'Old man' still teaching a thing or two

When you run for Frank Shands at Winton Woods High School, you run light.

You ditch the Walkman and the hat. You leave the excuses behind. You file the attitude.

When you come to a track team meeting, Coach tells you: ''Come into my meeting and shut up and listen and take that hat off and get your behind off that table.''

And then he tells you, ''God bless you,'' and you smile and the next day you come back for more.

All of this is not news to hundreds of Tristate men who, as high school students, ran for Mr. Shands during the last 50 years. He doesn't do coaching clinics. He doesn't read up on the newest training techniques. He just wakes up in the middle of the night thinking about his team and the next day does what his gut tells him.

He is 75 years old. He is the grandfather of Cincinnati track coaches. He doesn't need anybody to tell him how to make young men run fast and jump high.

And he doesn't need anybody to tell him how to turn high jumpers and distance runners into young men.

The cold of early spring track meets bothers him more than it used to. Since he had both knees replaced five years ago, he coaches more by telling than showing. But ''the old man,'' as he calls himself, is not going anywhere soon.

''I think I do this for Frank Shands,'' he says, in a trophy-stuffed basement room of his Forest Park home. ''I do what I do because I think it's right, because God told me to do it.''

Then he adds a warning for his newest bunch of recruits. ''There's no sense coming to me and expecting me to change anything. I'm 75 years old and if you think you're going to wear me down, you're not.'' You can almost hear the ''God bless you.''

His athletes know he's a legend. He coached many of their fathers in his 17 years at DePorres High School in West End, six years at Purcell High School and 20 years at Princeton High School.

And they know he's old. Even though he looks 55, they don't believe he's 75. They think he's older.

They have never seen anybody like him before.

''He makes up a word every day,'' says B.J. Askew, a freshman. ''He calls you a gallawappa.''

''He hates us talking while he's talking,'' says freshman Brandon Miree. ''He says 'Cut out that cotton-picking talking.' He says 'cotton-picking' a lot.

''He's a nice person even if he yells at us every day.''

Coach thinks suburban kids are a little soft. He grew up in the years when African Americans couldn't use public restrooms, eat at some restaurants or try on hats in stores. Frank Shands was the young man who opened doors of racial progress, then held them open for the next guy.

He was a fine arts major at Miami University when African Americans weren't allowed to live or eat in dorms. Mr. Shands founded the Miami University Campus International Club, did surveys on racial attitudes and convinced the president of the university to open dorms to African Americans - the year after he graduated.

What he wants for his multiracial, multiage, multi-everything team is that they come together as schoolmates, teammates and finally friends.

''I've always believed that you're predestined to do certain things, and you're predestined to come along at a certain time,'' says Coach, who came out of retirement five years ago to take the Winton Woods job. ''I came along when there was a need for a strong black role model.

''I told them to tie those ties, shine those shoes and cut that hair,'' he says. ''I wanted them to have pride in themselves.''

So the young men at Winton Woods, black and white, run hard for Coach. They look smart. And they try never to be gallawappas, whatever that may be.

''At the beginning of the season, all the other coaches defeat the old man,'' says Mr. Shands, a gleam in his eye. ''But about the time of the district and regional meets, about the time of the state meets, that's when we do well.''

Krista Ramsey's column appears in The Enquirer on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati 45202 or fax at 768-8340.

Originally published March 30, 1996.