John Laycock Jr., AACC athletic director
Dr. John “Johnny” Laycock Jr., an educator and administrator who was the founding father of athletics at Anne Arundel Community College, died Monday at a retirement home in Dagsboro, Del. He was 93.
“Dr. John was a true visionary. He had a grand plan for physical education and athletics at the community college and he executed it brilliantly,” said Alan Pastrana, a longtime coach and professor at AACC.
Dr. Laycock was born and raised in Washington to the late Ruth and John Stanton Laycock Sr. He attended Eastern High and Wilson Teachers College. He obtained a master’s degree in administration from the University of Maryland and a doctorate in education from Lawrence University, according to family members.
During World War II served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army Air Corps with the 87th and 101st Airborne Divisions. Family members said he participated in the Battle of the Bulge.
Before being hired at Anne Arundel Community College, Dr. Laycock served as vice principal at Annapolis Junior High.
He was athletic director at AACC from 1961 to 1986. He started the college’s athletics program from scratch even before the fledgling school had a campus, leading intramural programs conducted at Severna Park High School. At its peak, the college’s athletic department sponsored varsity programs in 11 men’s and 11 women’s sports.
“When we first started, we had to sell the program to the people,” Dr. Laycock told The Annapolis Capital in 1986, the year he retired. “It took hard work and a lot of energy to earn that credibility. It didn’t happen overnight, but it happened.” When the campus opened in Arnold, it included a multi-purpose gymnasium, a stadium with lights, a baseball field and 10 lighted tennis courts.
“Everything you see here at this college today — the gym, the tennis courts, this whole beautiful athletic complex — is all because of Johnny Laycock,” former AACC President Thomas E. Florestano told The Capital in 1990. “He’s the one who got it all off the ground.”
Dr. Florestano, who died in 2012, made that comment in announcing Dr. Laycock as an inaugural inductee into the Anne Arundel Community College Athletics Hall of Fame. He is also in the Region XX Athletic Hall of Fame.
Services for Dr. Laycock were held Friday in Annapolis.
He is survived by his wife of 20 years, Joan Laycock, as well as children Joan Moskus and Ronald Laycock and their mother Betty Laycock; stepson Michael Anderson; a sister, Ruth Neiderstrasser; seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.