The Coach/Athlete Relationship Is Complex

 It's a small world.  And one with way more than just 50 shades of gray.

Turns out Tim Johnson's dad  Jim Johnson ran for coach Jackson Horner and Assistant Coach Steve Gentry with a PSU teammate of mine, Bill Kvashay.  And he kept a detailed journal of his thoughts at the time. Tim shared some of them with me, pointing out the complexities of the coach/athlete dynamic.  Old-school philosophies may be few and far between nowadays, but I'm not sure that's a good thing...

"This journal obviously was written by an eleventh-grader, notably expressing the self-absorption of any teenager then or now. But it definitely expresses the emotions, both good and bad, of a teenager striving for personal and team success."   -Jim Johnson.

Anyone who takes half an hour to state who will go to the following day’s meet should not be heralded as a speaker, but there we all were, huddled around him, even those who knew they had no chance of making the meet. Jackson Horner is a good coach, an extremely good coach, as his record at State College High will attest. The whole track team can respect him as a coach. Why is it then that everybody fears him? During the season he probably affects our lives more than our family. We even feel nervous eating a doughnut if there is a chance he is around, even though there are no rules about eating on our team. Many conversations between teammates are about his bad points, but constant glances over the shoulder show that he is not forgotten. One thing every team member tries to avoid is getting into a talking match with him. As far as we know, the record is held by Jon Forster, with a discussion concerning student activities besides track; the talk lasted about forty-five minutes while the rest of us were jogging around an ice-covered track. Acting as a kind of buffer between the team and Horner is [assistant coach] Steve Gentry. He will joke with us about Horner when he is not there. However, when Bill Halpenny, a slightly built but good runner wanted to quit and told Mr. Gentry to tell Horner, Gentry wouldn’t do it. (After trying to get other team members tell Horner, Halpenny called Horner about a week later. Horner gave him a half-hour lecture and hung up.) Thus one can get a glimpse of the terror Horner installs in his runners and even his sub-coaches. 

Horner once was a state champion in the mile and a Golden Gloves boxing champ, but has since deteriorated physically. He still is pretty loose and spry, but has gained a large number of inches on his waistline, which Gentry refers to as the “Horner pot.” Horner still has enough left in him to chase his runners around the track a short distance, hitting or pushing them if they are not running to his liking. When Horner is mad, everyone watches out. On one indoor track day my sophomore year, as he came walking up to the track, the whole track team was kicking around a soccer ball. (The addition of Tom Szlega and other members of the “half track” men made things a little looser.) Horner ran up to the soccer ball and grabbed it. At first we though he was kidding, but all of us caught the evil glint in his eye. He got ready to kick the a thousand miles away, gave a mighty swish of his foot, missed the ball, and and landed flat on his back in the snow. All at once, each member of the team turned away and laughed, some out loud. Horner turned on Bill Dixon, a devoted runner who gave everything he had every race. It was the only time I ever saw Horner yell at Bill Dixon. Very luckily the track was snow covered and the only words Horner said to us after that were “Get jogging” and “Go on down.”

 Today was Altoona. Altoona didn’t have enough guys to run two races, so everyone ran in the varsity race. During the race, two guys stole some of our warmup fleece. While the team went to the school to get dressed, Horner was following a chain of witnesses beginning with a little boy on a bicycle. When we again met up with Horner and asked about the boys that took the fleece, Horner replied, “I scared the sh*t out of them.” With the aid of the Altoona coach, he got our fleece back. (Yea, Horner.)

"The stories about horner that my dad shared with me are what framed my own understanding of my own high school coach, and then Coach Groves." - Tim Johnson.