St. Joseph-Ogden Hall of Fame: Gary Garrison honored for his time on and off the track

Editor’s Note: The SJO Daily will highlight the 2021 St. Joseph-Ogden Hall of Fame Inductees this week. Gary Garrison, Greg Knott, Amy Scharlau Lewis and Ron White were selected to be honored. Inductees will be honored at the St. Joseph-Ogden High School football game on August 27. 

By FRED KRONER
fred@mahometnews.com

Gary Garrison was in his 20s, three years out of college, when he interviewed for a position in the St.  Joseph-Ogden school district.

Henry Berry, then the SJ-O superintendent, drove to Tremont to interview Garrison in his home on a Saturday morning in June of 1971.

Garrison hadn’t specifically applied, but was listed on the placement bureau from his college alma mater, Illinois State University, and SJ-O reached out to him.

He didn’t have a lot of time for Berry because that same day he was scheduled to drive to Minooka for another interview. A native of Washington – located near Peoria – Garrison was unfamiliar with SJ-O and acknowledged as much to Berry.

“I said I’d never heard of your school and asked if it was a parochial school,” Garrison said.

Berry assured him it was not. The school’s opening was in guidance and there was a chance to supplement the salary by serving as an assistant coach in several sports.

There were openings on the football, basketball and track staffs at a time when assistants routinely earned between $200 and $400 per year per sport.

Garrison didn’t commit to Berry, but went on to his interview at Minooka, which offered a sharp contrast in styles.

“At Minooka, the guy who interviewed me used a lot of four-letter words,” Garrison said.

A week later, Garrison went to SJ-O for a follow-up interview and shortly later joined the staff, adding assistant duties in football and basketball as well as preparing to make his debut as a head coach in track and field.

Garrison never expected that to be a destination where he would stay for decades, but the longer he worked in the eastern Champaign County district, the less reason he saw to leave.

“I liked the kids I worked with,” he said, “and I worked with everyone who came through school.”

He was a guidance counselor who didn’t feel limited.

“I got to initiate what I wanted,” he said. “I instituted a financial aide program and got to develop programs I thought the kids needed.”

He also developed an athletic program in track that rose into a state powerhouse despite an ominous prediction he received upon his arrival.

“People told me, ‘You’ll never have a good track program. St. Joe is a baseball town,’” Garrison recalled.

After guiding SJ-O to 11 consecutive sectional championships – and two IHSA state titles – Garrison showed there were enough talented athletes at the school that two boys’ sports could thrive in the spring.

It didn’t happen overnight.

“Our success was really slow,” Garrison said.

Prior to his arrival, the Spartans didn’t even need a school bus to travel to their out-of-town meets.

“They told me they took the boys in a van or two,” Garrison said.

He drummed up enough interest in his first spring on the job that the roster size increased to 32.

“That was one of the smallest teams I had,” Garrison said. “For 10 years in a row, in the 1990s, I had teams of 50 kids or more.”

His rookie season as the Spartans head coach had few highlights.

SJ-O placed sixth out of seven teams in the Champaign County Meet, seventh out of eight teams in the Okaw Valley Conference meet (scoring three points) and ninth out of nine teams in the Unity Invitational.

The Spartans didn’t score a single point in major invitationals held by Mattoon and Normal, and also went scoreless in the season-ending district meet.

It wasn’t until Garrison’s 18th year with the SJ-O track program that the school captured its first sectional crown in 1989.

The progress, however, was evident three years earlier.

“In 1986, we’d had our first boys’ state-placers,” said Garrison, who also worked with the girls’ program for many years.

The ability to work through the tough times and maintain a strong work ethic are traits that Neal Garrison sees in his father.

“I think one of my dad’s defining character traits is he has a very strong work ethic and he has a drive to be the best he can be,” said Neal Garrison, Mahomet-Seymour’s boys’ cross-country coach. “I believe he learned this from his dad.

“His dad was a semi truck driver. When his dad was younger, his dad worked in the field picking corn with my dad’s grandmother. My dad was always proud of his dad as he would tell me stories of how he could pick more corn than anyone else could.

“He often quoted his dad saying that whatever you are going to do, be the best at it. If you are going to be a trash collector, be the best trash collector. If you are going to be a potato farmer, be the best potato farmer. If you are going to be a teacher, be the best teacher.

