SUBMITTED PHOTO - Sage Watson poses for a photo with Panthers track coaches Sonya Brown and Mike Gurski Wednesday.
Sage Watson dropped by the Family Leisure Centre Wednesday to pay a surprise visit to the Medicine Hat Panthers Track and Field Club.
The 25-year-old Seven Persons product was one of the first members of the local club and has gone on to an Olympic and professional hurdling career. Panthers coach Sonya Brown says it’s great to have a shining of example of the type of success a small-town sprinter can have with the right amount of determination.
“A lot of the kids were asking her, ‘What is your secret ingredient? What is the secret?’ Ultimately the secret is just to show up and work hard,” said Brown. “As a coach, that’s what we try to instill. If you have a little bit of talent, but mostly the heart and the drive to show up, then you can succeed … Sage is just a really great example. She just came to practice every day, she started with the Panthers track club.”
Brown added Watson participated in warm-up with the Panthers, held a Q&A session and even broke out the hurdles to work some with the club’s young athletes 1-on-1.
“(She) really taught them things they probably would have never learned from their hurdle coach, which is pretty neat,” said Brown. “I think often times, a lot of our grassroots athletes or even some of our competitive athletes when they’re young, it seems like such a far-off goal to become an Olympian or get to that level.
“We try to show them that our program can get you there.”
