Geraldton athletics icon Jacko Whitby coaches record-breaking family tree, with mother and daughter

High performance coach Jacko Whitby has been around for so long he’s seen multiple generations of talent smashing records, including some from the same family. None stand out more than Lauren Seelander and Ariana Hala-Poi. Whitby coached Seelander when she was a track star 20 years ago, and has now taken her seven-year-old daughter Ariana under his wing, and the young talent is already breaking records. Whitby is renowned for his speed training in not just the Geraldton region but all of Australia, as he is currently the longest serving Indigenous coach with the Australian Track and Field Coaches Association. Specialising in sprints, hurdles and jumps, Whitby has been coaching athletics for more than 40 years now and in that time he has coached generations of families. “(Lauren) went to State champions a few times and won a few medals, also country championships, she’s set a few records,” Whitby said. “She still holds a few records here at the local little athletics club, and she was involved with me for about three or four years.” Whitby coached Seelander when she first started athletics years ago, but she had since moved to Laverton with her family. However, they stayed in contact and made the decision to come back to Geraldton so her kids could get the same world-class coaching under Whitby. “What prompted our move to Geraldton was education and sports. Lauren for years was trying to nag me to move back,” Lauren’s partner Bernard Hala-Poi said. “Another main reason is for my kids, so they can get coached under Jacko Whitby. “For Geraldton, they’re lucky to have a resource like this, it’s rare to have a resource like Jacko with the knowledge of 40 years of experience, to be coaching these kids. Geraldton’s actually quite lucky.” In Laverton, Seelander and Mr Hala-Poi spearheaded an athletics program, but now have come back to Geraldton to learn under Whitby. “Jacko’s training, I think a lot of people don’t offer what Jacko offers. You go to Perth and they’ve got their specialised training but the experience for Jacko, you can’t get that with a lot of coaches,” Seelander said. “We were in Kalgoorlie for so many years doing athletics over there and you couldn’t access someone like Jacko over there.” In just a few weeks with Whitby, Ariana is already smashing longstanding records in the under-8s. “So I slotted them into the two-hour speed program then the little one, within a couple of weeks, she started to shine and broke the high jump record, and the turbo javelin record. Then a couple of weeks later she broke her high jump record again,” Whitby said. While there is talent in the bloodline, they did not expect to see the results come this quickly. Ariana broke the 2011 turbo javelin record of 12.48m with her distance of 14.11m, and the high jump record of 96cm with the height of 97cm earlier this month. “I didn’t expect that, in Geraldton there’s some good records and longstanding records that are hard to beat, and they are there for that long,” Seelander said. “I think one of (Ariana’s) records that she broke was from 2000 to early 2000s, so a long time.” While other sports like football often see bloodlines dominate, Whitby said that it was rare to see the talent come from mother to daughter at a high level. “There’s quite a few times where the kids come back and get involved with little athletics, but this is sort of like a special occasion where the mother is very talented and now the daughter is coming along and doing the same thing,” he said.