The Chronicle, Spring 2019

4 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

Inspiring People

By Shell Patrick Maxwell

In the first of a new series drawing on The North Wall’s Inspiring People talks, I asked the Warden who he would pick as an inspiring person. He chose John Bertrand, the renowned sailor who captained Australia to victory in the America’s Cup in 1983.

able to be an extremely calming influence over his team when they faced exceptionally strenuous conditions. Was Bertrand fundamental to the victory in 1983? Yes, definitely. He was able to build up the team and guide Australia to victory in a way which nobody else had done before, despite huge odds being stacked against him. Which of his qualities and philosophies can you bring back into the School? I think at Teddies we are slightly iconoclastic. We are not afraid of doing some things differently to other schools. We have a lot of belief in ourselves and perhaps a slight sense of having been an underdog. We were, perhaps, regarded as being behind the curve at one time, but now we have definitely arrived. This was true of Bertrand, who was completely underestimated - he was the scruffy little terrier competing against a thoroughbred Labrador. Yacht racing

Why did you choose a sportsman? Bertrand encapsulates many things that I find inspiring. He was an underdog and nobody expected him to win at all, with the Americans expecting victory as a matter of course. He showed extreme mettle to come back from one-three down and beat the Americans who had never lost the Cup. He had won a medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, but apart from that he was just a good sailor. I think that many of my ‘heroes’ are also iconoclasts. This is true of the Australian sailors in ’83. Their boat was revolutionary and iconoclastic in its design, being extremely light. How did you come across him? I was talking to a sailor who recommended Bertrand’s book, Born to Win . It was revelatory, describing the new psychological type of sport methods they were using. They employed extremely competitive tactics to overcome their opponents psychologically. In this way Bertrand captained the team in a disciplined and effective way and was

John Bertrand in 1983

does play a part in how I see we should run a school. I always seem to support the underdog. I think the School started at a different place from some others. That is like coming from Western Australia and facing the might of the New York Yacht Club. What personal traits do you take from Bertrand? I want to follow his example in showing a lot of determination. He would always intellectualise the boat race, not to a massive extent, but enough to win. He was one of the pioneers of the psychological aspect of sport. Do you see any aspects of a sailing race in a school? In a yacht crew, you need to have many different people doing many different things and at the right time. That is the same in a school. We also have to take notice of what our competitors are doing. There are some things that we have introduced that others have copied. We did that with the IB, which has been a great success. Other schools have now picked up on it. What do you see leadership as? That is an impossible question really. There are so many different types of leaders and there is no perfect one either. I think leading by example is crucial. If you look at great military leaders, you can see they had charisma and knew how to present themselves. There are certain things leaders need to know how to do and this is what we try to teach school prefects. There are some things you have to step up for, however dispiriting they may seem at the time. You might have a fairly boring duty to perform, but you come out of it better off.

Patrick Maxwell and the Warden