Tough Hawthorne Track Coach Takes the Loss of His Star Sprinter in Stride

Events suggested a crisis.

The Hawthorne High track team was scheduled to run in the CIF championships the next day on the way to what most observers were conceding would be a third straight state title.

But all the certainty had suddenly gone down the drain when Henry Thomas had an appendectomy the night before. Thomas holds state records in the 100-meter, 200-meter and 400-meter runs and anchors the fastest schoolboy mile relay in history. He is arguably the best prep sprinter in California history. And his sure 30 points were in the hospital.

For Coach Kye Courtney, the crisis didn’t last long. He has put together too strong a program, “terrifying Southern California,” as he puts it, not to know how to clear a hurdle when he sees one.

Minutes after describing the loss of Thomas as “devastating,” the ex-Marine called a team meeting and told the squad in his usual straightforward manner, “This will see what we’re made of. We’ve just got to . . . do the job. We’ve got to get every point we can--that one point may win the . . . meet.”

No Problem

Courtney held a quick practice with his relay teams to determine who would replace Thomas. The Cougars went out the next day and won their fourth straight CIF-Southern Section title. Easily.

An out-of-town writer on the Hawthorne campus that Friday was amazed at how Courtney shook off the bad news. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “Here the guy loses the athlete of the century, a once-in-a-lifetime kid. Most coaches would be tearing their hair out.”

Courtney, a tough guy off the streets of New York, a Vietnam veteran and a track coach extraordinaire, took it in stride.

The Thomas-less Cougars will try for the state title this weekend in Sacramento, and Courtney still thinks--and plots--that his team can win.

Courtney can show an array of faces--taskmaster, caretaker, fund-raiser, father figure, profane, funny, nervous--but above all he is prepared and knows how to wring every drop of talent from his charges.

‘A Disciplinarian’

“Basically Coach Courtney is a disciplined person, a disciplinarian,” said 800-meter star Sean Kelly. “I guess that’s what makes us so disciplined.”

Courtney has not only developed a dominant program but put together a staff of assistants that monitors the athletes--about 140 of whom will letter--both on the track and in the classroom.

Volunteer Archie Amy, who has had two daughters on the team, specializes with sprinters. Cross-country Coach Alex Bravo watches distance runners. Football Coach Larry Reed pitches in. “That’s what helps, to have all these coaches. We know where they (athletes) are every minute. They can’t hide,” Courtney said with a split-toothed grin.

Courtney’s athletes run year-round, in organized clubs over the summer, then in cross-country in the fall. Courtney finds all-comers meets and indoor meets between seasons and generally looks for the toughest competition. “My first year (1978) 180 kids came out and we got beat. But you’ve got to go after the good competition. It doesn’t do any good to run against weak teams.”

Play Football? Run Track

And how did he get so many out the first year? “I was head football coach. I said, ‘You want to play football--run track.’ ”

Courtney found the dual load too great and opted for track. Despite his toughness, he has brought out the numbers. The program has reached such eminence that athletes move into the district to run for Hawthorne and others approach Courtney about transferring.

“Last year I turned down a state champion and two CIF champs. I won’t tell you who,” Courtney said.

Thanks to its huge success, the program has received about $15,000 in equipment and track improvements from the school district, including world-class alloy hurdles and polyurethane running lanes.

Every year Courtney holds a season-ending bash in which seemingly every athlete, coach, teacher, parent--almost every resident of Hawthorne--receives a trophy. This year Courtney started a newsletter for boosters and alumni. “Last year we gave out $3,800 in awards,” he said.

Hawthorne has always had good athletes, but Courtney and his staff are the first to have bottled the talent and distilled it into a winning blend year after year. The track team has won so much lately that Courtney almost proudly says, “There’s three programs they always look at (for improprieties): Mater Dei for basketball, Edison for football and Hawthorne in track.”

‘Have Their Spies Out’

Don’t mention the word recruit, however. “They have their spies out. They watch for us,” he said. “They write letters, ‘Courtney’s cheating,’ but they won’t sign them, the SOBs. . . . They just don’t understand--the banquet, the $2,500 in hurdles . . . that’s what (makes Hawthorne superior).”

