Olympic coach proud to unveil first book on Canadian sports

August 11, 2022 · 0 Comments

By Robert Belardi

If you haven’t heard of Barrie Shepley by now, most certainly from this point onward he’s going to be a tough name to forget.

The 2000 Sydney Olympic Games gold medal coach officially released his first book entitled “Chasing Greatness” in mid-July, capturing his involvement in the Canadian sports system for the last 40 years.

Shepley has been to the last five Olympic Games and works with TV channels as well as a commentator.

The Caledon native, who backed the C3 James Dick Beach and helped manifest the Benson-Royal Kids of Steel Triathlon, sat down in an exclusive interview with the Caledon Citizen, to break down how he pieced together this Canadian success story.

When did you start piecing this book together?

Well, probably 10 years ago, on airplane rides and race trips I’d put together little bits and pieces. People have been bugging me for about 15 years to do it. I started in that era. The real final push came from my wife. I had three different two-week blocks I had to go into the basement and not leave. It was the perfect, no-excuse time to do it. I worked with an editor and this is the first book she’s ever worked on. The first version I did of the book, I was not in the book at all. Both my editor and my wife ripped me a new one. They weren’t happy with that perspective. This was my story. I had to go back, put my slant on it. That I found more difficult, because I spent all my life making other people famous, if you will, and not myself.

It’s very difficult because you don’t where to start. But when you got it going, where did you begin?

It certainly didn’t get written in the chronological order that the book ended up in. The editor’s talent was, these two stories, although they were eight years apart, fit really well into a chapter. Essentially, I had all kinds of where does it start? In fact, where does it start?

What are some of the best moments that really resonated with you after you put this book together?

It became obvious to me, I’ve never accomplished anything – from Olympics, to Kids of Steel, to C3 Quarry – without a massive army of people who believed in the vision that I had. It wouldn’t have been fun doing it solo. So much of the joy for me in this process, are all these incredible people. It’s a phrase that is in the book that my wife termed and others did as well, the “Shepley Vortex.” You stick a pinky toe in and before you know it, you’re volunteering two nights a week. The vortex pulls you in and then I try to put you in the right section of the vortex. Maybe it’s you being a volunteer, or a donor or becoming a coach. If you’re in the right place that inspires you, the day goes by quick, you never look at your watch. We all get more out of it.

Why specifically that photo running on an open road?

We have a training base in Tucson, so that road is in Arizona. I’ve had 2,000 people who I’ve brought to that road. You don’t see a car for 26 miles. No matter how long you run, you won’t see a car. There’s not a house on the road. There’s a peaceful place which you can’t see that I’m running towards. There’s some awesome mountains, the Catalina mountains. No matter what time of the day, it’s absolutely quiet. We’ve done some awesome training there. That road has a million different memories for me.

What was the best part about this all?

Best part has been people who I’ve not seen; I graduated high school exactly 40 years ago, I began university 40 years ago in September, and I’ve had university roommates, high school classmates, have gotten their hands on the book and reached out and sent me pictures of their kids. What’s been happening a lot in the last 10 days, and it’s been ego-boosting cool, is people have been sending me pictures holding the book and you can see the book. It’s awesome because it represents being active, doing the things you’re passionate about, that this book has brought out of people. We’re collecting these and going to put them on the website. It’s been a fun journey and the hardest part is now. The hardest part when you’re unpublished and no budget, is getting people to know that this thing exists. Buzz of word of mouth or your paper. Now that I’ve had enough feedback from people over the last month, I’m confident that this is not just some crappy-little put together 15-minute project. It’s a big project. There’s a lot of quality time put into this. I’d like people to enjoy the experience.

The book store in Bolton has it. The bike shop in Inglewood. The coffee shop in Inglewood. Orangeville will be taking it in their book store this week. They amazingly ran out of the first run of the books, which was a bit mind-boggling for me in such a short order.

The book when printed in Amazon, you know where it’s printed in? Bolton. I bought my own book from Amazon and in 24 hours it was at my house. When I looked on it, it said printed in Bolton.