There are many athletics coaches, officials and administrators who make it their business to be easily recognised by all at sports meetings, conferences and meetings of any sort. Some do it by having a particularly loud voice and hailing all that they meet, others by the clothing that they favour or even by the jokes that they tell. None of these apply to Mike Johnston. Probably the quietest coach in my time to hold a national post of any consequence he speaks quietly, dresses appropriately for the occasion and goes about his business efficiently and skilfully. These last two adjectives – skill and efficiency – have led to a remarkable career in the sport. But to begin at the beginning, Mike answered the questionnaire for us. He has filled so many roles that we broke it into sections.
Name: Mike Johnston
Date of Birth: 23/05/1948
Occupation: Retired
Club: Cambuslang Harriers
As a runner:
I was always aware of the sport as my father and uncle were founder members of Victoria Park and as a youngster remember being taken to Scotstoun Show Ground to watch the athletes train when we visited Glasgow.
The school I attended dabbled in the summer term in athletics but their main sport was football. There was however an annual cross-country race which I competed in each year I was eligible. I ran a little bit through college in Aberdeen but really regarded running as keeping fit for football, badminton and squash. I played a lot of squash into my 30s and then switched the emphasis of my training to running as travelling with work made regular squash difficult. Sucked into the 80’s marathon boom, I ran the 1982 Glasgow Marathon. A few weeks later I ran the Lanarkshire 10-mile championship, and the following week joined Cambuslang Harriers.
Joining the club opened up many opportunities to race. Training for running in a group was new to me and I thoroughly enjoyed the camaraderie of racing and training with the club. With so many good athletes at the club there was always great advice for this inexperienced runner. Favourite club sessions were the Tuesday Hampden runs and the long Sunday runs organised by Robert Anderson over the local countryside through the winter.
Enjoying the longer road races, I tackled another 4 marathons running 2.52 for my last one in Glasgow in 1984.
Mike Johnston in 2023 when the Cambuslang Harriers trio of Gavin Smith, Jamie MacKinnon and Chris McLew broke the Scottish 3x800m Record
As a Coach
In the winter of 84, knee and Achilles issues restricted my training and I volunteered to help Jim Scarborough who was coaching the club’s youngest athletes. I started my official coaching pathway in 1985. Others who attended that first course included Lachie Stewart and Janice Hendrie. The group of athletes I first worked with at Cambuslang had interests across the spectrum and began winning medals in jumps, throws; sprints and endurance. There was year on year success that fooled me into thinking that coaching was easy. I was having some influence but most of the success came from natural talent and them getting bigger, stronger and quicker each year as they matured. As the group developed coaching skills had to change as they reached maturity.
I was fortunate to work with some good endurance athletes in those early days such as Eddie McCafferty and Mark McBeth who won a number of age group titles and went to the US on scholarships. However, that same group had very successful jumpers such as Gary Woods and Colin Bell.
Although I continued to train and race for the next few years the emphasis had definitely changed to coaching. My last National Cross Country was in 1991 in Dundee when I was a DNF not through injury but so that I could watch athletes finish the race.
The coach education process contributed greatly to my athletics knowledge but also confirmed my interest in all aspects of endurance running. Around this time, I was also introduced to the workings of the British Milers Club which influenced my early coaching. However perhaps the greatest influence during this process was the long weekend of the Senior Coach Endurance Coaching Theory lead by Harry Wilson.
When I completed my Senior Coach award I was invited to travel with Scottish age-group teams to various competitions across Britain. Then from 1994 to 2000 I undertook various voluntary coaching positions in middle distance and cross country, working with Alex Naylor and Brian McAusland who became my mentors and willing respondents to my many questions.
In 2000 UK Athletics were rolling out new coach education courses and I was approached to get involved. I delivered courses throughout the UK as part of a new group of tutors and from 2001 to 2003 I was involved in Tutor Training as well delivering the new courses up to Level 4 Performance.
As an administrator
In 2004 I was recruited into a position of event development and athlete program management with Scottish Athletics and remained in that employment until 2014. The role had an ever-changing remit but was mainly described as National Endurance Manager. Initially based in Tayside and Fife Institute of Sport and then at Grangemouth; Scotstoun and eventually Emirates Arena. The remit was huge and rapidly became 24/7. I’m grateful to Vikki Strange at Tayside Institute of Sport for advising how best to prioritise the many strands of the program and my colleagues Hugh Murray and Eamon Fitzgerald for their advice through my first couple of years in post. During my 10 years of employment, I reported to 7 different Scottish Athletics Head Coaches and 4 different CEOs, however the key element was always the development of the athletes and the events and that was best served by forming relationships with the many knowledgeable endurance coaches in the UK. These were best formed with those coaches in their own environment.
