Coaching led from beginners to champions

MELBOURNE - There is the sense of impeccable timing in Duncan Laing's decision to call it quits when the Commonwealth Games swim programme ends on Tuesday week.

Apart from maybe helping his son who coaches in Matamata, these Games signal the last act for one of New Zealand's great, and most recognised, sporting coaches.

It is a fitting end to an international career that began a few kilometres from here at Torquay 50 years ago.

Laing at that time captained the New Zealand team at the inaugural World Lifesaving Championships, which were staged as a support event to the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and a first, chance meeting with iconic Australian swim coach Don Talbot.

"I returned to New Plymouth after that and had a group of parents who asked me to coach their kids," said Laing. "We didn't have a coach at our club so I took it on."

It began not only a love affair with the sport but a commitment that was to take him to the very top and led Jan Cameron, New Zealand head coach and Talbot's former wife, to warn that Laing will be "irreplaceable".

Laing shrugged off such suggestions.

Cameron, a longtime Laing supporter and admirer, admitted she was "over the moon" when Laing-coached Dunedin swimmer Andrew McMillan swam his way into this Games team on the last night of the national championships.

"I had already asked Duncan to join us on the coaching team here," said Cameron. "He was unsure, but when Andrew qualified he had no reason to say no.

"I've been in New Zealand for 15 years and have the utmost respect for what he has achieved. But I'm not going to miss him as I will always be there to pick his brains.

"Duncan is the legend, a mentor who has set the standard to which we all aspire."

The time spent in taking Danyon Loader to the pinnacle with those two gold medals at the Atlanta Olympics almost 10 years ago remains the highlight. But there is a lot more to the Duncan Laing story.

From those humble beginnings in New Plymouth, Laing, 74, has done almost all. He took his first strokes as a 15- or 16-year-old in a tiny 25-yard pool in New Plymouth where he was "lucky enough to win a couple of Taranaki titles".

He soon got into the surf, three times winning the national R&R title with the Fitzroy Club as well as placing the national surf race. Although he reached a few finals at the national swim championships, his only individual national title came at Lake Karapiro where he won the three-mile open harbour [lake] swim.

For years his swimming shared his sporting time with rugby in which he was good enough to play under-18, under-20 and, from 1951-55, as a prop/lock for Taranaki under captain Peter Burke, later an All Black and All Black coach.

In 1965 Laing headed south.

On January 14, 1966, he started his job as swimming coach for the Dunedin City Council, breathing the chlorine-spiked air at their Moana Pool.

"For 40 years I worked for the council," said Laing who admits he long ago lost count of the number of kids he taught to swim and later coached.

He also found time to coach the highly successful University A side in the Dunedin senior rugby competition.

His retirement will allow him to turn off the alarm clock that has daily dragged him out of bed and to the side of the pool at 5am.

His first recognised swimmer was backstroker Caroline Mitchell.

Later followed Peter Smith, who was also a more-than-useful rugby player; Michael Borrie; Barrett Bond, now a doctor on Waiheke Island; Heather Coombridge; Brett Naylor; John McConnchie; Loader and Liz van Welie.

Loader, obviously, holds a special place for Laing.

"I first saw him as an 8- or 9-year-old and remember him as being a nuisance around the pool. He did not train and led one of my sons to say to him, 'If you get in my way, I'll drown you'.

"When he was 12, his mother put him in the squad with me," said Laing. "I took him to a meet in Cromwell after which he 'switched on'. I told his mother if I could harness him we could have a champion."

The rest is, like Laing's coaching career, history. But the legacy is enduring.