By Coach Jim Linhares, SLUH
I first met Ron Jorgenson in the late summer of 1973, a few days before I began high school. I had come out for Cross Country on a dare from a grade school classmate with only the vaguest notions of what I was in for. On that hot, humid morning Coach lead me on a 3.1 mile run. By the time we turned the last corner and surged toward the finish, with Ron picking up the pace but still keeping me close, my childhood was somewhere on the pavement behind me. By the time I graduated, with eight seasons in track and Cross Country, a team State Championship in Cross Country and over 3,000 miles of training behind me, Ron had become one of the most important people in my life. 25 years later, with almost twenty years of coaching and a State Championship for one of my own teams behind me, I realize that Ron's influence has passed through me to hundreds of young men and through them, will be passed to thousands more.
Ron had been teaching Physical Education, serving as athletic director and coaching Cross Country, Soccer and Track at St. Louis Preparatory Seminary North in Florissant for three years before I met him. My first impressions were of his physical presence. He was a big man: tall, broad across the shoulders, with a broad face and prominent, chisled features. His blond hair and mustache completed the picture. With a name like Jorgenson it was easy to see him as some mythical, nordic hero. I'm sure I was frightend of him at first. But that wasn't my deepest response. I saw grace in the way in the way he carried himself and humour and compassion in his countenance. And from that first day we ran together, his hand was a gentle, loving and guiding presence in my life.
He was remarkably light and quick on his feet for a man of his size, even soundless when he ran. I remember some of the first words of instruction he offered about running: "Land on the forefoot, not on the ball of the foot, not on the heel, and not flat-footed. Just behind the ball and slightly to the outside. Then down on the heel, back to the forefoot and off." I remember thinking this was crazy. Too precise a directive. How could you have that much control? How could you learn it if it didn't come naturally? But watching him run I saw he had mastered it. He kept saying it and kept watching us. Eventually, we did learn. And I've never forgotten how to teach it.
He was a shot and discus man in college. When I first saw him throw the discus it took my breath away. First, a moment of humble, focused, motionless concentration in the circle. Then, a slow-motion twist into the spin and pivot, a startlingly smooth acceleration and, an instant later, the controlled explosion of release. I remember the disc spinning away, climbing, spinning flat and true as if it would sail over the school building and out onto St. Catherine Street a quarter-mile away. Much of what Ron was in body and soul is captured for me in that image: silence, discipline, and control balanced against speed, power and exhuberance. Perhaps that is what "graceful" is meant to convey.
When he laughed, the same forces were balanced there: something irrepressible bursting out, something else, restrained and controlled, holding it in. His whole frame shook in the muffled struggle. The team captain my Freshman year was a lanky and circumspect intellectual with great competitive drive and a biting wit. Many times I watched the two of them catch each other with subtle, barbed comments tossed back and forth. Sometimes just the arch of a brow was enough to set them off: first one shaking in silent laughter, then the other. It was clear to me even then that he and Ron were friends. That really caught me as a young boy: this man in a position of authority had offered his friendship to a student. The respect between them was as real as the humor.
Ron was loved by many for a thousand reasons, but among his closest friends, his alternately wry and then outrageous sense of humor may be missed most of all. And it wasn't limited to witty banter. He once dropped a colleague to the track with an outrageous joke. For ten minutes, his assistant coach-- a dear friend-- was incapacitated with laughter. Ron stood over him, impassively, as if nothing had happened, which made the whole thing even funnier for his victim. What I love most about this story is that Ron was by nature and habit of mind as far from the character of the joke as he could be. He knew well in advance that his unexpected arrow would hit the target.
Nevertheless, Ron was a "stoic." In fact, when the word came from his lips in one of his first coaching speeches about the nature of Cross Country running, it was the first time I ever heard the word with a real sense of what it meant. In fact, my whole vocabulary of formerly abstract virtues like "courage" and "perseverance" became visceral, lived realities because of who Ron was. For Ron, "stoicism" was an irreducible word. It had to be understood from the inside. Being a stoic meant a host of things you might expect to hear from a Cross Country coach: not complaining, accepting pain, enduring interminable workouts, fighting off fear, sobs and excuses. In Ron's view of running, you never quit, unless injured, and even then you had better be relentlessly cross-examining yourself to make sure you weren't actually quitting on the inside. You had to persevere in this life; you had to develop courage if you were ever to come to respect yourself. His workouts did frighten me at times. I dreaded, even hated them on occasion, but I ran them. And I've bragged about finishing them to my team and my family ever since.
