CARSTAIRS - A track and field coach from Carstairs was ecstatic recently watching his student win gold at the national track and field championships in Montreal.
Ronald Hewer, who along with his wife has been a resident of Carstairs for about 15 years, has been coaching track for over 30 years at various levels.
Most recently, Hewer has been coaching with the Red Deer Titans club program. It was there that he helped coach Red Deer's Jeremy Lauzon to a U-20 national title in the 200-metre race.
Hewer said it was great helping Lauzon shave seconds off his time to get to the point where he went from being ranked sixth in Alberta to becoming first in Canada.
"Their goals become your goals," said Hewer. "Track, wrestling, swimming, you spend so much time with your athletes one on one. You're teaching life skills through sports. You establish a very tight bond with that athlete. It's kind of like being a teacher. Teachers are with their students more than their parents."
The coach said it's very rewarding watching their athletes excel.
"Just seeing them accomplish and meeting those goals," he said. "And usually all of the times it's resetting those goals in the middle of the season. Another thing that's rewarding is that I take my coaching extremely, extremely seriously whether I'm paid or not. That's not the point. Every time they get in the starting blocks I'm in there with them. I know what they're going through physically, emotionally, mentally."
Hewer admits he gets nervous when his athletes get on the starting block ready to race.
"I'm more nervous sometimes than the athlete is," he said. "But the reward of coaching is watching the athlete excel. Figuring out with the athlete how to get past these issues of being nervous."
Hewer moved to Carstairs in 2005 during the oil boom in Calgary.
"We sold our house and wanted to come to a small community," he said. "My wife is originally from a small farm in Saskatchewan. I've lived in big cities my whole life. We just wanted the small-town life. We moved to Carstairs and have been living there ever since."
Hewer came to Calgary from Ontario. He is happy to call Carstairs home.
"I love being able to hear the sound of the birds," he said. "It's amazing. You can sit on your deck no matter where you live in Carstairs and you can hear the ting from the baseball bat over at Memorial Park."
Hewer said nationals, which were in Montreal in May, were quite an adventure. The hardest part was getting to the event. Hewer recalls trying to get Lauzon to the arena but getting lost and then getting pulled over by a police officer for speeding.
"I'm very organized," he said. "I like to be in the stadium well in advance. We like to get a long pre-warm-up in to get the nervous system firing. I had to explain to the police officer what was going on. He wanted nothing to do with the excuse."
Hewer explained the reasoning to the officer and asked Lauzon to call an Uber.
"The officer asked if there were any Quebecois in the final," he said. "Jeremiah and I looked at each other and I said it's mostly guys from Ontario and Jeremiah from Alberta. The officer said if there were, he would've written me a ticket. As it was he gave us directions and told us to get out of there."
Hewer currently divides his time between Canada and Mexico, where he helps train track athletes in Puerto Vallarta. He returns to Canada each May for the high school and club seasons. He will also fly up to watch any of his athletes compete at championship level events.
