Growing up in the country without a lot to do gave Robert E. Johnson a head start to becoming a decorated hurdler at Wayland Baptist University and, ultimately, inclusion in the school’s Athletics Hall of Honor.

Johnson’s earliest memory of learning to run the hurdles was as a boy looking for something to do on the family farm near Petersburg.

“We used to prop up tires with rocks, like they were hurdles, on the country road,” he recalls. “I had nine brothers and sisters, so there were plenty of people to race against. I enjoyed it.”

And he was very good at it. So good that he became a nine-time NAIA All-American and a three-time national champion for the Pioneers in the early 1980s before making a career out of coaching track.

Still, if not for a football injury and a failed physical to enter the military, Johnson may not have ever realized any of it.

When he was in the first grade, Johnson and his family moved to Canyon where he was a four-sport letterman in football, basketball, baseball and, of course, track. He was all-district in football and qualified for the state meet in the 110-yard high hurdles his senior year.

“My older brothers and sisters ran track, so it was just understood that I was going to run,” Johnson says. “I was kind of a long, lanky guy and had flexibility, so I was able to negotiate the hurdles.

“I had a great seventh grade coach, Eddie Smith, who taught me the art of running the hurdles. I guess he saw potential and trained me all the way through high school.”

After graduating from Canyon High School in 1980, Johnson had plans to enroll in the Army. But a shattered elbow joint suffered while playing football kept him from it.

“I could no longer extend me elbow, so I couldn’t pass the physical. That elbow still to this day has a bend in it.”

Johnson wasn’t sure what he would do until a buddy mentioned joining him at Wayland, where Gary Goodwin was the track & field coach. The two talked and Goodin wanted Johnson to come for a visit to look things over.

“But my dad pastored a church in Olton, and my sisters tried out for basketball (with the Flying Queens), so I was already familiar with Plainview and Wayland,” Johnson said. “Plus I was a mama’s boy and didn’t want to be too far away from home. So I asked coach, ‘When do I need to be there?’”

Johnson made an immediate impact, setting a school record of 13.82 seconds in the 110-meter hurdles his freshman year. That record still stands, as does a mark Johnson helped set his senior year in the hurdle relay of 58.5 seconds.

“Coach Glen Sefcik was the coach my sophomore and junior years. He was a great guy and a very good technical coach in hurdles.”

Although running hurdles was his forte, one of Johnson’s fondest memories at Wayland involved winning the 4x100 relay at the prestigious Drake Relays in Iowa.

“We went in not having any clue we could win it,” said Johnson, who was joined on the relay by Willie Dodd of Stinnett, Ray Smith of Lubbock Roosevelt and Norman Brown of Hereford. “I ran the anchor leg and got to the baton in fourth or fifth place.”

Johnson explained that Wayland executed silent command handoffs, meaning the runners didn’t say anything to each other before passing the baton. “We…never looked back, and you don’t run with your hand back; just snatch and go. It doesn’t waste a lot of time. We practiced it a lot.”
Johnson said he can still hear the roar of the crowd as he moved into first place and eventually won.

“It was one of those times when the hair on the back of our neck stands up,” he said.

Another was when Wayland gave NCAA track powerhouse Oklahoma State a big scare in the 110-meter shuttle hurdle relay.

“We were neck-and neck with those guys. That was another time when the crowd came to their feet.”

Eight of Johnson’s nine all-American honors came in the indoor 60-yard hurdles or outdoor 110-meter hurdles; the other was in the 4x100 relay. He twice won national titles in the 60-yard hurdles and once won the 110s as a junior. Johnson was the favorite to win the 110s as a senior, but he did an admittedly “stupid thing” the week of the outdoor national meet.

“The gymnasium was open and some of us played a pickup game of basketball. Well, I rolled my ankle, the same one I broke two summers before. It ballooned up real quick.”

John Creer had taken over as coach, and Johnson said he wasn’t about to tell him what had happened.

“I went back to the dorms and went to bed,” he said. “I called parents my parents and asked them what I should do.”

There wasn’t much he could do.

“I got it taped up and we limped through it,” he said.

Johnson finished in fifth place in the hurdles while also competing in the sprint and mile relays.

Creer wasn’t pleased, although he ultimately forgave Johnson and hired him as a graduate assistant coach to train Wayland’s hurdlers. They guided the Pioneers, who finished second indoors Johnson’s senior year, to the first four of five straight NAIA indoor national titles.

“Coach Creer became my mentor,” Johnson said.

Johnson, who graduated WBU with a degree in physical education/chemistry in 1986, followed Creer to Missouri Baptist College in St. Louis, Mo., and served as assistant track coach for three years before moving on to Brown University in Providence, R.I., where Johnson spent the next 14 years, the last five as head track coach. He twice was named NCAA North East Region Coach of the Year.

In 2005, after losing a brother and sister to cancer in a five-month span, Johnson moved back to Texas to be closer to family. For the past 11 years he’s served as head boys track coach and assistant football coach at East Central High School in San Antonio, and in 2011 was named High School Track Coach of the Year by the San Antonio Express-News.

Johnson is married to Denise Stegink, whom he met at Wayland where she was an all-American high jumper and played basketball for the Flying Queens for one season. She works as a medical coder.

No doubt Denise was one of the best things to happen to Johnson during his time at Wayland.

“It was a neat place, a great place to learn,” he said. “I had great teammates whom I enjoyed hanging out with. I still remember my chemistry professor, Dr. (Harold) Temple.

“Wayland was good for me.”

Robert and Denise have two children: 25-year-old Corey, who played football at Emporia State (Kan.) and now works in sales in Dallas; and 20-year-old Courtney, a junior at Texas State where she competes in the high jump after winning the Class 5A state title at Clemens High School in Schertz. (Coincidentally, Courtney broke her mother’s high school high jump record.)

The 54-year-old Johnson said he is honored to be elected to the WBU Athletics Hall of Honor.

“I’m very humbled people would see me in that light, and I’m very pleased to be a part of that group,” he said. “Coach Creer (WBU Hall of Honor, 2009) calls me from time to time and always asks, ‘Have you been inducted yet?’”

Now he can say he most certainly has.