Mitchell family loving their sport . . . as they sprint, throw and grow

Sunday 18th October 2026

Parental guidance: coaches Gillian and Kev Mitchell

Grabbing the growth baton . . . how Kilmarnock Harriers have built momentum

By Katy Barden

As they acknowledge the conclusion of a successful track and field season, Kilmarnock Harriers coaches Kevin and Gillian Mitchell breathe a collective sigh of relief.

In a busy end to the summer the club’s athletes won nine medals (five gold and four silver) at the 4J Senior and U18 Championships and 21 medals (including seven gold) at the national U14/U16/U20 Championships. Others delivered strong performances to qualify for finals or record personal best performances.

The Mitchells, parents (and coaches) to competitive athletes Ally (22), Logan (20) and Rhian (17), have been involved at the Ayrshire club for 12 years.

Neither parent had come from a track and field background so it was eldest son Ally – 60m bronze medallist at the 2026 Scottish Student Athletics Indoor Championships and a former Scottish U20 Championships medallist – who led the way.

‘Ally would turn up at his school sports day every year and win the flat race,’ says Kevin. ‘At that point, we thought, ‘He’s pretty fast, maybe we should take him along to the local athletics club (Kilmarnock Harriers)’.

‘It was the Commonwealth Games era, round about 2014, so we’d just got this wonderful new facility and we put him on the waiting list. He started training there when he was nine years-old and we learned together.’

Photo by Bobby Gavin

Gillian was the first to volunteer at the club and was taken under the wing of club coach Billy Roberton. Soon, Kevin got involved too.

At first they had to alternate session times or training nights to ensure there was always someone at home with their younger sons. With a small age gap between them, however, it wasn’t long until Logan and Rhian (who Gillian says was ‘always getting babysat by the club’) joined the rest of the family at the Ayrshire Athletics Arena.

While they weren’t initially coaching their own sons, the husband and wife duo eventually decided they wanted to take over their boys’ group.

‘It became a family affair from that point,’ says Kevin. ‘The five of us were there every Monday and Wednesday night which, ironically, we said we’d never do when we started, but you just become invested in it.’

While they’ve increasingly focused on throws in recent years, they recognise the importance of ‘run, jump, throw’ in developing young athletes and honing skills that will be of benefit to them regardless of which discipline they choose to specialise in.

Their approach has paid dividends. They have a number of talented combined events athletes within their growing squad and from a family perspective, while Ally is a talented sprinter, the two younger Mitchells have excelled in the field.

At the 4J Senior Championships in August, Logan, a Scotland internationalist, won hammer gold in a personal best of 53.94m and took silver in the shot put (14.64m).

As a young athlete his parents (coaches) had only realised his talent by chance after Osgood Schlatter’s (growing pains) forced him off the track and into throwing.

In the U18 Championships, Rhian – a fellow Scotland cap who represented Great Britain and Northern Ireland earlier in the summer at the European U18 Championships – won double gold in the 5kg shot put (16.04) and 1.5kg discus (the latter a 53.53m PB) and silver in the 5kg hammer (56.46m PB). He also won silver medals in the 6kg hammer and 1.75kg discus at the Scottish U20 Championships, both in PBs (51.35m and 46.27m respectively).

Kevin and Gillian have spent hours on YouTube researching different training methods and techniques adopted by athletes and coaches across the world.

‘But we’ve learned from the boys, too,’ says Gillian. ‘Because we’re not athletes, they’ve taught us that it’s important to feel a throw (or a sprint or a jump).

‘The boys taught us that you’ve got to trust your throw, and they often know before us if it was a good throw or what they need to fix the next time because it’s all in the feeling.’

For more than a decade the Mitchells have got to know their athletes and their various foibles.

They have also seen them grow from children to young adults and in turn, face potential conflict as the world outside of track and field opens up for them and offers new distractions.

As parents it can be an unsettling period. As parents who are coaching their own children, the challenge is magnified as they aim to balance parental love and emotional support with practical guidance aimed at making informed decisions, keeping them in the sport and making the most of their talent.

Between the laughter – and there’s a lot of laughter – there’s a hint of sadness as Kevin and Gillian reminisce about their early club days and how things have changed.

For example their nine-seater car, once a necessity to taxi the family and all necessary equipment to and from training and competitions, is now increasingly redundant as the boys begin to make their own way in the world.

