St John's College

St John’s College hosted the second episode in our #TogetherApart series, the Winter Sports Webinar where we gained insight into school sport from some of the College's highly-qualified and experienced coaches who have exposure at various levels of coaching from junior school to national.

The discussion was mediated by Old Johannian, Council member and Professor of Sports Medicine, Prof Jon Patricios, who explored themes of sport's benefits in the context of a broader education, leadership, mentoring, sporting careers and life lessons. These were elaborated upon by the rich experience of coaches Garreth Ewing (Hockey), Katleho Lynch (Rugby) and Ross Pretorius (Squash).

Jon Patricios 1
Prof Jon Patricios

Prof Patricios has been in sports medicine practice for over 25 years, is an Associate Professor in the Wits Faculty of Health Sciences and Director of the Wits Initiative for Sport and Health (WISH) and a member of the St John's College Council.

He is currently also Director of Waterfall Sports Orthopaedic Surgery in Johannesburg and founder and Director of Sports Concussion South Africa, sports concussion consultant to World Rugby, a board member of the international Concussion in Sports Group and on the scientific committee for the International Consensus Conference on Concussion in Sport. Apart from sports concussion, he has an interest in the paediatric and aging athlete, joint disease and tendinopathy.

He is a senior associate editor of the British Journal of Sports Medicine and Current Sports Medicine Reports (USA) and served 2 terms as President of the South African Sports Medicine Association.

Jon has been team physician to school, club, provincial and international sports teams in rugby, cricket, soccer, athletics and basketball, has been member of the Cricket South Africa and SA Rugby medical committees, the Discovery Rockies Comrades Marathon Panel of experts, and has served on tribunals for the South African Institute for Drug Free Sport.

Garreth Ewing has 27 years of hockey coaching experience at all levels. He is Head Coach of Hockey at St John’s College and is also the Head Coach of the South African senior men’s team.

Garreth’s coaching career includes leading both Southern Gauteng men’s and women’s senior and U21 A teams on multiple occasions, the UJ men’s first team for 14 seasons, 3 years in the NCAA Division 1 in the USA and 11 years in various roles in the South African national setup, including 5 world cups.

He is currently helping the SA men’s team prepare for the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics, for which the team confirmed their place by finishing second at the FIH Hockey Series Finals and winning the FIH Africa Olympic qualifier in 2019.

In addition to St John’s, Garreth’s school coaching experience includes St Stithians, Parktown Boys' and Jeppe High School for Boys, among others, both monastic and co-ed.

Katleho Lynch has been coaching for 11 years and is the current Head Coach of Rugby at St John's College. He has coached at prep school, high school, provincial and university level. Katleho is passionate about defence, but more importantly, is passionate about teaching life skills through coaching. He is a big believer in saying that "good things happen to good people" and getting his players to understand that concept. Katleho is also a mental skills coach who loves sport psychology and has worked with provincial hockey sides and attended national cricket high-performance camps as a mental skills coach. He aims to help players to become better players technically, and to teach them the values that they will keep with them long after they have stopped playing.

Ross Pretorius is the Head Coach of Squash at St John's College. He is a passionate squash coach with with five years of coaching experience, having worked in various schools and managed junior provincial teams. Ross coaches one on one as well as squads, provincial teams and national players. He is the founder of One Game Squash, an online training platform.