Tall tales but mostly true from Laurie Lawrence, swimming’s master motivator

It’s 50 years old, the story, and Laurie Lawrence tells it a little differently every time.

Olympic gold medallist Duncan Armstrong was reunited with his old coach at the launch of Laurie Lawrence’s book: Stuff the Silver ... We're Going for Gold. Picture: Richard Walker

It’s 50 years old, the story, and Laurie Lawrence tells it a little differently every time.

Of how as a young coach at the Valley Pool in Brisbane, Helen Gray – the first Australian swimmer he produced – had approached him after a race to show him the silver medal she had just won. And how he sneeringly had said “stuff the silver, we’re going for gold” and then tossed it out of the pool complex on to the adjoining railway line.

Later that night, full of remorse, he stumbled around on the tracks to retrieve the medal. Sometimes, he says, he was almost cleaned up by the 10.15 train to Shorncliffe. Other times it was the 8.35 train to Ferny Grove. Sometimes he gets really adventurous with the truth and nominates a southbound train, the 9.20, say, to Beenleigh.

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As Gray admitted on Thursday, the bare bones of the tale are true. She was mortified when her medal was frisbeed over the fence and wondered how she would explain it to her parents, who had travelled down from Townsville to see her swim at the Queensland titles. Yet even as a 13-year-old, she instinctively recognised it as a seminal moment and instructed Lawrence to keep the medal. He still has it.

So it was that they were both back at the Valley Pool for the launch of Lawrence’s book, Stuff the Silver … We’re Going for Gold. She might have inspired the title but, sadly, there was no room for her in the book. There were, says Lawrence apologetically, so many stories to cram in from a lifetime spent watching, teaching and motivating swimmers over countless Olympic Games. And on the very day the Tokyo Olympics were supposed to get under way but didn’t, those stories took on a more inspirational hue than ever.

“What I have always said is: ‘I’m not in the coaching business. I’m in the theatrical business’,” Lawrence explained. “To have the kids come in here and do 160 laps, morning and night … no sensible person would do that. So, as coaches, we have to entertain the kids.”

Oh, how he used to entertain the kids. There was the time he wanted to build up Duncan Armstrong’s legs. So he had him stay back after training to tread water with his arms above his head – while wearing a diving weight belt.

“It’s a very good exercise,” said Lawrence, now 78. “If you don’t kick, you drown.”

Now 52, Armstrong admits there were times when he used to die of embarrassment. Never more so than at the 1986 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games when, just as the swimmers were about to parade out for the 400m freestyle final, Lawrence yelled warnings to spectators to take cover because a wild animal was about to be let loose. And then out came Armstrong, blushing to the roots of his hair. But he won the race, which set the scene for his greatest triumph at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, when he outsmarted the legendary American Matt Biondi to win the 200m freestyle gold in world record time.

“He had a wonderful way of distracting us from the pressure by standing on his head and throwing a fit,” Armstrong recalled. “It allowed us to get on with our job. The moment didn’t destroy us because such moments can destroy you at the Olympic Games.”

Would he have won the gold in Seoul had it not been for Lawrence?

“I don’t think so,” he said. “But I do think I would have been a nicer person without Laurie. He ruined my life. There are so many things I have tried – cycling, triathlons, karate – but I can’t enjoy them. You can’t just have fun. There is only one way to do it, with brutal animosity towards everyone until you win.”

He says it with a broad smile and a chuckle but that was indeed Lawrence’s way. Take no prisoners.

Julie McDonald has not the slightest doubt about the man who coached her.

“He was a lunatic. But he was the best lunatic for me,” the 800m freestyle bronze medallist at Seoul said. “No way I could have done that without him. No way.”