Olympian feature

Stephen Chang

As she lined up in the starting blocks she gazed over the calmness of the water, listening to the hollow sounds of the crowd that looked onto her and the rest of her competition. As she settled into her stance she awaited the sweet sound of release, the one that would set her free from the confines of the starting board her feet rested on. At the time a nationally ranked swimmer Terry Wheatley-Magee had no idea this race would become one of the most important moments in her hall-of-fame life and career.
As the gun sounded, the swimmers exploded off land with all of them penetrating the water in one fowl swoop. She was neck and neck the whole way with her best friend Judy and as they turned for home to cover the last 25 metres it was clear that this was a two pony show. When they neared the wall the finish was reminiscent of Michael Phelps’s seventh gold medal, beating Milorad Cavic by 1/100th of a second. Unfortunately for Wheatley, she was on the losing end.
They both came in with personal best times. Wheatley jumped out of the pool and into the arms of a familiar face, her father, someone she credits with teaching her much more than he knows. As he wrapped his daughter in a towel and congratulated her, the opportunity for a lesson in loss was never greater. “Look at Judy,” he said to her as they pulled the winner, friend and rival from the pool before she went under, “Do you think that if we had to pull you out that you would have won the race?” The realization that she could have won by a length sparked a desire and work ethic that was second to none and a career unlike anyone else. A change from swimming to field hockey, an appearance in the summer Olympics, a hall-of-fame player and coach, fiancé, wife and eventually a mother.
Born July 28th, 1960 in Saskatoon, Wheatley moved all over Canada due to her father working in the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. She made stops in Ottawa and New Brunswick before finally settling down in the nation’s capital at the age of eight. Wheatley grew up a swimmer, holding a number of national and provincial records as a nine and ten-year-old, thus becoming nationally ranked. Eventually, she lost her footing as a nationally ranked swimmer because she was left behind by the girls who grew faster, this experience, which Wheatley now credits as a great tool in her coaching philosophy, “You don’t have to be at the top all the time and there’s going to be ups and downs.” However, resiliency and hard work prevailed. By the time she was 16-years-old she was once again a nationally ranked Canadian swimmer.
Wheatley’s first experience was at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, not as a competitor but as a spectator to watch how professional swimmers performed on the world stage. Wheatley recalls standing next to Kornelia Ender, a four time gold medalist at those games who would eventually admit to steroid use as a part of the infamous East German team. She remembers Ender’s frame towering over her much the same as a “Washington Redskins linebacker.” Later that year after reclaiming her spot to swim for nationals Wheatley abruptly quit her passion due to coaching problems, closing the door on a career that had so much potential while unwittingly opening another.
After she left swimming for good, a teammate of hers who also quit and her father was a teacher at their high school. Having grown up in Holland he coached the school field hockey team and in grade 11 Wheatley got her first experience with a sport that would eventually become her life. It was love at first sight. Wheatley modestly says, “I remember scoring six goals in one game,” winning city’s every year that she played in high school while being able to run non-stop due to the condition she was in from swimming. Although she played very little in grade 11 due to a wrist injury in grade 12, she played well enough to earn a spot on the all-star team, with scouts abroad as they were uniquely marked with red bibs. Unfortunately Wheatley did not get noticed. However, the following year after another successful campaign Wheatley was noticed by the provincial field hockey coach who wondered if she would come and play for the University of Toronto. Although it was too late to accept an offer from U of T, she said she would consider transferring from the University of Ottawa which did not have a field hockey program.
Wheatley spent that first year of university training to be the best, faster, stronger and tougher than the girls she knew she would face. She credits swimming with giving her the tools, stamina and work ethic to reach that next level where she trained four hours every day, two in the morning and two at night. Wheatley comments on how most of this young generation has no idea what hard work is, “[Younger kids and some athletes] still don’t know how to really compete, they don’t know how to train so that when they hit a wall they train through that. They just can’t wake up in the morning when they’re tired and run the fastest they’ve ever run.”
The following year Wheatley did transfer to the University of Toronto to join one of the best field hockey programs in the country, which contained some of the best national team players. She played and trained with the best, culminating in a 1981 CIAU (Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union) championship, two national second place finishes, two OWIAA (Ontario Women’s Intercollegiate Athletic Association) championships and a 1984 U of T female athlete of the year amongst others achievements during her stay there. Wheatley also played for a provincial power house team: Ontario, which helped in putting her on the national map. While they were finishing up their last game, Wheatley was all set for a summer get-away at a friend’s cottage when fate came knocking at her door. The Canadian National team, which was gearing up for the America’s cup: a four nation tournament at Ohio State University and was short a player. They came up to Wheatley at the end of the game and said, “We don’t know who you are but we’d love for you to come.” So her coach gave her $200 some turf shoes and wished her good luck with her first experience with Canadian National field hockey.