I was fortunate to go to four Commonwealth Games (the last after I retired) as Team Scotland athletics endurance coach as well as 2 Mountain and Ultra Commonwealth Championships, as endurance coach with UK Athletics at the U20 European Championships in Serbia and UK Team Leader at the Chiba International Ekiden. The title coach at these competitions is slightly misleading for although you need good coaching knowledge the rolls are much more administration and organisation. They did however create great learning experience for me from the coaches and athletes that you meet in those environments.
Back to Coaching
Those years with Scottish Athletics were good for my coaching knowledge but not quite so good for my own personal coaching, as the policy on myself and colleagues actively coaching, varied from the extremes of being encouraged or discouraged as management changed. Since retiral my coaching group has gradually grown and it gives me great pleasure to see athletes improve. It’s nice when athletes in the group get Scottish and UK medals or representative vests but I enjoy it just as much when someone hits their own personal annual target. I also get a kick out of watching a road or cross-country race and see the number of M40s and 50s still competing that were part of my early coaching groups.
Through the years I’ve been privileged to work with many talented, hard-working athletes. It’s also true to say that one of the greatest sources of knowledge as a coach comes from athletes’ feedback and I’ve been fortunate to work with some individuals whose input has helped and continues to help their development.
I don’t intend to list them as I value them all and would hate to miss one name.
In 2017 at the Scottish Athletics Awards dinner, I was Awarded the Tom Stillie award for services to the sport in Scotland. I was surprised and delighted but my shock was even greater in 2023 when I received the Ron Pickering British Athletics Writers Award for services to Athletics.
Mike with Leslie Roy and the Tom Stillie Sword
The Future
During 2021 I was approached to take up a volunteer position with Scottish Athletics Road Running and Cross-Country Commission and accepted the opportunity to become the Convenor. During my employment with Scottish Athletics, I had served on the group as a management representative so was familiar with the workings. I intend to continue in this position for the next couple of years.
Coaching athletics continues to give me great satisfaction and I hope to be active as long as I can contribute to the development of enthusiastic athletes.
The future
Hopefully I have many more years in the sport as a volunteer coach.
Mike with fellow coach Eamonn Fitzgerald
You will have noted from the above that Mike is not at all work shy. I worked with him for several years in a coaching capacity in the late 80’s and early 90’s and he was always well prepared, having done his homework before the task allocated. He was also quite quick to spot something during a race, often quite early on. Two examples:
a) I was standing with him watching the Heats of the Scottish Under 20 Track Championships when he commented on the Irish runner on the starting line who had done a very good time earlier that week in Ireland. Mike remarked that the runner did not have a kick but preferred to wind the race up from 500 metres to go. I didn’t know where he had found that out, but having known him for a wee while, I talked to my runner about it when we met before the final, tweaked the race plan and that helped my runner win.
b) On another occasion watching the Scottish Championships at Crown Point in Glasgow, I had a runner hoping for a medal but the well known Englishman led off and after a single lap, Mike commented that the runner couldn’t water jump. The appropriate advice was bellowed out to my man who finished second.
Note too that the information was practical and not theoretical or removed from the competitive arena.
If you add to that work ethic the desire to improve his own skills, then Mike lives up to the motto: “The athlete should never suffer for the coach’s limitations.” It is important to realise that even early in his coaching career he travelled to venues all over Scotland and to British Milers Club weekend AGM’s and also to the British Endurance Group weekends run by Norman Poole, asking questions, talking to other coaches from all over the British isles.
Mike didn’t mention his role as a member and supporter of the club he had joined in the 1980’s. He was not however one for following races like the Edinburgh to Glasgow in a car or in the official transportation – he was an active supporter. Where possible he was out on the road at the Edinburgh to Glasgow for instance, jogging along waiting for them to appear, see if they were holding their position or catching the opposition. We see from the photograph of the seventh stage of the relay in 1995 that he has had a long day supporting the red and white vests – at this point they were running second, two minutes up on Ewan Calvert of Clydesdale Harriers. Following the team on foot as much as was possible, kept him in touch the whole sport on the ground, talking to athletes and officials from other clubs and getting to know them, being seen to be part of the sport and not remote from the realities of it.
The question arises: How did a good clubman progress to the position that he holds today? He says, and it is manifestly true, that he loves coaching and working with athletes. When asked about his career as a coach and then in administration he recorded the progression as follows.
