Track events growing at St. John-Endicott High School

Head track coach and Spanish teacher at St. John-Endicott High School, Paul Johnson, is working to expand the school's track program.

“Athletes here are only missing the pole vault, but they have no track, only a grass field on which to practice,” said Johnson.

The official go-ahead to add pole vaulting this spring came, and Johnson was able to order the equipment needed; pole vault landing pits, standards to hold the crossbar, poles for the student athletes and a pole vault planting box, which will be cemented into the ground. The equipment should arrive at the start of track and field season, which begins Feb. 25 this year.

“We already have the equipment for the other field events, although we could certainly use a few more of the throwing implements,” said Johnson.

This is Johnson's first year at St. John-Endicott. Johnson moved to Whitman County after a former student and son of a close friend convinced him to move here to teach his kids Spanish, since they had no classroom instructor for the language at the time.

Johnson studied Spanish for six years before majoring in the language in college. He didn't let the experience end with school, continuing to practice his Spanish with exchange students.

“During the course of my career we must have had at least 30 exchange students from all over the Spanish speaking world to further my knowledge,” remembered Johnson.

He moved to St. John last July after nine years of retirement. Before moving to St. John and coming out of retirement, he had been training athletes at a local gym and had coached track and field for a local high school. He also coached at Everett Community College. He was also teaching community Spanish classes to stay busy.

Johnson has taught all over the coast, and has been a head coach for track and field for 35 years. He started teaching in 1973 at Gand Coulee Dam Junior High. He taught Spanish for 33 years at Stanwood High School north of Seattle, 32 of which he was head track and field coach. He also spent 28 years as the head cross country coach, eight years as chess coach, six years as head basketball coach for girls, and five years as the boys head basketball coach.

When he was a student himself, Johnson competed in track and field in high school as well as at the University of Washington, where he had majored in Spanish, and competed as an unattached athlete all over the northwest.

A decathlete, Johnson tries to teach his students in several events.

“I teach each event to everyone in the hopes that we can find some successful multi-event athletes as well,” said Johnson.

A decathlon is a ten event competition which includes: 100m sprint, 400m Sprint, 110/100m hurdles, 1500m race, high jump, long jump, pole vault, discus, shot put and javelin throw. Other track and field competitions are: 200m sprint, 800m race, 3000m distance race, 400m hurdles, 4x100m relay, 4x400m relay, medley relay, steeplechase, high jump and hammer throw.

Johnson is not coaching any other sport right now, but he is running a conditioning program three days a week for kids who are not currently involved in any sports.