Athletic Coaches May Form Assn

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31480, 21 September 1967, Page 15

Athletic Coaches May Form Assn

Track and field coaches in Canterbury—at present pursuing their activities along individual lines and sometimes in opposite directions—will shortly be able to “speak with one voice” if the plans of the prominent Christchurch coach and athletics administrator, Mr P. D. Brown, are supported.

He hopes to persuade the Canterbury Athletic Centre to call a special meeting of all coaches in the near future “to find out just where coaching in Canterbury is going.” From this meeting a coaches’ association • will probably be formed.

“If everybody wants to go their own ways, then let them,” Mr Brown, one of the leading figures behind the big coaching school held in Christchurch two years ago,

said yesterday. “An association of coaches should not be forced on them. “However, there is a definite need for a permanent coaches’ body in Canterbury. Now that the Canterbury centre had decided to send an official coach with its team, to the New Zealand championships, he had to be nominated by somebody and it would be far better if he was nominated by a coaches’ organisation rather than by a club. “If Canterbury coaches united they would have a voice. There is a coaches’ association in Auckland and it has a representative on the Auckland centre. You cannot demand anything without unity.” Greater Co-operation

There could also be an inter-change of ideas, said Mr Brown. Some coaches were coaching athletes when they should not be. “You cannot have a distance specialist coaching a sprinter.” Within an association there could be greater co-operation between coaches in this respect. A list of coaches and the events in which they specialise could be prepared so that athletes moving to Christchurch would be able to find someone to look after their interests, Mr Brown said.