“My dad would try to pass this pursuit to be the best you can be along to his athletes.”

The breakthrough year for SJ-O in 1986 resulted in a fifth-place state finish for the boys’ team, which ended just one point behind the state runner-up team.

Bryan Benso was a Class 1A state runner-up in both hurdles races and Ken Waltsgott was a two-event placer, earning points in the long and triple jumps. The Spartans’ 1,600-meter relay secured a fourth-place finish.

The first team sectional crown for SJ-O came in 1989. In 1992, a streak of 11 in a row began, all under Garrison’s guidance.

“We became a pretty dominant force at the state level,” Garrison said.

The roster size remained strong because fall and winter athletes were seeing the benefits.

“We worked on quickness and explosiveness every day,” Garrison said. “We made them the best basketball or football player they could be with more speed, more stamina and more endurance.”

Besides coaching, Gary Garrison served as a promoter for the sport he has devoted more than a half-century to coaching.

“One of his alumni told me that they had never seen a coach so invested into promoting a minor sport,” Neal Garrison said. “They commented on how he created multiple bulletin boards around the school and in the cafeteria to promote his runners and to give them recognition.”

Neal Garrison is aware of what went into building the Spartans into a consistent area powerhouse.

“Most people remember SJ-O track being on top,” Neal Garrison said. “They did not see the countless hours, weeks, months, and years that my dad spent to build their program from the bottom to a top team in the state.

“They didn’t see the countless hours he invested into people – the runners, their families and the community – to build the program.  He coached in a time where budgets were non-existent and you had to maintain your own equipment.

“He would have my mom (Pam) sew the pole vault and high jump pads every summer to repair them. He would drag and lime the cinder track lanes on the weekend to get ready for the week ahead. He would clean and paint the hurdles to keep them in working order. He would paint each hurdle himself with a SJ-O screen to save money.”

Gary Garrison was also gaining a reputation as a top hurdles coach and worked a summer camp at Eastern Illinois University for a decade.

“In a 15-year period from 1986 through 2001, I had 13 all-state hurdlers (at SJ-O) on the boys’ side,” Garrison said.

No other school in the state – either in Class 1A or 2A – had more.

Though Garrison excelled in track at Washington – qualifying for state with the mile relay relay as a senior – and subsequently competing and lettering at ISU, he said, “I never hurdled.”

That was not a deterrent.

“You learn about an event and become dedicated,” he said. “My feeling was we couldn’t compete with schools like Centennial and Urbana in the 100, but could contend with them in the hurdles.”

He helped form the summer Champaign Track Club with Bob Beyers, and began a summer program in SJ-O.

Garrison helped develop three AAU national hurdling champions at the 400-meter distance. Ben Beyers won in the 12-and-under division and again in the 16-and-under division.

Garrison’s son Neal was triumphant nationally also as a 16-and-under competitor.

“As a son and as an athlete, I really benefited from him being such a passionate coach,” Neal Garrison said. “When I couldn’t even run in the top three runners in my grade school class – I was roughly 10th at the time – my dad told me that if I worked very hard I could place in the top three in the state in the hurdles in high school.

“My dad told me that I didn’t have that much speed, but if I did the hurdles, I would be able to work harder so that I could beat other runners who were naturally faster since being a good hurdler took more work on technique.  He was always good at being straightforward honest while still giving you hope.

“But he also put in the hours and hours for years to develop me as an athlete and person. In the end, he did work hard enough with me to help me place in the top three in state in hurdles in high school. I credit his belief in me and devotion to me both as an athlete and as a person for making this happen. I know he did this for so many people over the years, but I can definitely attest to this as his son/athlete.”

Gary Garrison didn’t grow up in a family of teachers, but said, “I had good teachers and coaches who had a big influence on my life and my decisions.”

His father was a truck driver and, after Gary’s junior year at Washington, he got a taste of what the industry entailed.

“I spent the summer loading and unloading semis,” Gary Garrison said. “I knew I didn’t want to do that physical labor all my life.”

He gained an edge athletically by devoting himself to an area which wasn’t emphasized during his teen-aged years.

“When I was in high school, no one lifted weights. We didn’t have a weight room,” Gary Garrison said. “I learned I could make myself better through strength training and dedicating time.

