Taking Talent to the Top
If you aren’t training today, someone else will be…
Academy Coaches
Graham Norris
“A former athlete, I have been involved in coaching athletics for over 30 years.
However, as someone who is committed to life long learning, both in my personal and
professional life, I have consistently developed my knowledge, skills and coaching
practice and remain committed -
I was fortunate enough to work for UK Athletics as the Education Manager and oversaw the project to design the National School Teaching resource – Elevating Athletics. It puts athleticism and the acquisition of the fundamental movement skills at the heart of young children’s athletics career, rather than a pure focus on performance. I also helped develop the content for the Coaching Children Qualification, which ensures children, pre puberty, are coached properly and appropriately.
I recognise that athletics is a long game – an overnight success in athletics takes
3 years! However, winning is what the sport is ultimately all about, and it has to
become a habit through a proper (and not punishing or inappropriate) competition
programme. Having regularly taken the Somerset Sportshall teams to Regional successes,
and supported the Somerset U13 and U15 teams, I won the South West Performance Coach
of the year award in 2009 and have coached several combined eventers to county titles,
some who have gone on to reach the National Schools Combined Events Championships.”
As one of the former Regional Coach Trainers for British Athletics, I enjoyed supporting
the development of new coaches as Leaders, Assistants or fully qualified Coaches.
It was great to help build the new generation of coaches who understood the concept
of athlete centred coaching and had every belief that the results of a more modern
approach to coaching was already paying dividends.
**NB AS OF AUGUST 2021, GRAHAM HAS STOPPED ALL ATHLETICS COACHING**
Peter Grosjean
“I am a good example of a parent who entered athletics through watching my daughter train as a junior athlete at Mendip AC. It wasn’t long until Graham asked me if I’d like to be a coach, and so the journey began! I quickly realised that I was becoming passionate about athletics and as this grew so did my desire to develop as a coach.
Following redundancy, I took the very bold step of turning my coaching skills into earning a living and started my professional coaching career with SASP, the Somerset County Sports Partnership, and through this work developed my coaching skills in a range of sports, working mainly in primary schools. Alongside this I studied for my UK Athletics Level 3 qualification.
Over the last 10 years my progress in coaching has been rapid and I owe a large part of this to the encouragement and mentoring support I have received from Graham. I have coached athletics in many different circumstances to a wide range of ages and consider myself to have acquired much experience in a short space of time. I am also a qualified fitness instructor having studied for this qualification at Bath University. Of course this is very relevant to athletics coaching. Like Graham I am committed to improving as a coach and this is supported by England Athletics through being on their National Coach Development Programme. I am very fortunate to have been mentored by former GB International sprinter & Olympic coach Dan Cossins. I have coached or been involved with coaching athletes who have gone on to win titles at County, Regional, National and International level. In 2016 I coached the athlete who won Gold at English Schools Combined Events National Championships in the under 20 women’s category. When time and injuries permit I am a “competing athlete”.
November 2016 -
Loyalty could well be considered a key aspect in this award and Peter Grosjean demonstrates loyalty to Somerset Athletics in a wide range of roles and activities.
He is a vital member of Mendip AC and is the club representative on the Somerset County AA Committee, where his attendance record is exemplary. He makes valuable contributions to a variety of discussion points and without his input the Sportshall section would probably cease to function.
Peter’s passion for coaching extends beyond his club and he has been amongst the
most dedicated coaches on the Somerset Schools’ AA courses for a considerable number
of years – happy to encourage the youngest beginners with the same enthusiasm he
shows towards the more experienced performers. Towards the elite end of performance
Peter’s efforts have been rewarded in the shape of a number of his athletes representing
Somerset at South-
Peter’s planning and preparation are extremely thorough and he is widely respected for his attention to detail. He is never complacent though, and is constantly driven to improve his knowledge through attendance at UKA and England Athletics courses and by sharing information with fellow coaches.
Peter epitomises all that the Dr Jim Brunton Trophy represents – loyalty, dedication, commitment, enthusiasm and passion. With all those qualities in abundance he makes an outstanding contribution to Somerset Athletics.
Graham is the Academy’s Head Coach and is a UK Athletics Level 3 Development Coach (Sprints and Hurdles) with a special interest in Combined/Multi Events coaching. He coaches all event groups.
Graham has many years experience coaching athletics in schools, clubs and academies. He is also a former UK Athletics Coach Education Tutor and England Athletics Elevating Athletics Tutor.
Peter is a UK Athletics Level 3 Performance Coach (Speed) with special interests
in sprints, sprint hurdles, combined events -
Peter has experience coaching athletics in schools, clubs and academies. He is also a former England Athletics Elevating Athletics Tutor and currently a Regional Coordinator for QuadKids.
