CONSUMATE COACH: Communication was the key for top coach from the 1960s and 1970s, Toby Bowyer (left).
Only a special coach would bring nearly 100 former athletes to a reunion so long after many ended their competitive careers. Toby Bowyer was such a coach and I felt honoured to be invited to speak at the special reunion at the weekend.
Leading cycling coach Ron Cheatley spoke immediately before me. Cheatley highlighted that communication was a key coaching attribute. Without communication there can be no motivation and without motivation there is no performance and however knowledgeable a coach is if he or she can't communicate there is little chance of success.
Cheatley went on to say that watching Bowyer in action as he sped around the cycle track at Cooks Gardens (in the days the grass track the cycle track was outside the running track) he observed a great well organised coach in action and stated that this was to stand him in good stead in his own coaching career.
Bowyer's athletes also understood the importance of communication and organisation and learnt so many life skills in the process. Those that put together the weekend demonstrated those same commendable communication and life skills.
Bowyer was one of my first visitors on arrival in New Zealand in 1973 and I was flattered that he should take the trouble to visit and talk to a young athlete and teacher. He encouraged me to join the club's activities and later be part of the committee.
I, like him, quickly realised that as a coach in a smaller town it was no use grumbling how things were being run and if you wanted a well organised competition structure it was important to help and serve in administration.
I probably disappointed Bowyer as an athlete. I did not add greatly to the athletic performance side of the sport as coaching and teaching took up both time and energy.
However, I quickly began to appreciate and learn about Bowyer the coach. Although at that time in the later years of his coaching his athletes invariably finished ahead of me on the track.
As a coach at Collegiate a Bowyer-coached athlete, Dean Crowe, ran a sensational leg to overhaul the Collegiate anchor leg runner in the inaugural Round the Lake Relay to give victory to the Wanganui Boy's College Team. Crowe went onto a USA Track Scholarship and represented Oceania at the World Cup in Canberra.
I learned so much more at the weekend as I heard from his earlier training groups and my admiration grew on how as a police detective also managed to coach such a large group of not just male athletes but also females.
I had learned much from the regular newsletters compiled by Kevin Ross with newspaper cuttings and photographs highlighting an era of success. I learned even more over the weekend about the incredible depth of performance of Bowyer athletes.
Ross was at the end of his career when I came to New Zealand, his impressive cv included running with Dick Taylor, Dick Quax and Tony Polhill in the team that broke the World 4 x 1 Mile record. Ross was quick to assert that it was not about him and any success he might have had but about the whole large group and their performances and what they achieved under Bowyer's coaching.
Ross was to become a successful coach both here and in Wellington.
Whanganui like all smaller provincial cities faces real challenges in retention of athletes as so many leave the city. It is worth reflecting that Whanganui has been a great nursery for young talent that having received a sound foundation athletes have gone on to build successful careers away from the River City.
I can think of at least 12 athletes who have gone on to Track Scholarships in the USA starting with Dean Crowe mentioned earlier and includes Olympian Lucy Oliver (nee van Dalen) and presently Geordie Beamish in Arizona.
Toby Bowyer played a huge part in establishing this legacy. Coaching is the key and it is vital that we as a club bring on more coaches and administrators so the Bowyer baton again gets passed on.
Plans are under way to revitalise the children's section and introduce team activities at intermediate school and junior secondary school level. I am grateful for the help and energy displayed by Jodie Brunger and Clare Lynch at Sport Whanagnui.
It is interesting that Brunger was a good secondary school athlete herself and was coached by both Kevin Ross and later by me. Her daughter Tayla, currently at Collegiate, holds the North Island Secondary Schools junior 300 metre record.