Brett continues the conversation with Sean, head coach of Melbourne Pack, a unique running club open to runners of all abilities.
Brett Thiedeman
Welcome back to Diamond Kind., the podcast that celebrates kindness under pressure. I’m your host, Brett. And this is part two of our interview featuring the renowned running coach Shawn Williams.
Floyd Gomes
We all have pressure in our lives and pressure makes diamonds. And yet, in the heat of a moment, that pressure can lead to various ways that we handle a situation, either aggressively or bringing out some degree of kindness. And that’s what diamond kind is about.
Brett Thiedeman
And I think I’d just like to touch on to Shawn, and you’re obviously a very humble person, and who’s achieved, you know, remarkable success as a coach with athletes like Ben St. Lawrence, and Victoria Mitchell. Would you be able to tell us about some of your proudest coaching moments?
Sean Williams
Oh, absolutely. He looked. A look, I think like people like Ben and Victoria, they’ve done very well, Ben had his own challenges. But the bottom line is that people like Ben and Victoria were incredibly talented athletes you know, whoever they were with, whichever coach, they almost certainly would have made the highest levels of the sport one way or the other. But I’ve certainly as some of my proudest coaching moments have just been helping people. Every run of the mill people, achieve the best that they can with what with what they’ve been born with, you know, so yeah, I’ve helped athletes with disabilities like as a young local guy 100% blind, so quite a disability there who needed a guide runner, I’ve helped be his actual guide runner, in park runs and races, but also in training where you need the guide rope where you’re attached by the risks to the other runner, and you’re kind of trying to run with your arms being instinct swinging along, and he’s running with you. Helping someone like young Brendan there to to helping look another load local lady who I’ve met, not long after I’ve moved down from Sydney, she was trying to start her own little Get Fit program down at the local pack. And I met her down there, and she was already not young. And I found I’ll found out fairly quickly, she was 59. At that point in time. Now she’s still with my group. And she’s, she’s 66. Anyway, she was carrying a lot of weight at the time and couldn’t even jog more than 50 meters before she was just gasping for air and walking, keel over. I said, Look, I can help you out if you like, if would you like to join my running group, I’m just starting down. And she did. And she’s lost a whole pile of weight since then, and is now completing, she has completed up to a half marathon. And she’s really one of the local vanity with the Melbourne singlet around the local races and she gets involved and has made all this big new friendship group. And so that kind of person and I’ve had so many people like that over the years. So writing has changed their life, not only physically, spiritually, but even socially, and happy buyers, and all that sort of thing. It’s just opened up a new world to them. And I do like helping people open up new worlds for them if I can, and, and bringing running to them, you know, they’re bringing the health and the fitness side of things to them and happiness to them, but like running encapsulates that to me. And in the end, it encapsulates that to them too. So that sort of thing makes me proud. And another thing I’m very proud of I’ve helped a few refugees over the years I had been have been quite talented runners but as you probably know from hearing about refugees we have when you when you’ve got a fairly wealthy Western nation like Australia, sometimes they can find it really tough when they arrive on our shores either having to be in a in a setup where they’re almost in a prison, and then when they get out of society, often they feel like you know, a show boat without oars or but they feel very aimless and it’s such a different world almost like a different planet to them when they’re in Australia compared to where they were, you know, the models come from a really poor third world country or from a ball ridden country and or both. Yeah, but it’s not just African boys adjust and help them find their new life in Australia and help them kickstart their running again, because they weren’t runners back then they might have been for several years due to just the hardships that they saw but help them get back on their feet again, and not only help them with their running, but also just assimilate into the local aussie society a bit more make friends and and even help them connect with potential employers and, and and even even socially and helping introduce them to to friends and all that sort of thing. You know, so that sort of thing. I really enjoyed doing. Not just purely coaching, but even just the side parts to the coaching as well where you know, you’re looking at the whole person. Yeah, not just an athlete, they’re not just flesh and blood, they’re a whole person and they’ve got families involved. And it could be anything from them to even helping a kid at school, you might be having issues with confidence might be a teenager in their mid-teens or late teens and that find trying to find their way in life. And then I’ll try and use running as as a tool for them to gain confidence in life. And even though they might end up Olympian or professional runner, or even a super competitive club runner, at least, that’s something that can help them along the way find themselves. So just so many different people that you can help when you when you’re in a coaching role.
