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News10 Aug 2006


Coaching great Pross remembered fondly

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Coaching is generally considered a thankless task but the late Jack Pross accepted the challenge and proved a winner on and off the track.

Pross, who died recently at the age of 86, was an outstanding track and field coach who had a marked influence on many prominent Australian athletes.

His techniques, similar to those of another innovative coach Percy Cerutty, taxed his athletes to mental and physical extremes.

For his services, Pross was awarded OAM in 1987, the Australian Sports Medal in 2000 and was a life member of Athletics NSW and the Australian and NSW Track and Field Coaches Association.
 
"He made a unique contribution to the sport as a passionate old-style coach," said Brian Roe, Athletic Tasmania president and former Athletics Australia competition manager.

"Jack was just completely devoted to and obsessed by athletics and the sport is better for it."

Pross started his athletic career in Tasmania in 1930 where he won distance races from 800 yards to 10 miles before his progress was halted by World War II.

In Melbourne, he met Cerutty - who coached the great Herb Elliott - and the pair became close friends.

Cerutty was famous for his sandhill training while Pross also used the soft sand, occasional resistance runs through waist-high water and the Katoomba Stairway.

Among his international athletes were: Albie Thomas, who set three distance world records; Dave Power, who was a Commonwealth Games gold medallist; hurdler Gary Noake who competed in three Olympic Games; and Australian record holders Murray Tolbert (long jump) and Gordon Windeyer (high jump).

Pross designed the Rotary War Memorial athletic field on Sydney's north side and also designed and built Tompkins Park in Western Australia and was responsible for the first synthetic track in NSW at Narrabeen.

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