They Never Give Up: Once a Coach, Always a Coach

Pam Medland — Athletics

Pam Medland was one of Canada’s most promising 400m/800m runners in the 1970s. She set numerous provincial and national records and was third and fourth at the 1976 Olympic Trials. She retired from the sport in 1976 at the age of 19 and stayed away for the next 25 years, traumatized by the lack of support through her transition. She married, had a family, and developed a career in library administration. Currently with the Okanagan Regional Library, she holds a degree in English from Simon Fraser University and master’s degrees in English and library science from the University of Toronto.

Pamela Medland, head coach, Kelowna
Track and Field Club

Pam was drawn back when her children — Daniel, born in 1992, and Emilie, born in 1995 — began to excel at hockey and figure skating respectively. “I’m known for being an early developer and an early dropout, and I didn’t want my kids to have my experience. As well, I am very interested in early athletic development and in systems that ensure a positive experience.” She began teaching her children fitness and off-ice exercises and then became the coach of Emilie’s soccer team.

In 2002, a move to Port Alberni brought Pam into contact with the town’s excellent track facility, and she found herself assistant coaching. “I gradually realized that I really love the sport and have a lot to offer; I wondered why I’d been away.” Moving again in 2004, Pam volunteered to coach at the Kelowna Track and Field Club and did so for two years before becoming the head coach and middle distance and distance coach in 2007, only the second woman to hold the position. She attributes her rapid rise to club politics, which led to the position opening up.

Mentorship has marked Pam’s coaching career. Her own coach, Gerry Swan, the head coach of the Valley Royals Track and Field Club in Abbotsford, B.C., whose athletes included Brit Townsend, now head coach at Simon Fraser University, strongly encouraged his athletes to take their NCCP Levels and to pursue coaching careers. Other mentors are Brian McCalder, the president and CEO of BC Athletics, on whose board Pam has served, and Thelma Wright, head coach of Canada’s team to the 2008 North America, Central America and Cross Country championships. Networking, too, is essential. She insists that athletes wanting to make the transition to a coaching career must establish a network early on. “There are key people in B.C. sport whom I know from my time as an athlete, and they have been very supportive of me.”

Pam, who won a 2007 BC Athletics Excellence in Coaching Award as a junior development coach, is working on NCCP Level 3 with a view to coaching at the provincial level. Going higher, she suggests, will be more difficult given the track and field tradition of personal coaches moving up along with their athletes. “Women have to start at community coaching and work their way up with their athletes, and that takes a long time. We’re not going to be appointed to address gender imbalance; there’s too much at stake.”

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le Journal en français

April 2008
Vol. 8, No.2
Front Page
CONTENTS

They Never Give Up: Once a Coach, Always a Coach

by Sheila Robertson

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