Above: Kooweerup’s Amanda Norton swam three personal best times on her way to picking up three silver medals at the 1986 Victorian State Championships.By Sarah Thompson
KOOWEERUP’S Amanda Norton was on the road to swimming success before a severe shoulder condition shattered her dream of becoming an Australian champion.
But 20 years later, the former swimming star concedes her injury helped pave the way for a successful coaching career which has taken her around Australia and the United States.
In 1986, Amanda was featured in the Gazette as a 10yearold swimming champion who won three state medals at the Victorian Swimming Championships.
In the ensuing years she claimed numerous competitive trophies and medals, including two state records that are yet to be broken in the 1500metre long course and short course freestyle.
But a shattering shoulder injury which left Amanda in extreme pain crippled her hopes of qualifying for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and forced her to reassess her swimming career.
“It was the hardest decision of my life to retire because it was with injury,” she said.
“It’s usually referred to by athletes like death.
“You go through the whole grieving process when you’re not prepared for it.
“You go through the anger and the hurt.”
Forced to forgo her 40 hours a week of training, Amanda began coaching at her old club in Cranbourne, which is now the home of the Casey Tiger Sharks.
In 1999, an advertisement in an American swimming magazine led Amanda to the US to take part in a fiveweek coaching camp at the University of Michigan.
“The head coach there, John Sancheck, had coached gold medallists, silver medallists, world record holders, and I figured he was doing something right, so I applied for this program and went over there to try and learn from him,” Amanda said.
“When I was there I was offered a graduate position so I came back for six weeks and packed up my life and moved over there.”
This lifechanging move helped Amanda reassess her goals and to find herself as a person.
“I had to discover new things about myself,” she said.
“Moving overseas helped me find myself because nobody knew who I was.
“I was always ‘Amanda the swimmer’ around here – that’s how people knew me and that’s all people would talk to me about.
“I guess it was all that there was of me then.”
After five successful years in the US, during which time one of Amanda’s students had a top 10 world finish, she returned to Australia and took up a position in Sydney as a New South Wales swimming development officer before joining the Haileybury Waterlions club with old coach Wayne Lawes.
With a promising coaching future ahead, Amanda is happy with the choices she has made.
“I’ll have it my way any day the way I have done it,” she said.
