Keys: Thomas' way made impact at Southern

• By PERRYN KEYS
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Jun 17, 2009 - Page: 1C

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

Jackie Robinson used to say that a life is meaningless, except for the impact it has on the lives of others.

If Robinson was right, Johnny Thomas lived an important life.

A full life.

He took over as the head track and field coach at Southern in 1987. More than 20 years later, he was still making an impact, until he finally succumbed to cancer last Friday.

Twenty-three years’ worth of teams. Twenty-years’ worth of athletes. As news of his death spread, almost all of them gushed over their former coach. They talked about how much he meant to them.

That’s a lot of lives. That’s a lot of impact.

As it turned out, Thomas’ footprint on the SU program was far greater than Marino Casem could have dreamed when he hired Thomas.

Casem was athletic director at the time, sifting through a list of 23 applicants. He knew Thomas was an SU alumnus and former sprinter, a man who had already served as a volunteer coach from 1984-87. But he knew Thomas from his success at Southern Lab, where Thomas had coached the girls team to three straight state championships.

Grover Perkins, a former coach at Southern Lab, recommended Thomas.

“Perkins told me I wouldn’t have to have my hand all over the program if I hired (Thomas),” Casem recalled. “He was right. ... Coach Thomas was a great man and a great person. As far as working with him, he wasn’t hard to get along with. The thing I found about strong-willed coaches was that it’s best to leave them alone.”

Strong-willed? Thomas?

It was his way or no way.

Take, for instance, his 4x400-meter relay team in 1997, which finished third at the NCAA meet.