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| Meet Our Coach--------------------------------------------Dan Suchy |
| Dan Suchy has been coaching hurdles at Westfields for 25 years now. During the 1999-00 season, Dan's big successes came from Hayley Cameron (Australian All Schools Champion), Kylie Wildman (Australian All Schools Champion), Fabrice Lapierre (Australian All Schools Silver Medallist), and Paul Stickler (Australian Underage medalist and Pacific Games medallist). Dan also coordinates Scott Burriss's extensive coaching and career requirements. Dan's athletes work with Max Wilkinson for their sprints training, making an ideal partnership between the coaches and athletes. |
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As well, Dan coordinates the other 6 Westfields coaches. His belief is that
Westfields have recuited the best available coaches in NSW to to do the job.
There essentially is no other institution in NSW which professionally employs
that many coaches 12 months in the calender year; making themselves
available at least twice weekly on site at Westfields Sports High School.
It has been a long process to obtain the quality of coaching panel we now enjoy with several years of trialling different coaches. One of the most important qualities required is the ability to not only take our athletes to elite levels, but also the ability to communicate with ages ranging from early teens through to adult. Our panel are specialists at this. |
This is a re print from the "Fairfield Champion..."
Story by: Isabell Petrinic----------------------- Photo by: Helen Nezdropa
TROPHIES GALORE...Daniel Suchy surveys some of his "childrens" winnings.
| They call him Such. -----"Such is life," he quips, grin- ning beneath his baseball cap, a Treckie tie belying the serious nature of his work as Director of Track and Field at Westfields Sports High School. -----Daniel Suchy is also vice- president of the Australian Track and Field Coaches As- sociation and the man respon- sible for compiling the national junior ranking lists for Athletics Australia. -----A living icon in his school community, "Father Such" has accrued more than 100 national medals, eight national records, and a life-time of bitter sweet sporting memories - all |
_____________________ `I'm very tough and I'm very mean but only my athletes know I'm a softie inside.` ----------------Daniel Suchy ______________________ in less than three decades. -----His athletes - or "children", as he likes to call them - have done this self-confessed "lazy Australian male" proud. -----In national competition his athletes generally win more medals than the states of ACT, Tasmania and Northern Territory. -----"Sometimes combined," he Said. -----Mr Suchy, an industrial arts | ----- teacher by trade, joined the Westfields team in 1976, before volunteering his services as coach in the early 1980s. -----His love affair with sport - and Westfields - never wavered. -----"I married to the school. This is my family," said Mr Suchy. -----"I still have 40 years in me before I'm forced to retire. -----"At the moment our successes internationally are all at a junior level, but it's only a matter of time. -----"Matt Shirvington's coach, Michael Khmel, has recently expressed interest in two of our athlets, as has Keith Connor, the coach of Andrew | Murphy - our sixth placer in the Olympics in the tripple-jump," -----It is hard to believe Mr Suchy, who is not an athlete himself, has conquered so many sporting hurdles. -----It all started in 1980 with a student named Alana Johanson, recalled Mr Suchy. -----"I was the housemaster at the time and, as I remember it, she came running up to me because she'd just made it to the regionals in hurdles," he said. -----"She wanted me to teach her hurdles. So I picked up a book and began learning. -----"She won bronze at the state championships that year. -----"As for me, I was hooked." |
