Don McFarlane: Edinburgh’s Disability Coach of the Year 2011

         (Don with Visually Impaired High Performance Swimmer, James Clegg)

Disability swimming coach Donald McFarlane was named Edinburgh’s Disability Coach of the Year 2011 at a recent award ceremony held at Edinburgh’s International Climbing Arena, Ratho.  Don, currently coaches at Lothian Racers Swimming Club but also coaches the Lothian Regional squad and the Scottish national squad for performance swimmers with disability.

Over the years Don has established himself as one of Scotland’s leading coaches of swimmers with a disability and has a hugely successful record in developing athletes to reach their full potential.  Fellow coach, Pat Agnew has worked alongside Don for almost 15 years and feels recognition for his work is vastly overdue,

“It is fair to say that Don McFarlane has been at the forefront of disability swimming within the Lothian region for the past 18 years and there have been so many swimmers, families and colleagues that have benefited from his care, coaching expertise, friendship and humour in that time.  Not only has he achieved unrivalled success with swimmers from the Lothian region, he also coaches the Scottish squad, allowing many other athletes to benefit from his wisdom.”

Don (formerly a competitive runner) started as a swimming coach in 1990 with Midlothian Amateur Swimming Club, coaching mainly the most advanced swimmers within the mainstream environment.  However, in 1994 Loanhead Dolphins was established, as part of an initiative by Midlothian Council, to cater for swimmers with a disability and Don soon found himself transferring his skills from mainstream swimming, as he was asked to be part of the coaching staff.  Don made the transition like a duck to water and shortly afterwards, he decided to focus solely on coaching swimmers with a disability. He makes coaching look effortless and is as comfortable teaching a beginner as he is coaching a world class performer.  In time, the club became renowned for producing quality swimmers and developing them into top performers, with many representing Lothian, Scotland and Great Britain. 

After 15 very successful years with the Loanhead Dolphins Don McFarlane, along with fellow coaches Pat Agnew and Jacky Yirrell, decided to establish a new club in 2009 called the Lothian Racers.  The club trains out of the Royal Blind School in Edinburgh and Beeslack Community High School in Penicuik.  With Don as head coach, the club is already progressing and they are hoping to gain access to Edinburgh’s Royal Commonwealth Pool once in reopens in spring 2012.   As expected the club is starting to produce some very promising athletes including, Paralympic hopefuls Scott Quin (S14 100m Breaststroke finalist at the IPC European Championships, Berlin 2011) James Clegg (the current 50m and 100m Freestyle, 100m IM, and 100m Butterfly British Record Holder for the S12 Classification), Special Olympic World Games 2011 medallist, David Fergus as well as Adam Linton-Main and Neil Howie who are both in the Scottish Squad, and East Lothian Councils Performance Athletes in Schools programme.

In addition to the efforts made at club and regional level, Don has been lead coach for the Scottish Physical Disability Swimming Squad, which trains at the National Swimming Academy in Stirling, for the past 11 years.  Not only does he coach training sessions, but he travels to British Junior and Senior Championships in Sheffield each year and in 2005 was one of the coaches that travelled to Connecticut, USA for the Cerebral Palsy World Championships.  The successful Scottish team consisted of some great competitors, including 5 time Paralympic medallist Jim Anderson OBE and Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games bronze medallist and Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games silver medallist, Sean Fraser.  In November 2011, he led the Scottish team to 18 Scottish records, 8 British records and 1 European record at the DSE British Championships. He has a massive amount of enthusiasm and is meticulous in his dedication to the preparation of swimmers before and after competition.

Pat Agnew, who also assisted Don at national level for several years, was always astounded by his coaching techniques,

“I was always amazed by the way in which he tailored his training sessions for each individual swimmer and that each one seemed to last exactly 2 hours!  This takes a huge amount of skill and expertise, when you consider the range of impairments from various Cerebral Palsy classifications,, visual and hearing Impairments, Amputees, Brittle Bones, Dwarfism etc and an age range from 10 to nearly 50 years old! Whatever level of disability an athlete had, Don focussed on their ability and had a knack of getting the very best out of them!”

Don is considered to be one of Scotland’s most established disability specific coaches and has contributed hugely in bringing disability swimming in Lothian from its infancy to a high profile level.  Fellow coaches and athletes have paid tribute………

Anna Tizzard – former Paralympic swimmer Seoul 1988, Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996 and fellow Scottish coach

Don has been a key member of the Scottish coaching team travelling to DSE British Junior and Senior Swimming Championships for many years.  He has played an instrumental role in many of Lothian's top swimmers and continues to develop junior swimmers that will hopefully follow in the successful footsteps of some of Don's past Paralympic swimmers, including Jim Anderson OBE and Sean Fraser.
 
