Olympic Gold Medalist Helps Art Students Win the Acceptance Race Karen Kesteloot
Olympic gold medalist, Mark McKoy coaches students to hurdle 30:1 odds of acceptance into the toughest university arts programs. He reveals the surprisingly simple secrets of how he broke his 12 year losing streak so that students can get on the right track and beat the odds like he did. (Newswire.net--Aug 3, 2013) Guelph, ON--Mark’s determination to win gold inspires students to persevere against tough odds and get into the most competitive art and design colleges. In an odd match McKoy teams up McKoy's strangest career match--art and sports
with PortPrep to close the gap left by secondary school boards, delivering the kind of coaching today’s college applicants need to compete.
McKoy refused to give up even after continued loses in three consecutive Olympic Games and World Championships. Barcelona was his fourth and last shot at winning the Olympics. He became dubbed the “Perennial Also Ran” as a CTV sports announcer chided at the Summer Olympics of ’92, “ Mark McKoy of Canada; fourth in the World Championship in 1983, fourth in Los Angeles in ‘84, fourth in the World Championship in 1991-- he is in lane four.” Mark was 10 years older than his competitors, was recovering from surgery and faced the 1:22,000,000 odds of winning the Olympics; but McKoy had a unique strategy that trumped his younger cohorts. “The one thing I always tell kids is that when they see athletes who are talented, or people in their field who are talented, they say sometimes its genetics. But I found that hard work will beat talent and genetics a 100% of the time. It makes the difference between really successful people and talented people who know they don’t have to work hard because everything falls on their plate.” But for hard work to come to fruition, Mark McKoy had to find the right coach to break his losing streak. "I spent years and years and years working hard, getting advice from a lot of people," says McKoy. "But the most important thing is coaching. And not just coaching – good coaching…you need the right coaching advice." McKoy switched to the world’s best hurdles coach, Malcolm Arnold and won under his eagleeyed tutelage. He simply corrected McKoy’s foot angle by one inch. “I actually had 39 crooked steps in a race,” says McKoy. “I won the Olympics in Barcelona by 39 inches.” Mark shares his wisdom with me the head portfolio coach for PortPrep. I fine tune student work the way Malcolm did for McKoy, giving them the edge they need to win a spot in the top arts programs. The student Adam in the video with Mark got accepted in the top 5% of 4000 applicants competing for 127 placements.
Just as Mark’s initial coaching was off the mark, high school students don’t receive the right kind of coaching from their teachers on how to make the right kind of art portfolio. As PortPrep’s spokesperson, I saw talented students get rejected from Sheridan College’s famous Illustration Program when I taught there because of poor presentation. McKoy and Kesteloot share their top success secrets with students to rectify this problem and give students a fighting chance to reach their goals. With PortPrep’s coaching 100% of the students have been accepted into the programs of their choice. Now, that’s the kind of coaching Mark McKoy would approve of. Karen Kesteloot Company Spokesperson and Head Art Portfolio Coach at PortPrep info@portprep.com (519) 803-2539 To view source of news release, click here.