Bob Gourley was a one in a million coach. Passionate, instructive, supportive, patient, committed, and, as a result, beloved.
For 37 years this Air Force and banking veteran taught Barrington High School athletes the Art of the Hammer. Few coaches in the United States, if any, devoted themselves to the hammer throw the way Bob Gourley did. He did not care where you went to school. If you wanted to throw the hammer, or get better at it, he found time to help you.
“Hammer Coach Guru of the World” his legion of throwers dubbed him, as reported in his obituary. Bob Gourley died on Oct. 14 at Miriam Hospital in Providence. He was 79. His funeral and burial were last week in Warren.
Robyn McFetters knew Bob Gourley as well as anybody. She was a first-team All-State hammer thrower at Barrington High School in 2011 and a record holder and four-time America East Conference hammer champion while throwing for the University of Maine. She followed him into coaching after earning her degree in 2015 and is an assistant track and field coach at Salve Regina University and Portsmouth High School. She also is a personal trainer at Fitness Together Barrington.
“I don’t know where to start,” she told me Saturday when I asked her about Bob Gourley. “I started throwing the summer before my freshman year in high school. There was a track clinic he was volunteering at, and he was into throws. My mom used to throw. I was a sprinter in middle school; he got rid of that.”
Bob made throwing the discus, javelin, and shot fun, but he made the hammer, a metal ball — 12 pounds for boys, 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds) for girls — at the end of a steel wire the most fun.
“It was how he said things, how he made it sound. He wanted you to enjoy doing it. If it’s a chore, it’s not as much fun, and you’re not going to try as hard. He was so motivating. He knew when to give you an extra push,” McFetters said.
Everyone in the intimate world of the hammer knew Bob Gourley. He kept national rankings, verifying and updating results regularly. He had so many names on his distribution list that it took him two days to email the updates.
Bob advised McFetters during her college search. “He would email my numbers and help me put together emails,” she said. She received a full athletic scholarship to Maine. Bob followed her college career and even made the long drive to Orono to watch her and Wilson Adams, another Barrington alum and 2010 second-team All-State, throw.
“My college coach would talk to him once a week. They sent videos back and forth. There’s a never-ending list of things he’s done for people and athletes,” she said. “Just seeing how much he helped people, and how he was there for athletes, I wanted to do that . . . seeing the impact he had on people’s lives.”
They talked two or three times a week when she started coaching at Portsmouth High, McFetters said. Even as his health began to fail and he required a walker and oxygen bottles, he still coached his throwers at Barrington High.
One day, Gourley texted her from a hospital emergency room. “He called me three or four days later and said they found a mass next to his heart,” she said. “He coached until he went into the hospital. . . . The cancer spread fast.”
Mourners came from near and far Thursday for visiting hours and Friday for the burial service. Nicole Heinl, a second team All-State in 2009 who later threw for Stanford, returned from Washington State.
“It was sad, but people were telling stories and reminiscing,” McFetters said. She recalled the year the state indoor championships were held at CCRI Lincoln. Throws were outside, so Gourley made several trips to Lincoln during the day to spread ice melt on the throwing surface so the throwers would not slip. She mentioned that he launched Hammerama, a summer meet that became a showcase.
The day before McFetters left for her first year at Maine, she approached her coach and showed him the hammer tattoo on her leg.
“It’s Sharpie, right?” he said of the marking.
“No, it’s permanent, thanks to you,” she replied.
Robyn McFetters paused and collected her thoughts.
“Now, I appreciate it more,” she said.
