Endurance working coach guided Olympian Nick Rose amongst others within the south-west of England.
Dave Jennings, one of many biggest middle-distance coaches within the historical past of Bristol & West AC, has died aged 83 following a brief sickness, Kevin Fahey experiences.
Jennings handed away peacefully at his dwelling in Whitchurch on Monday, surrounded by his loving household together with his spouse Cath and daughters Carol and Kim. He additionally had three grand-children, Evie, Ewen and William.
Inside the athletics group Jennings will at all times be remembered as the person who took on Nick Rose as a uncooked, teenage expertise from Hengrove to the head of worldwide athletics.
Rose grew to become a two-times Olympian at Moscow in 1980 and 4 years later at Los Angeles, the place he completed twelfth within the ultimate of the ten,000m and in addition positioned third within the 1980 World Cross Nation Championships in Paris.
“Dave began teaching me once I left faculty aged 16 and he opened my eyes to working,” stated Rose.
“It was a whole lot of exhausting work but it surely produced outcomes and with out his steerage and dedication I’d not have gone on to realize what I did.
“It was all the way down to his data and in addition being a runner himself so he knew what the game was about each bodily and mentally.”
Jennings additionally coached British 3000m steeplechase champion Tony Staynings, who additionally competed at two Olympic Video games in Montreal in 1976 and Moscow 4 years later.
Additionally from his group Jennings guided Swag Hartel, Chris Ridler and Wayne Buxton to GB vests.
“When Dave began teaching me I completed 296th within the junior race on the English Nationwide Cross Nation Championships at Leicester whereas Nick was successful the senior males’s race on the identical day,” stated Buxton.
“However regardless that it was Nick’s large day Dave nonetheless gave me his time and a spotlight and he had an actual real concern for all of the athletes he coached.
“He would coach anybody so long as you confirmed enthusiasm and he by no means set any limits to what you would obtain.
“I ultimately received a GB vest within the marathon and I’d by no means have executed that with out Dave’s steerage.”
Martin Hula was one other native runner who benefitted massively from Jennings’ teaching.
“Dave was an awesome coach and an exquisite lifelong buddy,” stated Hula. “We had so many fantastic adventures, together with some cracking journeys overseas, all of that are treasured reminiscences. I owe the person a debt that I can by no means repay.”
After taking early retirement after a profession in WD & HO Wills, Jennings was in a position to commit his additional spare time to his love of the game and Rose has little doubt that he deserves his place as one of many best coaches within the membership’s historical past.
“Going again to the mid Seventies and into the 80s when the membership was Bristol AC Dave was on the very forefront as a center and lengthy distance coach in bringing the membership as much as the extent it reached,” added Rose.
“I believe that was essentially the most profitable period that’s ever been as we have been on the high degree in street working, cross nation and monitor and area being within the Nationwide League.”
Jennings’ contribution to the membership was recognised when he was made a Life Member and it’s testimony to the love by which he was held by his athletes that scores have been in touch with the household in latest weeks.
“I and lots of others had a really private relationship with Dave and we did a whole lot of issues collectively exterior of working,” added Rose. “It was nearly like we have been an enormous household. He will likely be sorely missed.”
