Opening doors is a duty and privilege

I got a call at school last week from a man whose son I coached back in the 1980s. He was trying to find me so he could give his son my phone number. Less than hour after our conversation, the son, John Richardson, was on the phone.

Going back to 1984, I was attending a track coaches seminar in Missouri which had some vendors in attendance, offering deals in equipment. Something motivated me to buy a javelin, an event that is contested in some high schools in the U.S. and offered in summer track competition. I thought that I might meet someone who might be able to compete in the event. I didn’t have to wait very long.

Late in the spring of 1985, I got a call from John Richardson’s mother who asked if I could help her son with his discus throwing. A competitor for Miller High School (Missouri) her son had just placed in the Missouri State High School discus event but he wasn’t comfortable with his technique. She sought the help of Richard Clark, the head coach at Southwest Missouri State University. He explained to her that NCAA rules prevented him from coaching John, but that he knew someone who could help, referencing me. Coach Clark and I were friends and he knew I had an AAU summer team.

Talking to John by phone, I learned that he was a quarterback, played center in basketball, and was a shot put and discus athlete, throwing the discus in the 120s range. I asked him how far he could throw a football, and he replied that he could throw it end zone to end zone on the bounce.

I thought, wow, this could be the javelin thrower I had been looking for and I inquired into his possible interest. His being 6’5”, 205 pounds and extremely strong gave him a big upside. He was open to the idea, but I had to get the implement to him. I stuck the javelin in my mom’s front yard in Monett over a weekend, then his mom came down and got it, taking it back to Miller.

Later I got to meet with him and go over technique. Our first summer competition was a district meet in Joplin. He was still a little rough around the edges, but got off a throw of 120 feet, pretty good for a first time, which he won. The distance of 150 feet was considered excellent for a high school athlete in Kansas, a state that has the event in the high school program.

I learned very quickly that Richardson was a competitor as I have never come across before. He worked on his shot and discus but spent a lot of time mastering the javelin. So much so, by the time we went to state in Warrensburg three weeks later, he was throwing in the 170feet range in practice.

At the state meet, I noticed that the fencing at the javelin area was 170 feet from the throw line. I asked the event manager if John could throw from a line a little farther back. The manager asked me why since the fence was 10 feet beyond a long standing state record. He also noted that John had only thrown 120 feet earlier in Joplin. Well, I said, John has improved. I then requested the use of the meet javelin, an extra one that is always around in case an athlete didn’t have their own. John threw it 180 feet into the parking lot, damaging the javelin, and enhancing what would be a growing reputation.

At a four-state regional meet in Kansas, John was the first non-Kansan to win the javelin in perhaps ever, throwing it 190 feet. He later traveled to Washington state for a July national meet where he won and set a new national record in the 15- 16-year-old division, throwing well over 200 feet.

At the national meet televised by TBS, John was interviewed by a reporter who was impressed with his win and new record. He asked John how many years he had thrown the javelin to have reached such a high mark, and John replied, “Oh, I started last month.”

Sports Illustrated magazine contacted John and he appeared in their “Faces in the Crowd” section. I never did get my javelin back as the National Amateur Athletics Hall of Fame in Pennsylvania wanted it for display at their museum to commemorate the fastest rise of an athlete in an event in history — from beginner to national record holder inside of two months.

It was not surprising to me as their were many similarities to throwing a football and throwing a javelin. John was a very fierce competitor and I believe that he ended his high school career later never having lost a throwing event when he had the last throw.

In 1987, John did something never before seen and never replicated, in that he won a gold medal in the discus, shot put, high jump and long jump at the Missouri High School State meet. He could jump 6’8” in the high, 22 feet in the long jump, throw the shot 60 feet and was close to 180 feet in the discus throw. The javelin throw was the event that major universities were recruiting him for. He had interest from Florida, Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee as well as numerous other schools.

He settled on Tennessee and was a three time AllAmerican. His silver medal in the 1991 NCAA Championships was enough to give the Volunteers the national championship. He went on to finish seventh in the World University Games and was the top American thrower in 1992 going into