Our first inductee is Brooks T. Johnson a 1952 graduate of Plymouth High School. There is an old saying that sometimes goes around which says, those who can, DO and those who can’t, COACH. I know I certainly fall into that category along with many others out there, but Not Brooks Johnson. He COULD and he DID and he COACHED!!! A rare individual for sure. While a student athlete at Plymouth High School, Brooks was a 3 sport star. He earned varsity letters in football, basketball and track and field. He held the South Shore records in both the long jump and 60-Yard Dash. He was an All-State selection by virtue of his winning the Class C 440 and Long Jump. He finished 2nd at the All State meet to fellow Hall of Famer Charlie Jenkins. Brooks cites those athletic memories along with him being the 1st black president of his junior and senior class at Plymouth H.S. as his most memorable moments as a teenager in 1952. Brooks would continue his athletic career as a Jumbo at Tufts University. He played football and ran track while earning his degree in Cultural Anthropology. While there he would become the only collegian to be a 3 time finalist at the prestigious Millrose Games in the 50-Yard Dash. Brooks was also a consistent top IC4A top 5 finisher in the 50-Yard and 440-Yard runs. While at the University of Chicago, where he would earn his law degree, he tied the world record in the 50-Yard dash. From 1961 through 1963 Brooks was a member of the United States track and field touring team. Brooks’s culminated his running career by being on the 1963 Gold Medal Pan Am Games Championship 4x110 relay team with Ira Murchison, Ollan Cassell and Earl Young. The winning time was 40.40 Brooks running days ended in 1964 with an automobile accident while on his way to Stanford University where an Olympic Trials qualifying meet was to take place. There is no doubt in my mind that he would have made that Olympic Team. In 1965 Brooks moved to Washington DC to take a position with Governmental Affairs Institute in the American State Department. Still itching to be involved in Track and Field he was hired by the prestigious St. Albans School as the first African-American to teach cultural anthropology and history, to be the athletic director and to what else, coach the track team. One of his pupils there was a promising young discus thrower, and future vice-president Al Gore. After 12 years at St. Albans he moved on to the University of Florida as an assistant track coach from 75 to 79. From 1979 to 1992 he was the head track coach at Stanford University. Coach Johnson has coached Olympians since 1960 when he coached the silver medalist Willie May in the 110m HH. In 1968 Brooks coached Esther Stroy, a competitor in the 400m. At the age of 15, she was the youngest person to be competing in that Olympic Game. He has also coached Evelyn Ashford and Chandra Cheesborough. He is currently coaching, at the ripe young age of 79 I might add, Justin Gatlin and David Oliver. For the record, Brooks will turn 80 next month. In 1996 Brooks Johnson was hired by the Disney Corporation “to jump start a fledging sports program”. The complex is located at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World. He took this program and has turned it into a financial and sporting success. At the national level, Coach Johnson was part of the U.S. Track and Field Olympic coaching staff in 1976, 1984, 2004, and 2008. In 1984 he was the women’s team coach for track and field at the summer Games in Los Angeles and the relay coach in 2008. Brooks Johnson was elected to the United States Track Coaches Hall of Fame in 1997. Maybe one of his toughest coaching assignments was coaching local athletes Pete Shuder and Mark Young after their college careers were over.
Class: 1952 Inducted: 2014