For around ten years Don has been a volunteer coach at the Scottish Disability Sport (now Scottish Swimming) National Squad training days.  Over 20 swimmers with a physical and sensory impairment attend these training days.  Don is not only responsible for coaching, but also, compiles the training schedule.  His knowledge and experience in disability swimming enabled him to produce schedules that meet the requirements of each swimmer, regardless of their disability.

Don has coached swimmers on the international stage at the World Championships for people with Cerebral Palsy, as well as open international swimming events across Europe.
 
As a fellow coach at the national squad, I cannot think of a better person to be recognised as Edinburgh Disability Coach of the year.  Don is knowledgeable, experienced and an all round GREAT coach and person.  His ability to work with a wide range of swimmers with a disability is outstanding.  It’s hard to think of anyone else who deserves this award more!

Paul Wilson - Disability Performance Development Manager, Scottish Swimming

Don has been involved with coaching swimmers, as a volunteer, from a grass roots level up to our paralympians for the seven years I have been involved in the sport of disability swimming. He does an exceptional job bringing through the young talent and getting them to understand what it takes to be a true competitive disability swimmer.  All of our national squad swimmers hold Don in the highest respect and have all benefited from his input over the years.

Don is instrumental in supporting the development of the sport in the Edinburgh area but is also a pivotal part of our national squad structure. He currently takes the role as lead coach for our national squad for swimmers with a physical disability or sensory impairment however, following his recent retirement I will be looking to utilise his knowledge and expertise in other areas of our squad structures!!  A strong contender for ‘Disability Coach of the Year’…every year!

James Clegg, age 17: Visually Impaired High Performance swimmer

Don was my first coach and the main reason I have achieved what I have so far.  He is helping me to move on to achieve bigger things which will hopefully include Paralympic success one day. I am extremely grateful for what Don has done for me and for what he has taught me about how to become a serious competitive swimmer.  I would love it if he won this award.

Scott Quin, age 21: High Performance Swimmer with a learning disability, 100m Breaststroke finalist at the IPC European Championships, Berlin 2011

When I stared with Loanhead Dolphins Don was my main coach when I was a much more improved swimmer he had such the right attitude to coach people with a learning disability he made swimming fun for me as he liked to push me really hard in the pool and he has always had the belief that I would go somewhere far with my swimming and his dream has came true and he still keeps a follow up of his swimmers who have moved on thats what I call dedication and where I have allot of respect for him.

Jim Anderson OBE: 5 times Paralympic medalist

Don is a very able coach and has a good understanding of lower class disability swimming.  He was my coach when I took part in the Atlanta and Sydney Paralympic Games and was partly responsible for me achieving my potential in winning 3 gold and 1 silver in 1996 and 3 silvers in 2000.  In my opinion Don is very much overdue recognition for all the hard work he puts in to  training past, present and future athletes.

Neil Howie, age 13: Lothian Racers ASC, Musselburgh ASC, Scottish Squad, PAiS

Don has really helped me improve my swimming over the past few years and excel at the sport, enabling me to be part of the Scottish squad and perhaps going further.
 
I think Don should get this award because he is such a great coach.


Jennifer McFarlane: Donald’s wife of 37 years

As a family we are very proud of Donald and his achievements with coaching the swimmers. He enjoys it very much and his enthusiasm and dedication are always evident. Don has been involved in coaching for a long time and puts everything he can into it and takes great pride and pleasure in the achievements of the athletes. I am sure he is as much an inspiration to them as he is to us, his family.  His interest in swimming started with our children and he now takes his grandchildren swimming too and they just adore him!


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                   Lothian Disability Sport Carpet Bowls Championships

A keenly contested event between bowlers from all over the Lothians ended with an all East Lothian final in the ladies event between Carol Whyte & Gillian Brown, both of Musselburgh.  Both played well but it was Carol who won a close match between the two friends, for her first ever trophy. In the men’s final Gordon Graham from West Lothian beat last year’s winner , Euan Wright from Edinburgh.  These two players have met on many occasions in the past and this time Gordon was the victor. As with other of their ties this was no run away win, the game only being decided by the final shot on the final end.

The winners and runners up will now go forward, along with the beaten semi-finalists , to represent Lothian in the Scottish Disability Sport Carpet Bowls Championships in Dundee in February.

Qualifiers for SDS Carpet Bowls Championships, Saturday 4 February