With an ever expanding group of aspiring athletes working at West London Track & Field, we are delighted to be welcoming a new member of staff to our coaching team to support this continued growth.
Coach Murray worked at in Texas, USA from 1996-1998 where she was Head Women's Track & Field Coach at El Paso High School, and worked with individuals from the Track & Field team at the University of Texas, El Paso.
Dr Alison Murray will be joining West London Track & Field to support the development of the Pole Vault, and to allow us to serve the athletes wishing to join us. Coach Murray is a former Pole Vaulter, with a Personal Best of 3.95m who has a wealth of coaching experience to her name. She has represented Scotland at the Commonwealth Games, and worked with coaches and athletes from a number of countries including the USA, Mexico, Bulgaria and Scotland.
Allie's extensive depth of knowledge in teaching and coaching bolstered not only by her hands on experience across multiple sports, but by her academic understanding: Currently a senior lecturer in Educational Practice at Roehampton University, Coach Murray has also worked in Universities across the USA and Mexico in fields ranging from Kinesiology to Sports Leadership, to Motor Learning.
We will shortly be announcing membership opportunities for athletes interested in working with Coach Murray. Keep an eye on our website for more details!
With introductions aside, we will now hand over to Allie, who shares some fascinating insights into her Coaching Philosophy:
My Coaching Philosophy - Alison Murray
If you have arrived at practice and you are wondering about how to get organised, you are already too late! Take a time out and jump back in when you are ready. This is why I am so excited to join WLTF staff. Shared enthusiasm is equaled only by a collective depth of current and updating knowledge and athlete investment. It’s brilliant to find an oasis of informed and informing individuals, with a cooperative and aspirational community of dedicated athletes.
The set up and philosophy here fits so well with mine: My philosophy is exclusively inclusive. Having started coaching when I was 16, I have formulated a natural incline toward athletes who are dedicated and highly motivated. Such athletes will do best with my approach to athletic prowess and accomplishment.
For me, coaching is more than a way of communicating information I believe will best serve the athlete at a specific time. To me, coaching requires a confident grasp of when to deliver this series of knowledge-based wisdom toward a jointly agreed performance outcome. With me, coaching is way of life. It is embedded through how I see life, and through which lessons can be experienced through a shared experience, toward a common goal.
“It’s brilliant to find an oasis of informed and informing individuals, with a cooperative and aspirational community of dedicated athletes.”
To me, Coaching is an engaging and informing process, which progresses through theoretical and research informed frameworks from what is known, to that which we will discover and or create together: Know thyself? Yes, and know your event. I have worked with world class coaches across my journey and have taken a great deal of time to deconstruct training programmes from Russia, Canada, Mexico, the US and England. As such, I offer what I believe to be quite a holistic approach through my own practice. I purposefully state ‘approach’ as to embody and encompass an ecological notion of educating through informed training which is best fitted for the respective athlete. Coaching is a way of knowing and for me, a way of being which is shaped around the needs, drivers and constraints of each and every athlete. Coaching is you helping me create opportunities for you to become the athlete you can and wish to become.
Having worked in coaching from gymnastics into swimming and then track and field across high school to Olympic level in Scotland, Bulgaria, Mexico, the United States and England, I get it. And when I felt that athletes were not being provided a voice to grow, I moved through sports and education psychology as to better understand my performers and advocate for active learning. My own studies superseded my own athletic achievements and I am admittedly an avid learner and in love with my event of pole vault. I relish in working with motivated athletes (and staff) who are proactive in their learning and development. Regardless of proficiency and competition level, I expect the athletes I work with to best maximise their own developing competencies, and become confident and robust learners.
It is a privilege and pleasure to join our team.
Best to all,
Allie