Courtney said his program gets strong district backing because “there’s nothing like winning. I think the superintendent likes that we address so many kids. We never kick off a kid because he’s too slow or can’t jump.”

Courtney does ask athletes to leave if they can’t handle discipline, including discipline in the classroom. Most of his stars get college scholarships. His two best runners this year set the example: Thomas is a B student who recently signed to attend UCLA and Kelly is an A student headed for the University of Texas.

“He likes to make sure we’re doing well in class,” Kelly said. “We don’t have any dummies on the team.”

Every day, Courtney proudly said, the team holds a short meeting, then parades single file, shortest to tallest, to the practice field.

Hurdled for Manhattan

Courtney attended a Christian Brothers military academy in New York City where his classmates included the former governor of New Hampshire, John Sonunu, and Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley. He continued on to Manhattan College where he was a hurdler on a strong team.

After a stint with the Marines, including action in Vietnam, Courtney became a teacher and coach at Hawthorne, which was primarily, he said, a football school.

He took over the track team in 1978 and could have won a 3-A title that first season, he said, “but the coaches weren’t mature enough. We didn’t know how to play the game, get the kids ready.”

Archie Amy began working with the team four years ago when his daughter, Kateri, joined the varsity. Another daughter, DeAnna, is part of a 400-meter relay team that last week set a national record of 45.11.

“He’s very interested. He takes an interest that other coaches don’t,” Amy said of Courtney’s success. He cites the summer program as another reason. “The kids swim and run in the summer, they’re always doing something. And we always ran at a higher level, even when we were bad.”

Coaches Cooperate

Amy said the coaches also work as a team. “All of us work pretty good together. We always counsel each other. We may not always agree, but we talk about it.”

Courtney’s approach is to start every new candidate on the intermediate hurdles. “If they can run that, they can run anything,” Courtney figures. Sometimes a star hurdler emerges immediately. Other times a youngster shows enough speed to show promise in dashes.

Thomas showed up in 1981, a tall, skinny ninth-grader from down the block. He showed skill in hurdles but ended up in sprints, capturing state titles as a sophomore and junior, running such eye-popping times last year that he was one of two schoolboys invited to Olympic tryouts (his decision to rest over the summer disappointed Courtney).

They have been unbeatable since Thomas showed up.

Now 46, Courtney talks about giving up coaching in four years. “Archie and I have talked about it--terrorize Southern California 10 years, that’ll be enough. It’s quite a load.”

‘Fun to Be Around’

By that time he’ll have influenced, cajoled, browbeaten, praised and developed hundreds, possibly thousands, of students and made Hawthorne a nationally known track school.

Kelly (whom Courtney describes as “17 going on 27”) said, “He’s fun to be around. He’s a real nice guy. He bends over backward to help the athletes. He’s helped me develop into the type of person I wanted to become. I kind of hate to leave.”

Courtney merely describes his stern but caring approach as “old school.”

A story he wrote about an ill-fated vacation to a Mexican resort last summer perhaps best describes his manner:

“We strolled down to the snorkling shack and asked for some gear, but alas, ‘All ze gear is out, monsieur, try at the end of ze week.’ I explained that at ze end of ze week I will be le gone. . . . He shrugged his shoulders and mumbled something, to which I grabbed his skinny arm and took his gear right off his head. I also took his girlfriend’s for my wife--great fun. The coach was not to be denied!”

Foes at the state meet hoping to capitalize on Hawthorne’s bad luck had better take note.

Thomas, back in school this week, also said he’ll miss his coach. “He’s a pretty nice guy,” Thomas said. “He’s straightforward. He’ll tell you what he wants, what he expects of you. He pushes you.

“We have people on this team who know what they want to do . . . (because) he always emphasizes you have to work in the classroom. You have to have a certain amount of intelligence to be successful.”

Thomas will be cheerleading this weekend at the state meet, then it’s off to start his college career, leaving Courtney to find the next great sprinter. Thomas said the parting “is gonna be pretty sad--we both know that. Life goes on.”