Walker's last great race

John Walker. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

Monday morning. Papatoetoe Centennial Swimming Pool. Rain streaks the building's windows.

In the warmth inside, a line of wet-haired schoolboys wait to be bused back to class.

They are from Holy Cross, a neighbourhood primary school with a decile two rating.

A Maori boy with light in his eyes speaks up: "Who is that man in the glasses?" He is nodding towards John Walker, one of the greatest middle-distance runners in history, a Manukau City Councillor and a reason that the kids are at the pool, who stands chatting with two other men.

"That's John Walker," I tell him.

Young faces stare blankly.

I try another tact. "Ever heard of the Olympic Games".

"Course!" say a chorus of voices.

I explain that the tall man in the glasses is an Olympic gold medallist.

"Whoa!" several voices respond. Beijing?" asks the bright-eyed boy.

Well might 56-year-old Walker wish it was only last year.

Walker's gold medal run was 33 years ago in Montreal, when the Manurewa runner sucked the speed out of the superior sprinters by charging for home 300 metres out in the 1500 metre final.

The race put the exclamation mark on an athletics career that included two significant world records. Walker was first to run a mile in under 3:50 minutes, and first to run 100 sub four-minute miles.

For more than a decade during the 1970s and 1980s, the Manurewa runner with hair like a lion's mane was one of the most recognisable athletes in the world. His many victories won him fame and his country reflected glory. His track successes made him an inspiration but it is through his new project that he hopes to make a real and permanent difference to young lives in his own backyard of Manukau City.

It's called The John Walker Find Your Field of Dreams Foundation and it is Walker's last great race. He hopes it will outlive him. "We are looking 10, 20 years, to after I'm gone."

Launched a year ago, FYFOD is a registered charitable trust with Walker chairman of a board of eight.

Though he regularly refers to the work of others in getting the project up and running, its existence is down to the desire of a local boy who made good to give something back to the city that has always been home.

For someone who saw the world via a pair of racing shoes, who could have made his home anywhere, there was never any question where his heart lay. "You can't take the boy from Manurewa.

That's what my wife says". His wife, Helen, was his teenage sweetheart and a local girl. Walker was born in Papakura, moved with his parents to Manurewa and stayed.

His pride in Manukau is evident in his annoyance that "South Auckland" is a term synonymous with negative news, the last example being National MP Melissa Lee's blooper about being the home of criminals.

"If anything goes wrong, it's called South Auckland. If Manukau does well, it doesn't get a mention."

FYFOD is based on the belief that making sport and recreation attractive and available can lead to a fitter, healthier, more positive generation.

Its genesis came from Walker noticing there were so many aimless kids on the streets. "You ask them why they are hanging around," says Walker, "and they'll tell you they have nowhere to go."

He realised they were right. After the final bell for the day, school grounds empty, sports fields remain locked up and there are too few coaches. It made Walker, a product of the volunteer sports club system, realise how fortunate he was.

Oblivious to his talent, it took an outsider to recognise and nurture it. As a teenager, Walker was tapped on the shoulder and invited along to Manurewa harriers. "I'd never heard of harriers. I didn't know I had a talent. It took someone else to tell me and steer me in the right direction."

"They were there for me when I was 18, there when I needed to do the long Sunday run. Those are the guys who are so important in people's lives."

It's a background that demonstrates the importance of coaches and mentors and of providing kids with opportunities. But for that tap on the shoulder 40 years ago, Walker says he'd likely be driving mining trucks for a living.

Sport led him not just to glory but to the life fundamentals of a sense of purpose, goal-setting and working towards them.

That's not to suggest Walker's life was without setbacks. Soon after he stopped running competitively - having run an astonishing 135 sub-four-minute miles - he was diagnosed with Parkinson's, a disease of the nervous system characterised by tremor, stiffness and slowness of movement.

It attacked the very gifts that had made him a champion. The diagnosis, made 15 years ago, signalled a black time for Walker as he fell into depression. Once the fastest man on the planet, he became the slowest.

"You can dwell on things too long. I dwelt on it for quite some period of time. You go through the scenarios of 'why me?'. You have to get yourself out of it.

"In the end the same principles applied as for running. Forget about it and get on with it."

Walker says he was lucky to have had a very positive family (Helen, and children Elizabeth, Richard, Timothy and Caitlin) encouraging him to get on with it.

He divides his time between working at Stirrups, an equestrian supplies business in Newmarket he and Helen own, and Manukau City Council work.

It was after being elected to the council 12 years ago that Walker began to formulate the ideas that have become the FYFOD foundation.

Though Walker knew what was needed, it took mayor Len Brown to kick-start it. "It needed a budget, it needed buy-in from Manukau Council. It needed a mayor to back it. It never had that."

"Before the last election, Len Brown, who was a councillor and knew I'd been going on about this, said to me 'if I become mayor, let's do it!"'

Brown became mayor and wisely didn't listen when Walker said they weren't ready. "We had no money. We had a dream and Armin [Lindenberg, the foundation's interim general manager] came up with the name. Len's attitude was just do it and make it happen. That has been the story of Find Your Field Of Dreams so far."

Brown and Walker proved difficult to say no to when they sought financial backing and the foundation has commitments of $3 million annually for three years. Backers include The Lion Foundation, Progressive Enterprises, the Southern Trust, Perry Foundation, NZCT and Sparc.

Money is a barrier to participation. What it boils down to, says Walker, is too many kids are missing out. Swimming pools are free in Manukau but many can't afford basics such as transport, or sports clothes.

"We will find the money to let them participate. It won't be a panacea but we can make a difference for some kids and we have made a difference. Some of these kids hadn't been to a pool before."

The foundation's community swim programme by the end of the year will have provided 6500 Year 3 and 4 kids with 45,700 lessons. Each child gets seven lessons with the aim of each being able to swim a length freestyle.

Other projects are Club Smart, which aims to rejuvenate sports clubs and attract volunteers, and AMP'd, a project which provides organised activities such as volleyball, touch rugby, tag and non-stop cricket in a city park from Tuesday to Friday.

AMP'd (its name comes from Active Manukau Parks) is for 11 to 17 year olds. It has two additional tiers for 14-17 year olds - a team building programme involving activities such as hiking, kayaking and archery, and a team leadership development programme run in association with Youthline.

FYFOD objectives appear to fit with the Government's which is to drop social marketing campaigning such as Mission On and Push Play in favour of fostering participation in school and club sport.

One of its projects, Primary Sport, will be piloted through FYFOD and its service partners Manukau Sport and Manukau Leisure Services.

Walker is sure these projects will unveil talent, "the next Val Vili". "We need to do the screening. Put a shotput, a cricket ball in their hand and see what they can do. Often talent is discovered by accident. You increase the chances by increasing the opportunities."

Talent, he says, has already been discovered. But just as satisfying are letters from teachers reporting that the swim programme had reduced absenteeism and boosted enthusiasm, particularly among the less academically inclined pupils.

Walker is optimistic that by making FYFOD work in Manukau it will become a blueprint for similar projects in other cities. "We've got to do something to get kids off the streets. Everything else has been tried."

The foundation has provided three buses, painted in FYFOD livery, which ferry students between schools and pools and parks. They make a sight for sore eyes. "Going through Otara and seeing one of these buses full of kids is the most satisfying sight," says Walker. "It reminds that we are actually doing something."

www.fieldofdreams.org.nz