Started Coaching Pathway in 1985
Volunteer Coach with Cambuslang Harriers from winter 1984
Voluntary Position Summary – Scottish Athletics Federation-
1994-5 National Event coach for 800m/1500m
1995-7 Chief Coach for Cross Country and Road Running
1996 – 2000 Coach with Scottish Teams at track and field and road and cross events
UK Athletics
2000 – 2003 Coach Education Tutor
(2001 – 2003 Tutor Trainer)
Joined Scottish Athletics as a full-time employee in 2004.
Between 2004 and 2014 the job had various titles but mainly National Endurance Manager
Commonwealth Games Scotland –
Endurance Athletics Coach at 4 Commonwealth Games –
2006 – Melbourne
2010 – Delhi
2014 – Glasgow
2018 – Gold Coast
Head Coach for Scotland at Commonwealth Games Fell and Ultra Championships –
Keswick 2009
Llandudno 2011
UK Athletics Team Positions –
Team Leader at Chiba Ekiden in Japan 2010
Endurance Coach at European U20 Championships in Serbia 2009
Having done so much in the sport at club, national and UK level is quite extra ordinary, and of the tributes paid to him, none is more revealing of the athletes perception of his work than extract which is taken from this article on the Scottish Athletics website
‘The pathway in Scotland deserves a lot of credit’ – World Champion Jake – Scottish Athletics
Geoff (Wightman) also spoke to Stuart Weir on our behalf and he was also keen to mention the system in Scotland. In fact, Geoff name-checked Mark Pollard, our Head of Performance, for supporting Jake recently and the role played by Mike Johnston, formerly Head of Endurance, in Jake’s early years. It’s just as well he did, because the chances of Mark or Mike talking about it publicly are slim to zero . . .
‘Mark Pollard has been great supporting Jake and I want to highlight the work Mike Johnston did a number of years ago,’ said Geoff. ‘He gave Jake his first Scotland vests a number of years ago and that was key to his development.’ Jake told BBC Scotland: ‘I wasn’t amazing when I was 13, 14, 15 and I would probably have got swallowed up if I was in England, whereas coming from Scotland I was able to have enough success to keep me hungry.’
Mike’s contribution to coaching and to the sport more generally has been recognised at Scottish and British levels. Principal Awards are undoubtedly the Tom Stillie Award and the The British Athletics Writers Merit Award.
The former is awarded annually by Scottish athletics to the person who has contributed the most to Scottish Athletics within the preceding year. Previous winners include Allan Wells (1986), Cameron Sharp (1982), George Duncan (1999), Alan Bertram (1992) and others in various categories – coach, athlete, official, administrator. It is a standout award because the criteria for nomination are high and also because it comes in the form of a huge sword which is impressive in its own right but also distinct from the more normal cups, shields and other annual presentations.
The British Athletics Writers Merit Award, also known as the Ron Pickering Memorial Award for Services to Athletics, was awarded to Mile in 2023. The citation says as follows:
The Ron Pickering Memorial Award for Services to Athletics, gifted by the BAWA Committee, was given to distance coach Mike Johnston, regarded as the godfather of the crop of Scottish middle-distance athletes that have taken major medals over the past decade. He joined Cambuslang Harriers 40 years ago and his skills in nurturing talent were deployed by Scottish Athletics as head of endurance until his formal retirement. He remains an active coach and mentor to a new generation.
“I just enjoy coaching,” he said. “I like to see people improve. It doesn’t have to be winning medals or making teams but I like to see people get the most out of athletics and just enjoy the sport. That’s the key thing. But we did have a good phase where things went well on the endurance side in Scotland. The big thing was identifying and supporting the right people, especially the coaches, in setting up a good framework. And Mark Pollard has done a great job taking it on and expanding on it since I retired.”
A few of the other awards on the same night went to Josh Kerr who won the John Rodda Award for Male Athlete of the Year, Katarina Johnston-Thomson for the Cliff Temple Female Athlete of the Year, and Hannah Cockcroft as Female Para Athlete of the Year. Not bad company.
Mike, Eamonn Fitzgerald, Darcy Cummings and Hugh Murray.
The above concentrates on Mike’s activities as a coach partly because he regards himself as principally one of the coaching fraternity, and partly because his career has been mainly centred on that aspect of athletics. There is more about his activities as an administrator of the next page in which some of his friends have their say at these links;
Mike Johnston: What his Friends Say . . . Mike Johnston: Cambuslang Harrier