One can never tell how far one’s influence will reach, or the effect one’s references and recommendations will have. Throughout half a century, I have numbered activists, writers, journalists, school administrators, athletes, and coaches among my protégés.

One activist was the great john powell (uses no caps in his name), one-time national ACLU legal director who now directs the Kirwan Institute at Ohio State, where I participated on Nov. 30 as a panelist in a conference on race. I was powell’s teacher and track coach at Southeastern in the early 1960s.

One writer was world-famous self-help author, Wayne Dyer, whom I coached in track and who helped me coach at Pershing, where our teams went undefeated in 22 meets. I edited his doctoral dissertation.

One journalist was Jeffrey May, my Southwestern journalism student in 1999-2000, who attended EMU on a journalism scholarship. He will be a TV anchor some day.

The administrators included Southwestern principal Betty Hines, who taught for me at Butzel Junior High in the 1960s; Finney’s Alvin Ward, whom I supervised when he was principal at Western; and superintendents Gary Faber (West Bloomfield), Gary Doyle (Bloomfield Hills), Tresa Zumsteg (Berkley, now associate superintendent in the Oakland Intermediate School District); and DPS’ Ken Burnley, whom I coached in track.

The athletes included Southeastern’s three-sport threat Bob Kemp and his track teammates, George Wesson (state 440 champ), Bill King, John Saddler, and Arkles Brooks (now pastor of Gospel Chapel of Detroit); King sprinter Thomas Myles; Finney’s state 2-mile champ Ken Howse (nationally-ranked at Illinois); Pershing’s Marvin Lane of the Detroit Tigers, basketball standout and shot putter Spencer Haywood, and his track teammates Reggie Bradford, who helped set a state relay record at Pershing and excelled at U-M, high jumper and U-M basketball star Jon Lockard, long jumper Dennis Baker (now an Ohio prison warden), and Glenn Doughty, U-M and Baltimore Colts receiver. Wolverine and Washington Redskins Super Bowl receiver Mike Oldham – now a high school assistant principal – also will tell you he’s my protégé.

The coaches included Berkley basketball mentor Steve Rhoads, who led the 1972-75 Bears to a 72-4 record, and U-M’s Lloyd Carr, who taught for me at Butzel. Carr was one of 500 who attended when I retired as Deputy Superintendent in Rochester. I wrote recommendations for him to coach in high schools and to be an assistant at EMU and Illinois. His five Big Ten football titles at U-M and a national crown over a span of 13 years were significant. Even more significantly, the soft-spoken Carr cared about his players as people, not just as athletes – and while his coaching days at Michigan are over, his mentoring days are not.

By the same token, while my days at the administrative pinnacles of my profession may be over, I still teach young men and women at Finney who will become activists. I hope to live to boast about them in 2036.

Dr. John Telford was a world-ranked sprinter at WSU, which named him its Alumnus of the Year in 2001 for human rights activism. He administrates at Finney, where the track is named for him. Write him at
john.telford@detroitk12.org.