year. He's the younger brother of the Celtics Ashton Lavigne, who has won four straight championships with the Celtics girls program including a CWOSSA title. Vanderpool's academy is based in Kitchener where Shamoon and many other champions train. He said he has a little catching up to do, but there is no reason why the Celtics boys basketball program could- n't be just as dominant. "I think this is the tip of the ice- berg," said the Grade 10 student. "Good things will follow and hopefully we can lead by example in future years. We just started our run and hopefully we can keep this tradition going."