By MARK MILLER
Don Johnson, a 1979 Norwell High School graduate, was having a conversation with a friend about the men who had made a major influence in their lives. He arrived at listing his father, a farmer that he had worked for during high school, and his high school cross country coach.
“It got me thinking,” said Johnson, now a free lance writer based in Knightstown. He contacted a few members of the team during his high school years and soon a reunion of sorts was being organized, “but mostly we want to express our appreciation to Rex Decker.”
While he has been able to contact his teammates and several others from various years, he is seeking the help of News-Banner readers in finding more.
“If you were or you know someone who ran cross country at Norwell for Coach Decker, please give me a call,” he announced. His phone number is 765-524-0150. The reunion is set for Saturday, July 30 and will be held at one of the lodges in Ouabache State Park.
Decker, now 82 and living in the same home north of Bluffton he and his wife Kristen have been in for more than 57 years, coached cross country at Norwell from 1967 through 1980; he also served as the school’s athletic director from 1971 to 1995 when he retired. His teams qualified for state several times; he’s not sure of the exact years but could get it figured out by going through the old clippings he has kept.
Johnson knows that during his junior year, they finished 7th at state and in his senior year came in second. “And I’m pretty sure they finished 13th the following year,” he added.
“We definitely competed at a high level,” Decker says now. “I think our reserve teams could beat most of today’s varsity teams.”
Decker can rattle off a long list of coaches and teams across the state that consistently were competitive.
“Indiana as a state was perhaps the best in the country,” he continued. “The top two or three finishers at state would go out to a national meet in California, and we always did well.”
Decker estimates he coached somewhere near 200 boys over those years. “We became known as the ‘Norwell Pack,’ because we ran as a team, but there’s a story behind that.”
He is, of course, looking forward to reuniting with “the boys,” he said. “Those were certainly fun years — good years — but frankly, this will embarrass me. I just tried to encourage them and take them along.”
Decker also coached the track teams for several years and won several conference tournaments.
“It’s really not complicated, we just tried to teach about hard work and mental discipline,” he said, “and I always told them it was more fun to win.”
miller@news-banner.com
