When Duncan Laing died in 2008 I was coaching in Delray Beach, Florida. I never got around to recording my Duncan Laing memories. That was a wrong that can now be put right.

Even the bare facts of Duncan life are impressive. He was and remains New Zealand’s most successful swim coach. He began teaching swimming at Dunedin’s Moana Pool in 1966. Over forty years he coached 11 Olympic swimmers including Danyon Loader, winner of two gold medals at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games and a silver medal at Barcelona in 1992. Besides coaching swimming Duncan was an Otago rugby selector. Duncan and his wife Betty were married in 1951. They had six children, four sons and two daughters.

But that summary does not do the man justice. Duncan was a man of huge stature and equally huge personality. He began work as a butcher in the Waitara freezing works. (Freezing works is the New Zealand name for a meat plant.) Duncan and I had freezing works in common. When I finished University I went to work for the same freezing works company, Thomas Borthwick & Sons. Actually, the very successful Carterton coach, Russell Geange also worked in a Borthwick’s freezing works. At a national championships several years ago Duncan, Russell and I had a successful meet. All three of us had coached national winners. Duncan claimed that our early training in skinning and processing New Zealand sheep was clearly the foundation on which to build a successful coaching career.

Most people who met Duncan came away with a story to tell. It is the way it was. Some people, without trying, just have huge personalities.

I first met Duncan at the Moana Pool when my daughter, Jane, was three years old. On our way to the pool I told Jane that I had earned my 800 meter certificate when I was four. Jane asked if she could try and swim 800 meters and beat me. I said fine. And so for what seemed like a very long time Jane swam sixteen lengths of the Moana Pool. Duncan became aware of this small, three year old, swimming up and down. He came and asked what she was doing. I explained and Duncan stayed to watch. When Jane finished she seemed very impressed that the pool coach was there to congratulate her on a job well done. Thirteen years later Jane swam in her first New Zealand national team, coached by Duncan. When they met, Duncan smiled and said, “Hello blondie. I remember when you were three and swam 800 meters in the Moana Pool.”

That open care generated huge loyalty. On New Zealand teams, if I wasn’t there, my swimmers always wanted Duncan as their coach. His practical, no frills approach was one they understood. And never once did he compromise the swimmer’s “home” training. We would talk on the phone before the team left to discuss my training plans. And to the letter Duncan made sure that is what was done. He did not need to interfere and show he was in charge. There was no ego. He was big enough to simply do what was right. And because of that he got the very best out of all of us.

Duncan and I travelled to one international championship together. In 1992 we went to what was then the world short course championships with Toni Jeffs, Phillipa Langrell and Danyon Loader. I think, to this day, that team is the only New Zealand swim team to return from a world event with every swimmer winning a competition medal. It was a great trip; successful, focused and fun; made that way by Duncan’s relaxed manner. There was none of that team bonding, strategic planning stuff that I’ve seen in other national swim teams – just get on and do your bloody job. Let me give you an example. As our flight climbed away from Auckland we were asked if we wanted something to drink. I said I’d have a beer.

“Thank God for that,” I heard Duncan say, “I thought I was in for another one of those teetotal Swimming New Zealand trips. I’ll have a beer too, thank you.”

They were fun times. Duncan was very different from me. When Swimming New Zealand did some of their stupid stuff, I’d get upset and excited. Not Duncan. He had the control to continue on, down in Dunedin, doing his own thing, unaffected by the politics of corporate sport.

But there is a Duncan story that changed my coaching life. It is probably the single most important coaching lesson of my career. Duncan got a call one eventing from the coach of a local schoolboy’s rugby team. The coach had a meeting and asked if Duncan could take practice. They were doing lineout drills. Duncan agreed. At the start of practice Duncan asked the boys to show him their lineout skills. The boys lined up, called out an impressive list of coded calls, threw the ball in and no one could catch it. Duncan abandoned line out training and took the team for an hour of catching practice. The moral is classic Duncan, stick to the basics and do the simple things well – the way he lived his life really.

When I began coaching Toni Jeffs there were a million things I did not know. For general training advice I was lucky to be able to turn to Arch Jelley and Arthur Lydiard. But for swimming specific guidance I consulted Duncan. Over the years, I must have made a thousand phone calls to Dunedin asking what I should do about solving some swimming problem. We talked for hours. His help was more than generous; try this approach, change this routine, work on something new. And all provided in language I could understand; the basics, the simple things done well.

And so, like a thousand other New Zealanders, thank you Duncan for your time and your help. You were one of a kind. They don’t make ‘em like they used to. No, they sure don’t.