Herb Elliott on Percy Cerutty

CoolRunning Australia: Printer Friendly Version Page 1 of 5 Printer Friendly Version Herb Elliott on Percy Cerutty This interview with Herb was broadcast on Radio National on 5th January 2001 At the 1960 Rome Olympic Games, HERB ELLIOTT won the 1500 metres race by the largest margin that had been recorded in Olympic history. Elliott's coach was the eccentric, irascible PERCY CERUTTY, and over the six years that Cerutty trained Elliott, from 1956 to 1962, Elliott was the undefeated champion of both the 1500 metres and the mile running events. Postal worker turned athletics guru, Cerutty revolutionised running training in Australia - most famously by making his athletes run up and down sand dunes. Cerutty was also a health-food nut, he developed a philosophy he called "stotanism", and he was notoriously outspoken. Cerutty's most famous protege, Herb Elliott, remembers his controversial, charismatic coach. Amanda Smith: The coach behind Herb Elliott's athletic success, Percy Cerutty, was born in 1895. He died in August 1975, almost 25 years ago. In his day, Cerutty revolutionised running training in Australia, most famously by making his athletes run up and down the sand dunes at Portsea, on the Victorian coast. Cerutty was also a health food nut; he developed a philosophy around running which he called 'Stotanism', and he was notoriously outspoken. But for all his idiosyncrasies, Percy Cerutty was a very successful coach, and Herb Elliott his great protégé. Although, according to Herb Elliott, Cerutty has never received the recognition he deserves. Herb Elliott: It was reinforced to me just recently. I was in Melbourne, I had a couple of hours to spare, I went out for my daily walk and I ended up deciding to walk through South Yarra, which is where Percy had a little wooden shed that he and his wife Nancy used to live in, and I walked past this sort of little back street entrance to where the shed was. The shed's gone, and I just mused to myself as I walked past there, this was the home of the greatest athletics coach that Australia has ever produced, and there's no plaque on the door to even remember that that's where it all started to happen. Percy Cerutty: Fail, it's not in my dictionary. I've got a good dictionary up there and the words 'fail' and 'failure' have been ruled out for years. I don't know what people are talking about who use that word. All I do know is temporary non-success, even if I've got to wait another 20 years for what I'm after, and I try to put that into people, no matter what their object in life. Amanda Smith: So how did Percy Cerutty develop his ideas about running? And what was it like to be coached by him? Herb Elliott recalls their first meeting in 1955, when Herb was a schoolboy at Aquinas College in Perth. Herb Elliott: I'm not quite sure how it happened, but he turned up one day from the Eastern States, (one of the Wise Men from the East, we used to call them then) to the school, and I remember he had this magnificent body for a 60-year-old man; he had a pair of white shorts on, bare feet and no top on, just the shorts. And he talked to us about flying. I remember he was running around flapping his arms, and if he'd taken off I would have been very impressed, but my first impression was he was sort of interesting, but a bit of an old fool. And then my father invited him out to our home the following weekend, and I remember Mum went to great effort to make sure the food looked very healthy, and we had a conversation with Percy that probably lasted two or three hours. And that was probably the start, that probably sowed the seed that ultimately sort of started to strike towards the surface to think about devoting a bit of my life to becoming a good athlete. It was a very, very inspiring, thought-provoking meeting. Amanda Smith: Well I guess the decisive meeting or moment for you though was during the 1956 Olympics when you came to Melbourne with your family. You saw the great Soviet runner, Vladimir Kuts win the 5,000 and 10,000 metres races. Can you tell me about that experience and what that led to for you? Herb Elliott: Yes. My father decided to come across and have a look at the Olympics, for which I am eternally grateful. And the way in which Vladimir Kuts, he was a stocky, nuggety little figure, he looked more like a weightlifter than a runner, and his arch opponent was Gordon Pirie who had the classical build of an athlete, 6-foot-2, barrel chested, slim legs, all that stuff, and this guy just absolutely ground Pirie into the dirt. I've never seen anything quite so remorseless, or quite so unstoppable as that. And it inspired me, all the nasty bits, and I thought 'Oh, I wouldn't mind doing that to somebody', so that was probably, I guess any of our major decisions in life very rarely happen with a flash of lightning out of the sky, they build up and you can't actually see where it's going to until you get there. But I guess there were lots of things happening, including that, which eventually made me go back to my parents and say, 'Look, I don't want to come home, I want to stay here in Melbourne with Percy', and that was quite a lot for my mother to deal with at http://www.coolrunning.com.au/php/printpage/printpage.php 11/10/05 CoolRunning Australia: Printer Friendly Version Page 2 of 5 the time. But anyway, they agreed, and from that time on I became one of his protégé. Amanda Smith: So you were 18 years old at that time, Herb; what was it about Percy Cerutty that appealed to you? Herb Elliott: I guess there are a number of things. I mean, he had the magnificent ability which very few people have got, some of the great speakers in history I guess, Winston Churchill had it, I guess King had it, I guess maybe to some extent, JFK. He just had the ability to transfix you with words, and lift you 20 feet into the air. I mean he had a wonderful eloquence, an inspiring eloquence about him. But I don't think that was what appealed to me so much as he seemed to be more interested in using your sport to develop you into a better human being, than he did in using your sport to become a world champion. I mean he somehow or other put your sport into a much larger context than just running around in circles faster than anybody else. Amanda Smith: And this appealed to you as an 18-year-old? Herb Elliott: Yes I mean I was brought up a Catholic, led to believe you're a breathing sinning machine of course, and to have somebody start talking to you about improving yourself, I mean I guess we all probably thought that we could be better people than we were. And he showed me a way that I could be a better person, which was to use the skill that I had which was running, and provided that, and this is where I asked him the question. I said, 'Well how do I become a better person by running round in circles?' And he said, 'You only ever grow as a human being if you're outside your comfort zone.' And so I guess I went into all of my training and my approach to training was that you've got to be outside your comfort zone, so I was an intense, high quality trainer, and there was a lot of pain in my training sessions as a consequence of that. But I think it was one of the reasons why I just never got beaten, because every training session, four out of six, were nominated as quality, and I was used to sort of doing the hard yards at quality. Amanda Smith: Well at that time, were either you or your parents aware that Percy Cerutty was regarded by some as a bit of a 'fruit loop'? Herb Elliott: Yes. I don't know, I didn't discuss that with Mum and Dad, I think if they thought he had have been totally or genuinely a fruit loop then they wouldn't have allowed me to stay here in Melbourne, and it was with their blessing that I stayed here in Melbourne. I didn't say, 'Well stuff you, I'm staying', it wasn't one of those sorts of situations. He was eccentric, he was unpredictable, and he was entertaining, had an enormous sense of fun, but he would be very close to probably the most widely read man that I've met, in terms of the breadth of subjects that he read about: spiritual aspects or physical aspects or mental aspects, or art, or science or saints or devils, I mean Percy didn't read books, he studied books. He would often stop when an interesting point was raised, and write a two page essay on that particular point, just so he could think through his own views that had been provoked. So he was a highly, very widely read guy and he had a very sound philosophy behind all the nonsense and the hoo har that was going on.

Load more