Johanna Forman began running with a Junior H.S. team in Falmouth as a 13 year old eighth grader. She and her friends enjoyed running and having fun. No one realized her potential till all x-c, high school runner and junior high runners went to the Natl. Road Runners X-C Championships at VanCortlandt Park, NY. Forman won the 12-13 yr. old 1.5-mile race. Later we found out Johanna’s times was the third fastest ever run on the 1.5 mile loop. A potential star was born. That winter Johanna ran some track races with the H.S. girls’ team. There was no official H.S. girls program so they girls ran in Open AAU meets. She ran several quick 600 yards, but really shined in relays. With a baton in her hands she really flew recording several sub-60 440’s as an 8th grader. Entering Falmouth H.S. as a freshman she chose not run X-C and went out for gymnastics. She was physically the strongest girl on the team, which led her to try several events. Unfortunately, she broke a toe and that ended the gymnastics. It also curtailed her for the winter track season. Spring track season was the beginning of her running. She went undefeated in dual meets at various distances. She won the Div.1 880 and then ran 2:11.7 to easily win the State 880. She qualified for the USA Jr. National at 800 meters. (What happened?) Over the next three seasons, of which there was no official girls H.S. winter season Johanna progressed in running better races, producing faster times and racking up unheard of accomplishments for a Mass. H.S. girl. There was one other super-H.S. runner in Mass. and that was Lynn Jennings (Bromfield) who was on an equal path as Forman. Forman won three E.Mass D-1 X-C titles and was runner-up three times to Lynn Jennings. Johanna’s times were quick. Falmouth was suddenly blessed with several others who would complement Forman on a 4x400 relay team. Johanna and the relay team made a regular tour of the major indoor competitions: NY MSG, Millrose Games, USA Invitational, Philadelphia KoC Games, Nashville Games, CYO Games Baltimore, Maryland, Montreal Times, and Toronto Inquirer Games. The entire indoor running was on the short 160/yd150m 4 lane wooden banked track that fit inside the hockey arenas. Johanna did manage some quick times in races her best being 1:21.23 at 600 yards, and a relay carry of :54.6 in a 4x4 relay. Her running life took at big turn her junior year when Johanna, on a Friday night, finished first in the 1976 USA Woman’s 800 meter race at the USA Champs in NY Madison Sq. Garden. Her 2:07.9 was her indoor best, but more importantly it qualified her for the USA Women’s team that would compete in Moscow and Sochi, against the USSR. So the young Falmouth girl, with no driver’s license or no passport, left Sunday, with the USA team on her first of multiple USA team trips. An unfortunate side effect of this trip, that she, and many of her teammates, caught a stomach disease that severally hampered her training for the ’76 Olympic Team. She had Olympic Trials but did not qualify for her 800 meter event. In spring high school races Forman went undefeated during her high school. She won the State 880 as a Sophomore, Junior, and Senior year. She ran 800-2:10.2, mile-5:02, 10:50.2-Two Mile, HJ5’05” but did not jump much after due to suffering knee pain. She also won relays, and was part of the Falmouth team that won the prestigious Glenn Loucks Meet, White Plains, NY. Johanna won the 1974 Natl. Junior Olympic 800 meters in Lincoln, Nebraska in 2:12.2. She also qualified for two USA Senior Women’s team Indoors and competed in Moscow and Leningrad. She won places on two US Junior teams and competed in Sochi, USSR and Lincoln, Nebraska. Johanna was an intragal part of the fast FHS relay teams. In 1974 they set x 4x220/4x200 best at the Armory, NY, and the 4x400 in Princeton, NJ; in ’75 the 4x400 at West Point, NY; in ’76 SMR at Johnson&Wales, Cranston, RI, and the 4x400 in a NR on 3:52.1 at Coast Guard. Outdoors in ’76 it was the 4x800 (9:40,3) and then in ’77 running at Nat. Record 9:11.4y/9:081m at US National Jr. and then a leg on the FHS 3:52.64 4x400 at OIC Relays at BU in July. In 1977 women’s track and field was just getting started on the collegiate level and she received several scholarship offers from the major woman’s track programs, but she chose the academics at Harvard. Early at Harvard injuries prevented from her gaining her H.S. performances. So Johanna began with a double major in Math and Art eventually switching to Visual and Environmental Studies, which became a precursor to a BA degree in Architecture. She got her Masters in Architecture at UC Berkeley.
Class: 1977 Inducted: 2004