Norman Trzaskoma moved around the infield at track meets this spring as if he had years of coaching left in his tank.
There's no question that he is physically able to continue on at age 62. But Trzaskoma -- the boys cross-country and track-and-field coach at Reynolds High School since 1973 -- announced yesterday that he is taking his good health and walking away.
He has five NCHSAA cross-country championships and two track-and-field titles, all at Reynolds, among the highlights of a 39-year career that started at Atkins High. Fatigue wasn't a factor, Trzaskoma said, but he couldn't keep a 2-year-old granddaughter from prying him away.
"It's funny," he said. "When I took this job, nobody wanted it more than me, and now, nobody wants it less. I am ready to step aside."
Jeff George, Reynolds girls coach in track and cross country, has spent the past 11 years working alongside Trzaskoma.
"The guy is underappreciated for how tremendous a coach he is," George said. "And as good as he is as a coach, he is 10 times the human being. He is incredibly generous, just an amazing person. You can't replace a coach the caliber of a Norman Trzaskoma.
"I personally think he is the best track coach in the county, and I hope I don't offend anyone by saying that. Year after year, we keep having strong track teams. There has to be something to it."
Trzaskoma, a mathematics teacher, retired from full-time teaching in 2001 but has taught part time at Reynolds since then. He said he was unsure if he would continue to teach next fall but that he would find out if he was needed later this month.
Jim Spivey, the athletics director at Reynolds, said that David Smith, also a math teacher and, in recent years, a volunteer coach, would coach boys cross country in the fall. Spivey said he had yet to determine who would coach boys track.
"He holds a special place to me," Spivey said of Trzaskoma.
Trzaskoma, a native of Steubenville, Ohio, graduated from Evangel College in Springfield, Mo., in 1971. He taught and coached at Atkins for two years, then joined the staff at Reynolds in 1973.
As a cross-country coach, he had his most successful run from 1974 to 1978, when he guided the Reynolds' boys to five NCHSAA championships in open-classification competition. In track, he coached his boys team to the Class 4-A outdoor title in 2005 and the indoor title in 2006.
Trzaskoma said he had to make more time to see his granddaughter, who lives in Colorado. Although he said he wasn't going to move, he said he would see her "as often as my pocketbook will allow me."
"That and the fact that I can tell that it's time," Trzaskoma said. "When you get close to it, you start feeling differently, and I could tell that one more year would have been very uncomfortable and I didn't want that to happen. I am not tired of coaching. I am just tired of being in charge.
"It's been good for me. I found out what a good coach really is from Scott Brent (the former coach at North Forsyth), and that's one who makes the sport better for everyone, not just has own kids. I learned that from watching Scott's example, and I tried to do that."
For 19 of his years in coaching, Trzaskoma went up against Mike Esposito, who built powerful programs at Mount Tabor before resigning to coach at High Point University in 2005.
"He has had some amazing kids, in particular the hurdles, which I don't think is an accident," Esposito said. "He loves the hurdles and has put a lot emphasis on that. And he worked hard at it. I think very few people are as passionate about the sport as he is. And he dealt with some tough kids, and I think he went out of his way as a coach, in a good way. He always did it with class."
mlinker@wsjournal.com
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