‘Children need to learn how to win and lose’
Life is competitive, says PE teacher of star athletes as former pupil Thomas closes in on Tour success
CHILDREN need to be taught that life is competitive and that winning and losing is part and parcel of growing up, the teacher who helped produce three of Britain’s best athletes has said.
Gwyn Morris is the head of PE at Whitchurch High in Cardiff, a comprehensive where former pupils include the likely Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas, British Lions captain Sam Warburton and Real Madrid footballer Gareth Bale.
Talking to The Daily Telegraph from a school sports tour in South Africa, Mr Morris said that the growing trend of school sports days with no gold medals was futile.
“Everyone’s got the right to have their own mindset and attitude, nobody can do anything about it,” he said. “But to me, life is competitive. Pupils at schools have to learn quickly that life is competitive – be that work, business or sports.”
Warburton and Bale, both 29, were in the same year group. They were among 16 internationals who joined the school in 2000 and whose fierce competition helped drive standards to new highs, according to teachers.
Thomas, 32, who is on the verge of becoming the first Welshman to win the Tour, is a natural role model for youngsters at the school with ambitions of being professional athletes.
While inter-house games cater for inclusion, the head of PE drives standards among top performers with an old-school attitude of having no excuses when things go wrong.
Mr Morris, who was shown the ropes himself early in his career by Iola Davies, the Welsh sprint champion, said: “Sometimes you can empty the tank, work the hardest you’ve ever worked and you still lose – and there’s nothing you can do.
“You learn a lot more when you lose than when you win, so developing a personality that never gives up and is prepared to work harder than anyone else – that’s the mentality I try to develop.
“You develop a young athlete and then if they show that mentality, you push them again.”
One example of this was Mr Morris’s insistence that Bale, now among the world’s greatest players, only use his weaker right foot during football lessons.
The proof is clear at Whitchurch High, with a steady stream of international sportsmen and women flowing out the door. Others include cricketer Tom Maynard, who died on the tracks of the Tube in 2012, rugby league’s Elliot Kear and gymnast Latalia Bevan. What set them apart from the rest of the young talent, Mr Morris believes, was mindset and limitless ambition. “There’s two attitudes you need to blend – the need to avoid failure and the need to achieve. There is no secret – it’s just hard work. You try to get every child to reach the absolute peak performance that they are capable of.” Steve Williams, another Whitchurch teacher and former Welsh Under-21 rugby coach, says Thomas’s “competitive edge” turned him into a champion. “He was a natural athlete and when he was 13 or 14 he found cycling and stuck with it,” he said.
“He’s tough and that competitive edge was developed over a number of years.
“The thing that strikes me about him and Gareth and Sam, they’re good role models. They don’t carry any baggage, they are breaths of fresh air.”
Mr Morris said: “What’s great about seeing these past pupils come back to school is it’s not for themselves, it’s to push that next generation through.”
Today, Mr Morris will settle into a night under the stars on safari, glued to Twitter to make sure another of his former pupils writes himself into sporting history. Tour de France: Sport, Pages 2-5