When one hears the term, ‘athletics coach’, then the image of Jean Verster most probably springs to mind in local, national and international sport.
Verster, who is best-known as the former coach of the SA Olympic gold medallist, Caster Semenya and the current ACNW president and manager of the NWU High Performance Institute, has recently added another accolade to his name.
He was named as the ‘Coach of the Year’ at the Africa Region 5, Regional Annual Sports Awards (RASA) in Johannesburg on Saturday, 26 May.
Semenya incidentally also won the ‘Sportswoman of the Year’ award.
These awards recognise sporting excellence across the central and southern regions of Africa with countries like Malawi, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, among other nations vying for the award.
‘It was a welcome surprise as I never knew about the awards in the first place. It is good to get the recognition,’ he said.