The Gilas were treated to 2 consecutive weekends of guest coaching practice by Lonnie Homenuk (Tampa FL).  We were fortunate to have a chase boat at our disposal along with Kwok’s mad photography/video skillz to capture the action.   Thanks Emily (City of Tempe) for making a Chase Boat available!

Lonnie has been involved with Dragon Boat racing since 2003, and has paddled, steered, and coached literally thousands of teams around the Southeast, including Charlotte’s Organized Chaos, the Houston Heat, the Sr. Div Villages teams , the Puerto Rican National team on two occasions, the USDBF and Canadian National Camp teams, and Pat Bradley’s Canadian Senior Mixed team at the 2014 Tampa races.

He has served on the Tampa Bay Dragon Boat Institute almost since inception, helped bring and run the U.S. Nationals to Tampa in 2006, sat as Chair and then Past Chair for the 2011 Pan Am Races as well as traveling to Sydney to bid for the Worlds which again he chaired the TBDBI during the time leading up to the 2011 World Championships. Lonnie was also the first representative for Tampa to make a bid for the 2014 IBCPC Participatory DB Festival.

Lonnie currently coaches and steers for a number of crews in his home base of Tampa FL, including Invictus, Blue Dragons, and the Pink Dragon Ladies crews. During the past 18 months he also served on the USDBF Para Dragon formation committee and sat until recently as the USDBF Para Dragon Co-Chair. He is now in the process of forming a Para Dragon team in Tampa Bay.

A big shout out to Lonnie and Elaine for taking time to visit with the Gila’s during their trip to Arizona to visit his mom. We are appreciative of your time and coaching across 2 Saturday practices!

The full 30-min edited practice video can be found here

Note: you will need to login to gain access to the video.  Please reach out to Peter or Bruce to get the login info