Success with Fraser-Pryce encouraged Walcott to go pro
LAST YEAR, at this time, Reynaldo Walcott was tuning his St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) sprinters to sweep the 100 metres final at ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships (Champs). Since then, success with Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce has led him to leave the school he served with distinction and to become a full-time professional coach. Walcott says his time at STETHS has prepared him well.
Walcott had been coaching senior athletes since 2016, but speaking on March 23, he said: “For the last year, it was different where I had seniors in Kingston and I had the junior programme at STETHS so I was on the road every single day, and at the end of that year, I was so tired and exhausted. I mean, I tried not to feel it while it was happening because I’m very goal driven and I’m focused and once I commit to a task, I try to get it done but afterwards, looking back, it’s not sustainable.”
The tipping point was proof that he could coach seniors successfully.
“Well, I would have gotten a lot of experience over the years. The most fruitful was last year with Shelly-Ann,” he recalled. In his care, she won the Olympic silver medal in the 100 metres last year and lowered her personal bests over 100m and 200m to 10.60 and 21.79 seconds, respectively. It was still a tough decision for the 34-year-old who attended STETHS and before being employed as a teacher at the school.
CHAMPS GOLD
His last STETHS season ended with Sachin Dennis, Orlando Wint and Tramaine Todd sprinting to Champs gold in the Class One, Two and Three 100 metres finals. These days, his focus is on his Elite Performance training group and the 2022 season as it unfolds for Fraser-Pryce, Dennis, ex-MVP sprinter Julian Forte and 2017 400-metre hurdles bronze medal winner Rushell Clayton.
He says it’s a huge responsibility to coach people who run for a living.
“I don’t take it for granted, so as a result of that, it’s sort of tempers the excitement because you understand that it’s all well and good if it goes north, but if it goes south then there are serious implications, and not just for you but just for the livelihood of the persons who trust you with their future, trust you with whether they eat or not eat, whether they have a roof over their head or not,” he commented.
At STETHS, he directed Andrew Fisher, the 2016 Olympic 100-metre semi-finalist, mercurial 800m and 400m hurdles winner Jauvaney James, World Junior 400m finalist Stacey-Ann Williams, a 2021 Olympian, among a long list of others. However, he feels indebted to one of his first student athletes, hurdler-sprinter Okeen Williams.
“He helped me to become how I now view athletics, it’s like a partnership, it’s a team,” Walcott recounted. “He was one of those youngsters who was willing to commit himself to doing the work, to do what I asked him to do and eventually become successful and others followed in his footsteps.”
Williams, a 2013 World Under-18 medley relay gold medal winner, went on to a solid career at the University of Alabama.