From the Paralympics to the grassroots: How Australia’s disabled coaches are building a more inclusive sporting future

Up until grade three, Julie Charlton sat on the sidelines during PE class. She played catch with a teacher's aide as her friends ran and slid.

It was an unconventional start to what would eventually become an international sporting career.

"I always say, if anyone wants to play catch, I'm an expert at it," Charlton said.

Despite early promise in the prestigious sport of catch, Charlton's true talents lay elsewhere.

Upon changing schools during year three, Charlton met 'Mr Butcher', a British PE teacher specialising in inclusive education.

"He handed me my first ever shot-put and taught me how to use it, 15 minutes before my first ever competition," Charlton said.

"And that day, I won my first ever first placed ribbon."

Since then, Charlton has never looked back.

As well as representing Australia in para-shot-put at the Commonwealth Games, Charlton has coached para-athletics since she was 16.

And for the athletes she mentors, there's a very clear goal.

"I want to be the person that Mr Butcher was for me," she said.

Historically few and far between, coaches with disability are using their lived experience to make an impact on sport across Australia.

And in the process, they are paving pathways towards a more inclusive sporting future.

Lived experience key to coaching wheelchair basketball

Annabelle Lindsay had a tumultuous basketball career.

As a teenager, she was awarded a scholarship at Minot State University in North Dakota before a severe knee injury ended her career.

After that, she made the switch to the wheelchair variety of the sport, in which she excelled and competed internationally for four years.

But it all changed once more when, on the eve of the Tokyo Paralympics, new rules were introduced that meant her disability was no longer deemed severe enough to take part in international competition.

Lindsay was unsure of her next move.

"When you're an elite athlete and your career ends, you're very lost. Like, 'where do I go next?'" Lindsay said.

But it wouldn't be long before she knew where she needed to be.

"When I was reflecting on my career, the moments that brought me the most joy, or that I was the most proud of, were those times where I was really able to have a positive impact on my community," she said.

Although she began her coaching journey in mainstream basketball, Lindsay found a home coaching wheelchair basketball.

"[Chair skills] are fundamental. Our wheelchairs are our legs. If you can't move your legs, you can't do anything," Lindsay said.

Lindsay believes that coaches with lived experience of disability and wheelchair use are much better positioned to coach the sport effectively than those who come from the "able-bodied world."

"They can teach passing and dribbling," Lindsay said.

"But they don't know how to push a chair, they don't know how to defend, they don't know how to push and dribble. They don't really know how the sport works."

Show, don't tell, for athletes with intellectual disabilities

Kelly Wren, too, knows how important insider knowledge is to coaching disability sport.

Wren is a decorated tennis player, winning a host of gold medals at Special Olympics events around the world.

As a coach, she works mainly with players who also have intellectual disabilities. 

She has a shorthand way of communicating with her athletes.

"I think I can put things in a simpler way — I can break down the information a lot more," Wren said.

Wren also places high importance on visual learning during her training sessions.

She says that an emphasis on showing, rather than telling, is vital for coaching athletes with intellectual disabilities.

Using visually descriptive language to coach tennis

Rob Fletcher, on the other hand, coaches a form of tennis that doesn't rely on visual cues.

Having lost his vision later in life, the Melburnian is one of the world's first accredited legally blind tennis coaches.

He has developed a language for umpires and coaches that is now used in B1 and B2 (the two categories with the least vision) competitions. 

The language is called 'long/wide ABC'.

"Instead of just calling one of my shots that I've hit 'out', tell me whether it was long or tell me whether it was wide," Fletcher said.

"Now tell me if it's 'A' which is less than five centimetres out, so just out, whether it's 'B', up to 20cm out, or whether it's 'C', which is so far out it's not worth worrying about."

Anyone can be an 'inclusive' coach: Charlton

While Julie Charlton says that lived experience has given them a head start in better understanding the disabled athletes they coach, she believes the same understanding is available to any coach who seeks it out.

"If coaches who don't have lived experience of disability put their mind to it and do the research on their particular athlete and their condition, if they talk to them about what they need to be able to succeed, they would have the same advantage as me," Charlton said.

Charlton set up their coaching business, JC Squared, as a way of promoting that message.

As well as providing inclusive coaching to athletes, she hopes it can be a resource for organisations wanting to become more accessible.

"We want to be there for those who want to learn, to be able to reach out to organisations that may not have that sense of inclusion currently in their policies and training programs, and help them with that," she said.

Last year, Charlton helped Balmain Athletics Club in Sydney improve their accessibility by making their facilities more appropriate for seated throws and by teaching their coaches and players about the sport.

"I would love to see all athletics clubs across Australia do that — reach out to the people that are in your sport to help you make a more inclusive sporting society," Charlton said.

Emerging coaching pathways for para athletes

A two-time wheelchair rugby gold medallist, Jason Lees now holds a dual portfolio of assistant national team coach and national development coach in the same sport.

Having been involved in the national set-up since the early 2000s, Lees says that coaches with lived experience of disability have always been well-represented at the highest level.

"Wheelchair rugby is quite unique as far as it's a totally different sport to rugby union or rugby league, or anything else, really," Lees said.

"So quite often, a lot of the coaches are ex-players or people that have been around the sport for a long time."

However, in the past, there hasn't been a clearly defined route for ex-players into coaching.

But with an entry-level coaching course currently being constructed by Paralympics Australia and Wheelchair Rugby Australia, that won't be the case for much longer.

As well as providing more coaching opportunities for people with disability, Lees hopes the course will help to increase the professionalism of the sport and provide development players with a more defined pathway into senior teams.

"Having trained coaches, we can deliver the same sort of messaging and tactics from the Steelers down to the development level," Lees said.

For Wren, too, the creation of pathways for athletes with disability motivates her work. 

She hopes that she has laid the foundation for more people with intellectual disabilities to build their own coaching careers.

"I hope people who want to do the same sort of coaching that I'm doing can follow in my little footsteps," Wren said.

Charlton has created a career paving pathways forward, whether they be for aspiring athletes and coaches, or for non-disabled institutions.

"I want to be able to guide kids just like myself through a system that isn't made for us," Charlton said.

"We're not really designed to be in it at all. But we can shape it along the way."

Source: ABC