“I started lifting as a freshman. By the time I was a senior, no one at the school was any stronger.”

In football, Garrison was a linebacker and an end. He earned all-conference honors and was lauded at the postseason banquet, he said, for “playing every play of every game.”

In his early years in coaching, he didn’t have a clear-cut choice on his sport of choice.

Football and track were equal. “I would have taken a head position in either one,” Gary Garrison said.

When the first opportunity came in track, he made that sport his top priority.

In all, Garrison helped for 12 years in football, three at Tremont and nine at SJ-O. He was an assistant in basketball for two years at SJ-O.

Following the 2002-03 track and field season, Garrison stepped aside after 32 years on the job at SJ-O and 35 years coaching the sport.

During his tenure as the Spartans’ track and field  head coach, he coached 41 athletes who earned individual all-state honors and 30 who competed in the sport in college.

He figured his coaching career was over.

“I thought I was done,” hesaid.“I had not planned on coaching more.”

He changed his mind when one of his former SJ-O athletes gave him a call.

“Keith Pogue asked me to work with him (at Mahomet-Seymour),” Gary Garrison said.

The appeal – besides working with one of his former athletes – was that he would have a say-so in the Bulldogs’ program.

“Keith had input, but let us coach,” Garrison said. “I was in charge of the speed relays, the high jumpers and the hurdlers.”

He stayed at M-S for 10 years, until Pogue retired.

Again, Garrison found himself in demand. Again, it was another of his former SJ-O athletes.

Jason Retz was trying to resurrect the SJ-O program, which had undergone several coaching changes.

“He was trying to get stability back,” said Gary Garrison, who returned to his former school for two more seasons as an assistant.

That was followed by another four seasons helping at M-S with coach Todd Lafond, raising his tenure in the sport to 51 years at the end of the 2018-19 school year.

Retirement still wasn’t in the cards.

He came back for the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season as the head coach at Judah Christian.

“They had no coaches at the junior high or high school,” Gary Garrison said. “I said I would coordinate the program.”

He was one of five Judah coaches who oversaw six weeks of workouts before the season was canceled prior to the Tribe participating in a meet.

“I’m supposed to be back in 2021,” said Garrison, who has helped the school gain entry to indoor meets next February.

“I’m year-by-year now, as long as I have good health and my wife has good health. If they (student-athletes) ever quit treating me with respect, I’m done.”

Neal Garrison is not the only person who marvels at his father’s continued desire to coach.

“I have heard from countless coaches he has worked with say that no one has the passion he does for track,” Neal Garrison said. “They can not believe that after coaching 30 years, 40 years and 50 years he still has a tremendous passion and enthusiasm for developing his athletes and trying to build a program.”

Though Neal Garrison coaches cross-country – and not track – he credits his father – who never coached cross-country – for his guidance and influence.

“As a son, I have admired how much he was able to help people by being a guidance counselor and running coach,” Neal Garrison said, “so much so that I followed in his footsteps by being a guidance counselor and running coach myself.

“I suppose the saying imitation is the best form of flattery is true in this case. I am super proud of what he has been able to do with his life and look forward to watching him continue to impact athletes in his upcoming 53rd year of track and field coaching.”

Neal Garrison said his mother’s role for more than a half-century should be recognized as well.

“Behind most great coaches you will find a great supportive spouse,” Neal Garrison said. “My mom was and is an amazing partner to my dad.

“In many ways, she has very little interest in track and field. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate her interest close to a 1 or a 2. Yet her interest in my dad is a 10 out of a 10.  She has been to track meets for well over 50 years.

“She has sat through super-cold track meets, rainy track meets, windy track meets, and super-hot meets. She has done what she can to help him build his program. Not because she cares about track, but she cares deeply about my dad.”

That meant serving in whatever capacity where she was needed.

“She has ran concession stands, filmed meets, hosted breakfast meals for the distance crew, hosted post-race meals for the timers and helpers at meets, washed and sewn uniforms, repaired high jump mats, had meals ready to pack, meals ready for when he got home from meets, and traveled countless hours to sit in the stands to just be supportive,” Neal Garrison added. “His Hall of Fame induction is very much both of theirs.”

Despite his accolades and accomplishments, Gary Garrison didn’t take for granted that he would be chosen.

“I’m honored to be selected,” he said. “There are a lot of good people they could pick.”