Yet there was something deeper and unexpected implied in the word "stoic" for Ron, something he communicated in posture and glance as much as in word. He was a man acquainted with suffering. He expected life to be difficult, even brutal, at times. It didn't surpise him and he held no illusions about it. I know there were painful chapters in his childhood; perhaps they were more painful than I know. Whatever the events of his early life, he had somehow thoroughly absorbed the first Noble Truth of Buddhism: "Life is difficult." But the truth had not made him a cynic. It made him, instead, into a person determined to face the world and all of its demons--both inside and out-- with quiet dignity. We were expected to do the same.
And so Ron had lots of rules. Sometimes they seemed harsh and utterly inflexible: "Always be on time." "Never miss a practice." "Observe every detail of every routine no matter how minor." But ultimately, every rule was really about discipline, honor and respect and those, of course, were non-negotiable. One of Ron's assistant coaches tells the story of an elite track athlete Ron coached one year who seemed a lock to win the district in his event and might have even contended for a high medal at state. He already had missed one practice, however, and in Ron's book even one missed practice meant an athlete could not compete in the next meet. The next meet was district and this kid was late for practice. The assistant coach remembers sweating nervously in the locker room, looking up at the clock again and again hoping the kid would show, wondering if Ron knew what the stakes were, whether he would be willing to be flexible. Ron went on with his pre-practice routines saying nothing. Then at some point when his internal clock told him the line had been crossed, he looked up and flatly announced: "That's too bad about so and so." Those of us who loved him laugh about this story now, measuring our own greedy, shallow standards against his.
The rules I most remember, though, were about character and values: "Our teams always stay together in tight packs before and after a race." "Never return an insult, no matter what anyone else says to you." "Run every step of every run, including every jog and never cut the course by so much as a step." "Never 'hot dog' a finish and never 'hit the dirt,'either." "Shake your opponent's hand." "And always, always have 'class.'" .
We never had any doubt that he lived that message himself. 10 years ago or so, I heard the story of his first and only marathon. He had "hit the wall," as so many runners do, at about 20 miles and it looked as if he would never finish. Somehow he kept going. The pain made him oblivious to everything but not quitting. When at last he crossed the finish line, friends and relatives had to wrestle him to the ground to convince him that the race was over.
The last race ended for Ron on Christmas day, 2000. He had had an aneurysm on a perfect fall weekend during the Cross Country season. Earlier that day, his team at Ladue Senior High had captured the Championship at the prestigious Hancock Invitational. After many years of building a program with few runners and little success, Ron had at last found another group of young people willing to make his vision for success and character a reality. I hear he had nick names for all of them. His team captain was a young man Ron obviously loved and admired. I could tell by the way Ron talked about him that he was a friend. Ron spent the rest of that season in the hospital slowly recovering with his wife, Diane, and their three children: Kate, Eric, and Karen devotedly caring for him. At the end of the season, with Ron still in the hospital, his team captured fourth place at the State Meet. They left the awards stage in tears carrying the trophy they would later present to their coach in person. Though 25 years their senior, I felt like one of them that day.
After some very positive signs in late November and December, Ron suffered another series of strokes. He spent his last few weeks peacefully, at home with his family. I never had an opportunity to see Ron much in his role as husband and father, but from the conversations I shared with his family during his illness and afterward, I could tell that he had been wonderful at both.
A few seasons ago, searching for a way to capture for incoming Freshman what Cross Country at our school was supposed to be all about, I found myself thinking of Ron. The words that came to mind were "Tradition, Class and Pride." My athletes latched on to them right away. "TCP" they call it now, as if it were one virtue. It is, of course, a whole host of virtues, but every one of them were embodied by one man: Ronald W. Jorgenson.
Thank you, coach. May your legacy endure for as long as there are young people ready to run and perfect fall days for racing.