Mr Morris won’t be getting any gold medals but without the efforts of this experienced official, the competitors won’t be able to compete.

Mr Morris will be one of three assistant track referees at the event and flies up to the games on Thursday (April 5).

“I am looking forward to it because it's going to be different,” he said.

“I will be working with umpires I have worked with for a number of years and we have built up a good team ethos and a good philosophy for athletics.

“I am looking forward to working as part of a team and being in a leadership role.”

At the games, he will also be working on the walks and the marathon as the event manager.

“I am looking forward to that because I have never done it on an international level," Mr Morris said

“I really have got to make it all work and I feel honoured and privileged that they asked me to do the role.”

Mr Morris, a well known former Shoalhaven teacher and principal, has experience when it comes to officiating at major athletic events.

He was an official at the Sydney 2000 Olympics Games and the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006 and worked in the Technical Information Centre (TIC).

He applied to be in the TIC for the Gold Coast Games but he did not get this role.

The TIC has to deal with a wide range of issues like dealing with protests getting results, getting nomination sheets and much more.

It was a role he loved.

“My fondest memory working in the TIC both in Sydney and Melbourne is meeting people,” Mr Morris said

He got to meet team managers.

“It was dealing and helping with their problems that I found rewarding,” he added

While the has been introduced in passing to the likes of legendary United States athlete Michael Johnson, Mr Morris said the difference between working with an elite athlete, compared to a local club athlete, was you don't get to talk to them unless there was a problem.

Mr Morris said fellow Nowra Athletic Club life members Jan and Rob Gibbs helped him rise up the ranks.

“They are the ones who encouraged me,” he said

Mr and Mrs Gibbs suggested he should start taking some exams to become a qualified official which he did in 1986 starting off with the high jump.

When the Pacific Schools Games came to Australia 1988, he was a timekeeper and track umpire.

In 1993, he was selected as the manager for the NSW Athletics team and later did his track exams.

He is not only well known in athletic circles but also for his connection with many local schools which dates back to the 1970s.

Nowra, Illaroo, Bomaderry, Nowra Hill (principal) and Tomerong (principal) were the local public schools he taught at.

Mr Morris thinks the Gold Coast Games could be his chance to be apart of an event of this magnitude and is keen on succession planning.

“Someone took me from where I was when I started here at the Nowra Showground and took me to this level and now it's my turn to start bringing on other people which I am doing with a lot of the umpires,” he said.

Mr Morris is mentoring a few people to take his place.

He has no plans of giving away his roles on various local events and still works with school athletics where he trains teachers about the rules of track and field.

From his days at Cooma North Public School, Mr Morris always loved his sport, particularly athletics and cricket.

Cross country was his first athletic discipline as a youngster in Cooma, he also remembers winning the long jump at the representative event in Canberra as 15-year-old.

Mr Morris said by country standards he was an okay athlete but the better-trained city trained athletes had an edge over him.

Mr Morris said he owes a lot to the Nowra Athletics Club.

When he first came down to the Shoalhaven he got involved in cross country running, then went to track events, while his sons Geoffrey and Christopher also started to compete.