In 2012 my great friend – and triathlon coach of my son at the time – sat on his bed and watched the opening of the London Olympics. It was the 28th of July in London and we marveled at the performances of Britain’s best musicians (and Rowan Atkinson) and the wonderful spectacle. Jack reminisced about his marvelous experiences coaching at Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, and World Championships.
What was very poignant for me was that my good friend was terminally ill – he passed away on the 26th of August. His funeral included incredible tributes from Jack’s daughters, his brother Bill, Rod Dixon, Hamish Carter and Geoff Shaw as they told of what Jack meant to them and those near them. There were hundreds of Jack’s athletes present..
The Post Office, Nike International, NZRU, Gym Sports NZ, NZ Netball and many others benefitted from Jack’s business acumen and accumulated experience. On many occasions Jack would regale people with aspects of this business experience and stories of working with Phil Night, Bill Bowerman, Pete Sampras, Mary Pearce, Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, Michael Jordan, the Brazilian football team, Nelson Mandela, Francois Pienaar, Henry Rono, etc.
Coaching was one of Jack’s great loves and with over 200 national titles in athletics, triathlon and multi-sport to his athletes his abilities in this area are clear. The 200 titles is, in fact, a significant understatement – it was often the case that Jack’s athletes were in 2nd and 3rd places in those races too with many more spiked throughout it. Jack was steeped in the work ethic and methods of the great Arthur Lydiard. When interviewed in the late 1990s Lydiard was asked if the time of the European athlete had gone – replaced by the genetic ability of the Africans. Lydiard’s reply was terse – New Zealander’s (and others) had “gone soft” and he backed it up by stating that the NZ male 800m (1962), 1500m (since bettered), 1 mile (1982), 3000m (1982), 5000m (since bettered), 10,000m (1977) and marathon (1983) records had stood for so long.
If you were a Ralston athlete and followed his schedules you had very little chance to be soft. National and international champions such as Paul Amey, Terenzo Bozzone, Cameron Brown, Hamish Carter, Peter Clode, Andrew Curtanye, William Curtayne, Clark Ellice, Jamie Hunt, Steve Lett, Liz May, Graham O’Grady, Michael Poole, Nathan Richmond, Jenny Rose, Geoff Shaw, Ben Visser, Rex Wilson, etc, etc, etc…will all testify to that and the value Jack was to them in their careers. Jack always played down his own athleticism but a 3000m PB of 8:17 is something many young athletes would envy today. Jack considered becoming good at running and/or triathlon was straight forward – train very hard and race harder.
I did meet for a day with the great Arthur Lydiard to document many of his views on how athletes can become successful. Arthur was adamant that on every street in our country there were HUGE abilities to be developed. Whenever I work with young people on academics, sports or the arts I always try and hold to that perspective. I avoid the word “talent” and strong prefer “developed ability”. Our running greats; Snell, Halberg, Magee, Dixon, Walker, Quax, Moller, Roe, Audain, Willis, etc, worked incredibly hard – as have current world indoor 1500m champ Geordie Beamish, James Preston (who recently broke the 62 year old 800m record of Sir Peter Snell), and 1500m runner Sam Tanner. Those three are well worth watching at the Paris Games and I give Beamish more than a bolters chance in the 3000m Steeplechase.
As I look forward to watching the Olympics I will remember Jack and his stories. I will also hope that many hard working kiwis do very well (many on a dime) and keep in mind that you are a champion to get there and that all winners have put many years and immeasurable effort into developing their abilities.
If anyone needs a reminder of just how incredible our greatest runner was – this is a superb reminder.
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