NW Performance tips Seaside girls basketball to win
Published 11:31 am Friday, March 6, 2026
Fans of the Seaside girls basketball team have often seen the team start slow in the first half, then explode in the third quarter. This is due to a number of factors like halftime adjustments or shots going in more efficiently. But the main reason could be something behind the scenes that is not seen by fans.
The guy behind the scenes
Dan Leary has been a staple of the Seaside community for many years. While serving in the Coast Guard in 2010, Leary called the High School and offered to give strength and conditioning training to the football team. After the school said yes, this was the start of Leary’s role as the guy behind the scenes of Seaside athletics.
Leary became a certified trainer in 2013 and started Seaside Kettlebell and implemented rescue swimming training methodologies with the football team. Soon Leary extended his services to the boys basketball team.
Despite both those teams having success, it seemed to be something that was only taken advantage of by the boys’ teams. Up until this past year, that is.
After the Seaside girls basketball team tasted success last season on the hardwood, they were striving to take the next step towards being a bonafide contender in a tough 4A division. Head coach Marla Olstedt works out with Leary and thought it would be a great idea for her girls to take on the challenge. Last summer, the girls started working out with Leary and his assistant Evan Yokoyama-Larson, who graduated from Seaside in 2015, multiple times a week in order to improve their athletic performance.
Now every Sunday and Wednesday afternoon the girls start practice with sprinting workouts, then head downstairs to left weights and do other “CrossFit”-style activities. Leary believes that sprinting is the key to success. On his NW Athletic Performance website it says: “Sprint Training Builds Game-Changers.” Then underneath that is a simple phrase: “Female basketball players don’t lose because they’re unskilled. They lose because they’re half a step slow.”
“We want the girls to be explosive, fast and bulletproof,” Leary said. “I believe that sprinting is the key to everything. The faster you sprint, the more effective (an) athlete you will be.”
Throughout the basketball season Leary takes notes of all the girls’ sprinting times to give them a benchmark of where they are. This also allows him and his staff to see if the girls are fresh or fatigued.
“They were pretty fast today,” Leary said during the girls’ Tuesday workout. “With playoffs coming up we changed around their schedule and gave them three days off. It’s showing out here today.”
The weight workout for the girls on Tuesday consisted of squats, overhead press, row, twists and glute bridges. Six sets of lunges were also included in the session.
Leary and Olstedt are confident this extra work in the weight room will give the girls an extra advantage over their 4A opponents as this isn’t something that every girls’ program does.
“Dan’s been in the community for quite awhile and many athletes have seen the results of the time spent in the weight room with Dan and Evan,” Olstedt said. “I knew that the discipline it takes, the commitment it takes to get in the weight room at 6 a.m on a July morning like we were doing was something that not everybody else was doing. We had to differentiate ourselves to get to where we’ve never been.
“We did a little bit last year, but really dug in our heels in June and went pretty much through with the schedule of lifting twice a week and getting after it.”
Olstedt praised her team members for their commitment during the summer. Despite most of the girls playing other sports, doing 4H or working, they still pushed each other to be at each of the sessions.
“Even though the girls were busy they still pushed each other to be there and I commend them for that,” Olstedt said. “It’s not easy for 16 year olds to wake up early twice a week during the summer, but this is a group that understands results will take hard work to achieve.”