Brett Thiedeman
Awesome. And I guess for the listeners, who are runners and or aspiring runners, maybe in three would be the top three ways. If you could explain why hiring a running coach would be beneficial, and what are the top three things
Sean Williams
are the number one, most running coaches will will provide running groups, so you’re gonna make connections there with other other people locally, within within the sport. So a good running coach will be the facilitator to open up that that whole community of local running community for persons signing them up. Yep. Number two, a good running coach should write up a training program or a training plan different people call them different things should right guide up some kind of guidelines, just how tight those guidelines are depends on the coach because every coach has different styles. But there should be some kind of plan in place there that can help prepare that person for some kind of goal or goals might be invaded goal might be a health goal, even just a personal time trial type goal over a certain distance, but they, they end up becoming accountable there to the and the coaches, obviously accountable to the athlete or the runner as well. But you’d become a team, they’re trying to achieve that goal as a coach and an athlete or coach and a runner. But to follow that plan. So in other words, they’ll be set on the right hopefully the right path and a good path that may not otherwise have been able to do themselves, they might not have had the knowledge or, or even the motivation to do that. And thirdly, a good coach, hopefully will will become a good friend. Or at least someone who, you know, they can talk about any of the issues that have been happening, which could in any way, shape or form affects their running and even the rest of their life along the way. They won’t have the answers for everything. But they’re certainly someone who, you know, they can bounce ideas off. And so they’re just some with someone there was a bit of a guide along the way as well. Someone to walk the journey with.
Brett Thiedeman
No, that’s awesome, Sean. So there was what connection? And then there was accountability. Yeah, and, and friendship.
Sean Williams
Friendships last bite along the way.
Brett Thiedeman
Yeah, that’s awesome. Okay, well, it’s now time to get into the heart of the podcast, which is all about kindness under pressure. And can you share a personal story or an experience when you were under pressure and managed to come through with with kindness?
Sean Williams
Absolutely. Look up. One of the more challenging times in my life would have been in 2016. Where, what happened in Sydney, with my coaching, I mentioned it before, where I got into more full time coaching out of the teaching profession there in around 2000. And it was a bit of a punk early on, particularly, as I knew it was going to be a career. So I needed an income coming through. And I was doing I did it more for the love than anything. And I didn’t mind if I had a hit in income compared to teaching and that’s what happened early on. But probably up to it by about 2005 things really started snowballing. And I didn’t it was never a plan for things to snowball, I was actually quite happy with how things were going numbers wise and I didn’t want things to get bigger, but somehow organically the business to cope cold sweats Sydney up in Sydney started getting really big. Then being here and I was hiring assistant coaches and it’s becoming very much a manager as well as a coach, I guess, became really big. I didn’t mind that I liked it because I knew I was able to help even more people and I was able to be a mentor to other coaches as well and employ people and there are a lot of positives to it. So I never it was never a concern to me. But what started becoming a concern after about 10 years of it’s going really well by about 2014 was that the competitive side of coaching and business started coming into and I never did it to compete against anybody. But that’s just what started happening. And next thing I knew instantanal Park in Sydney, there were other people who were starting to set up, you know, running groups and whatnot. Just like I had like just around the corner from me and, and people who were, who had been coached by me, we were literally doing that. And a few nasty things were happening in that runners were being poached by me. And then they were other people were poaching from other groups. And there’s a lot of that kind of business going on. And I felt like I needed to change after a while, I thought I didn’t get into it for this sort of nasty business going on. And I thought, well, you know, I know plenty of people down in Melbourne always loved the Melbourne running scene, double check with my wife to see if she wanted to make a move. And we thought, Look, it might be a good idea just to move down to down to Melbourne and give that a go for a walk and start some coaching going down there. And I kept employing people up in Sydney to keep that ball rolling. And they ended up starting their own coaching businesses as eventually. And that was all at that worked out quite well. But it was quite a stressful time, particularly, you know, moving, moving cities, moving family, all that sort of thing became a it was quite a stressful time. Anyway, I’ve been coaching a very talented young runner at the time, who end up running for Australia. His name’s Larry Summers, and you mentioned him before he ran in the Commonwealth Games. He almost broke Steve Mont to get his record in the city to serve. In that race I mentioned before, he’s the second fastest runner there in history, only one second slower than Steve Montgomery, I think Mater Getty, who you’ve probably heard of one of these days 40.02, I think there and Harry Wren 40.03. Harry, it was unbelievable. But he had been fighting. He was an alcoholic, he’d been fighting alcoholism. And to the point where he was very reckless and probably had a couple of near death experiences with just doing silly things like young people can do when there’s alcohol involved. And we don’t need to go into the details there. But apart from him nearly dying a few times just through silly things going on. Like it really affected his running and the rest of his life, personal relationships and the whole thing like any can. So I’ve always been by side helping him out there. And he loved me as a coach. He ended up following me down to Melbourne maybe a couple of months after we moved down here he came down as well started down here and we continued to coach athlete relationship. He ended up being invited, I got invited as coaches were ordered to do it. I didn’t do the marathon he ran the marathon in Japan unfortunately been battling the alcohol around that time. And I thought it would go could go either way could run really well and potentially get a