It’s a situation that will resonate with many.

‘In 12 years of us being involved in Scottish athletics as parents and coaches the last two years have been emotionally the toughest,’ admits Kevin.

‘I think the boys have probably found it difficult too,’ adds Gillian.

‘We went as a five to the club a lot of nights of the week. We’d come home, we’d have dinner and we’d speak about athletics all the time – about athletics on the TV, about the club, about what we had coming up competition-wise; it would be like, ‘When’s the next comp; have you booked me in?’, you know?

‘But as they grow up they start to think, ‘I don’t want you coaching me’ or ‘I need something else, you can’t take me to that next level’. It’s so hard to actually put it into words.’

Perhaps the key message – for parents, coaches and athletes – is one of resilience.

They reference Logan turning 18 and suddenly facing distractions that threatened to pull him away from the sport: ‘One of the reasons being that none of his friends were involved in sport to the level that he was at,’ they say. ‘We just had to ride the wave and hope that he swam back to shore again; which he duly did.’

Redemption came in the form of his Scottish senior hammer title.

‘The emotional side of things as a parent was really hard,’ admits Gillian. ‘Obviously, as parents, we give advice, but then there was a bit of coaching advice in there as well. We didn’t see it from a place of pressure, it was more, ‘We see your potential, we know you love it, and we know you want to explore other things.’

‘So, the advice was there, but I suppose you can take it or leave it, can’t you?’

When Rhian started to look at life outside of athletics they were perhaps better prepared but felt greater pressure given his GB selection aspirations.

‘We’ve just had to trust in them,’ says Kevin. ‘In both cases we hoped that they’d eventually come back to what they love, and thankfully they have.’

There is no magic formula, but the impact of positive role models from within and outside of the club – in addition to family support and advice – has been central to the development of athletes as Kilmarnock Harriers thrive. As is often said in sport: ‘It takes a village’.

Success has helped keep people at the club. There are national medallists in addition to the Mitchell brothers, for example multiple Scottish age group champion Cara Monachello (U18 100m hurdles and 400m hurdles gold, U20 400m hurdles gold), Scottish U16 girls 80m hurdles and 300m hurdles champion Kacey Watson and Scottish U16 boys hammer and discus champion Ethan Gordon, who are starting to make a name for themselves and causing other athletes to realise what’s possible.

There are athletes from outside of the club who are also making a difference. Multiple Scottish senior medallist Andrew Peck acts as a regular training partner and positive influence for Logan and Rhian, an important contribution at a point where Kevin and Gillian don’t think they can coach their boys to be ‘any better technically than they are now.’

Chris Bennett has been a mento figure (photo by Bobby Gavin)

Olympic hammer thrower Chris Bennett – who retired following his fifth-place finish at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games – has also been exceptional.

‘Through last winter he was really excited for where Rhian could potentially go this year, and he took Logan under his wing for probably about four or five weeks before he had to get into training mode for the Commies,’ says Kevin.

‘He said to him, ‘Listen, this is my swansong, I’m going now . . . I want to make it my job to get you to the next Commonwealth Games.

‘Chris brings a whole new vibe, as does Andrew from a discus point of view. I think a lot of people give it up because when they look up they don’t see who they want to be, they don’t have that role model, so it’s nice for them to have athletes to look up to, who are older than them, and in Andrew’s case, an athlete who is still competing.’

As the popular saying goes, ‘We don’t grow when things are easy, we grow when we face challenges’. The same can be said for parents (coaches) and their children.

The best leaders are those who never stop learning and the Mitchells have had to embrace that as they navigate family life and track life in parallel.

‘As the boys are getting older they want to take more control of their own journey,’ concludes Gilian. ‘I suppose up to a point we kind of control the journey as parents, you know, we orchestrate it all and help them navigate it, but they are now men going, ‘Listen, I’ll book my own comp‘.

‘So we have to learn as parents and coaches that at some point we have to loosen the reins, because that’s the right thing to do.’

Kevin adds: ‘We’re definitely starting to develop and grow the next generation coming through at Kilmarnock and we’re just happy to see the growing independence in our own boys.

‘They can make their own choices, but we’ll still always be their mum and dad and biggest fans, so whatever happens, we’ll always be there for them.’