A legendary athletics coach
RETIRED teacher Raschardt Williams (69) is a renowned former athlete and coach. Williams’ love for sport was developed by watching games at the Curries Fountain Stadium on Sundays with his father and uncle.
“I watched some entertaining soccer from teams like Berea, Young Aces, Verulam Suburbs, Swaraj, Avalon Athletic and Cape Town Spurs. Initially I did not prefer sports but preferred reading,” said Williams, who hails from Sydenham.
Williams only took up athletics seriously when he was in Standard 7 (Grade 9) when his former physical training teacher at Parkhill High School, Aleck China, asked him to sprint across the soccer field.
“Much to everyone’s surprise, including my own, I reached the other end of the ground first, beating the fastest boy in the school, Gary Lortan who is my cousin,” said Williams, who moved from Cape Town to Durban with his family in the 1950s.
Some of Williams’ athletics highlights included setting a South African Senior Schools Sports Association 100m record at the Green Point Stadium in Cape Town in 1971 at the Old Cinder
Track, participating in the Comrades Marathon, Two Oceans Marathon and New York Marathon, and attending the Olympics in Barcelona, Spain in 1992 as a spectator.
During his teaching career at Umbilo Secondary and Bechet High School Williams mentored many youth in athletics. He has been the chairman and head coach of Sunshine Sports Club from 1980. The club was initially formed by Dr Les Fabre as Verona Sports Club in 1970 and has been known as Sunshine Sports Club since 1978.
Williams was also the chairman of the Natal High Schools Athletics Association and chairman of the KwaZulu-Natal Coaches Committee in the South African Congress of Sport era and post-apartheid.
“The transition from being an athlete to coach was very easy and enjoyable. I had the opportunity to be coached by the best. At school, I was coached by Karamchand Hiraman and at college by Dr Les Fabre. These excellent coaches inspired me to go into coaching when I started teaching in 1974,” he said.
Williams coached the likes of Sharon Williams nee Page, Mohammed Ally and Wade Fraser.
Page was a KwaZulu-Natal cross country and road running champion in 1982 and still regularly competes in the Spar Ladies Grand Prix. Ally is a former sprinter who set a South African U-17 100m record in 1991. He has since become an athletics coach for national team athletes.
Fraser is a successful coach. Among the athletes he coaches is South African women’s triple jump record holder Zinzi Zulu.
Williams, whose sporting role models are Tommy Smith, John Carlos and boxer Muhammad Ali, is still involved in road racing and helped to organise
many events prior to the pandemic.
He has been honoured by Sydenham residents who organised a fun run named after him, and presented him with a lifetime achievement award in 2014.
Williams is married to Sharon and has two daughters, Faiza and Nadia.