an Olympic qualifier or even qualify for the World Champs the following year. And or it might go pear shaped, and you might run to well, anyway, it wasn’t really mentally quite prepared for it that day. And I was on the leading bus with other coaches and media. Who that the bus tends to go out in front of a lot of those races, like you know, maybe 100 meters in front of the lead vehicle. Or sometimes it might be just behind the lead pack were in front of them that day. And we saw the runners go through the 2k mark, and then the bus sped up ahead a little bit. And then next time we saw the runners was about the 5k. Mark and how he wasn’t there who’d been there in the initial check. And then on the second check, he disappeared from the lead pack. It’s like we’re sorry, has anyone seen Harry and I got a bit concerned straightaway, because that’s not long after the start. And I was worried about how it’d be like the race director at forked out plenty of money for both our return journeys and a week’s accommodation, food, all that stuff and appearance, money and all bunch of things. So the race director was concerned as well because one of his star invited runners wasn’t performing like he should have. Anyway, no sign of Harry and so I end up getting off the bus because I thought I’m in the wrong place. Now I’ve got to try and find Harry. I couldn’t find him. And one of Harry, one of our mutual friends, a Japanese guy who’d lived in Sydney for a few years he was back in Japan, he traveled about four or five hours on a train to get from one end of Japan, up to where the race was and to spend the weekend with Harry and I and to cheer him on and contacted him and we were searching for Harry and it took us probably eight hours until about four in the afternoon to finally take him down to the bar not far from the race hotel and he was full of the boot and And wasn’t it so things didn’t go too well and they went from bad to worse in that he kept drinking on the plane on the way back. Then we’ve lost sight of Harry overnight and then he we found out They’ve taken a friend’s car. While we’re very much under the influence of alcohol and nearly died when he when he plowed into it into one of those street signs that tell you how many cars are in different suburbs and towns, the big bar crashed into one of those iron bars and it cut the car in half. And luckily the right where Harry was it was like right in the middle of the car, basically not on the right where you’re driving. The car was right off the police, we found out through the police where he was Harry was and we picked up Harry who was still drunk, then we had to go and take care of it. You know, check the car out at the records. And he pretty well passed out when he saw the car, he freaked out. And so I stood by Harry during that time and got involved in Alcoholics Anonymous and helped set him on the path from there. He ended up looking for a change after then looking for another coach and did well for a while but ended up is doing been doing other things in life. And he moved back up to Sydney and is jogging around at the moment, maybe thinking about getting back into serious competitive running again. But that sort of thing. You know, you can’t you can’t ignore kindness and you can’t let things you can’t become too selfish. When you’ve got your own challenges, you’re still going to open the door for people so that that was a you know, even I think the main kindness was probably letting Harry go when he said he wanted to go to another coach. mutual friend of ours in Melbourne lived on the other side of town. But once it started going through the alcoholic Alcoholics Anonymous process, one of the things that they liked him to do, I believe is to make a few changes to your life, one of them and just start a fresh and do something new. And you know, I had to let go, you know, because he was a bit like a son to me and let Steve do all that all the work there and still be good friends with Steve and Harry and all that. So it’s like a mutual Patty thing you know, so you can’t hold grudges and you have to continually be kind and offer support and friendship where its required.
Brett Thiedeman
Thanks for sharing that story. That’s a great story. Thanks for sharing that. Shawn. And yeah, I’ve got no not surprised that you know, with the top of the character that you have, so yeah, no, that’s that’s a great story. Before we wrap up, Sean, let’s start to touch on an exciting event that we’ve got going on the Sunday third of December, which is our e15 Energy Run the fundraiser and which we are excited that you’re going to be involved with it as well.
Sean Williams
Yeah, yeah, I’m very excited. My Melbourne pack running group running just down the road from the trail. We were hoping to do it there around the Patterson river loop. Yeah. All around that Patterson River. Bonbeach part of Melbourne there. Yeah. Bayside Melbourne, beautiful, almost dead flat, and dead even trails. So very easy course. A couple of pumps to get over there, little Bridge Climb, only 100-meter gradual path to get up over the bridge in the pain highway and back down the other side. And then even smaller climb to get up over the bridge on that on the eastern side of the river down as you’re heading towards the Dandenong Creek. So very easy. Course overall. Sounds like it’d be a fun event to be part of. Yeah. So events would be imagine a one lap or on a two lap, one lap just under six case. So call it six cage. That’s a couple of 100 meters back from the finish or just called bullet six. Anyway, if the won’t be accurate, we could work on that and otherwise and otherwise the 2 lapper. Yeah, it had been had been a fun run there in the past. But the organizers I think COVID kind of got in the way of that. So it has been an event which has been supported by local runners and community in the past on that kind of horse and I can see it going really well via your organization. So I think it’ll, it’ll be quite a success. And yeah, we’ve got our running group with quite a reasonable membership and we do know other coaches and other clubs and groups in the area too. So hopefully we can get the word out there and get plenty of people on board on December three.
Brett Thiedeman
Yeah, now we’re excited. Thanks for Thanks for being part of it as well. And thanks. It’s an absolute pleasure having you on the diamond kind podcast today. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and experience with us. It’s been awesome.
Sean Williams
Oh, you’re more than welcome. Thanks for having me. It’s been fun.
Brett Thiedeman
That concludes another episode of dumb unkind where we celebrate the extraordinary moments of kindness that shine through when the pressure is on. Join us next time for more inspiring stories until then stay kind, stay compassionate. And as Rihanna scenes shine bright like a diamond