One year before the Olympics in 1983, Canada was set to play in the World Championships and the national coaches decided to leave Wheatley at home since she was hardly seen on the field due to her lack of opportunity to play during the short time she was with the team. The set-back was a chance to prove that she belonged, to get through the wall and she did. Wheatley lived, sweat and breathed field hockey, leading the C.I.S. in scoring and working as hard as she ever had. When the national team returned with a shiny silver medal they picked Wheatley back up and never let her go again.
They were gone 275 days training for the upcoming 1984 Olympics. They spent time in Holland, Germany, New Zealand and Australia amongst others. Finally, three weeks before the Olympics in July after a team training camp, they named the Canadian women’s field hockey team roster and Terry Wheatley’s name was one of them.
The Olympic experience was “amazing” for Wheatley as the opening ceremonies landed on her birthday. “There’s nothing better than walking into the stadium for the Olympic Games,” Wheatley said. She recalled the athlete’s village; the free tickets for the competitors, watching her former swimming teammates compete and called it “motivating to see other people.”
1984 was the first time in the Olympics for women’s field hockey where the top tier teams did not boycott it like the communist countries did in 1980, where the unlikely country Zimbabwe won. This year was when the top six countries would play to see who the true Olympic champion was and Canada was right in the thick of things after a second place in the World Championships the previous year. Since this was the first year, it was a round robin style tournament. Canada lost to the U.S. in the first game 2-0 with all three of their goals being called back and again lost a close match to Germany. After this, Canada got rolling, tying eventual winners Holland and beating a tough Australian team. Going into their last game of the round robin they were to play New Zealand and they needed a blowout win to cover the goal differential, unfortunately Canada came up short, winning the game marginally just not as they needed, finishing a disappointing tie for third and without the goal differential they were dropped to fifth. “I wish we had a playoff, because we were peaking and that U.S. game really killed us … it was almost like it was bought,” Wheatley said.
“Looking back on it now you can appreciate a lot of the little things but there’s no doubt that you go there to win.” Shortly after the Olympics, Terry Wheatley-Magee retired as a player in field hockey due to issues with the Canadian coaching staff again, problems with over-training due to incredible amounts of running, even for Wheatley who considered herself one of the best runners on the team. Unfortunately she still wanted to play and said that she would have gone on to play in 1988 had it not been for these circumstances. Missing out on this opportunity was difficult and Wheatley saw a sports psychologist for two years following her decision.
With her playing days behind her Wheatley went on to coach at Carleton University when her former team manager asked her if she wanted to come out and help. During her interview they asked Wheatley what related coaching experience she had and she said, “I don’t have any experience because for the last five years of my life I’ve been training and playing for this country and the only way I’ll get any experience is if you hire me.” After being hired, her boss admitted that that statement was the one that got her the job. She was the Ravens assistant coach from 1990-1995, eventually rising to the title of head coach, a position which she occupied from 1996-2001. Under her guidance, the team won the Ontario East Division Title in 2000 and 2001 which garnered the club their first national rankings of ninth and seventh in those two years as well as earning Wheatley the Ontario and Canadian coach of the year award in 2001, the first for a Carleton coach. Eventually after a 12 year coaching career, Wheatley decided it was “time” and that she “wanted to be there for her kids on the weekends.”
During this period Wheatley was married to Mark Magee (another U of T grad and hall of famer) had three kids, Matt (1990), Chloe (1992) and Krista (1995). Matt who is playing as a wide-out for Saint Mary’s University in Halifax says his mom means the world to him, adding that “she’s always there for me, pushing me to do better and be more. Without her I’d be 100 times lazier then I am today,” he chuckles, a poke at his mom who says he doesn’t know what “hard work” is. He honestly quips “she’s an inspiration; I hope I can become half the athlete, coach and parent that she is.” Chloe a high school senior and recent CTV athlete of the week, has followed in her mother’s footsteps who she called a “role model and a friend,” by sticking with field hockey throughout her high school career which eventually influenced her younger sister who joined the school club as a high school freshman.
Looking back on her life and career, Wheatley said “being able to have it all, I feel very lucky and very blessed to do something like that, have a normal life, a family.” What a career it was, athlete of the year for U of T, a fifth place finish in the Olympics, which still stands as the highest of any Canadian women’s field hockey team, coach of the year, hall of fame player with U of T inducted in 2000, hall of fame coach with Carleton inducted in 2003 but most importantly to her a mother, a wife, sister, daughter and friend to so many people that she has shared her life with.
And looking down at Judy gasping for air in the pool, in the arms of her father who Wheatley says, “taught her more than he knows,” who would have known the young swimmer would go on to accomplish so much? Maybe looking down at his daughter witnessing a revelation, it was him who recognized the potential and achievements he knew she would one day accomplish.