by Alan Hoskins, KCKCC
Having rubbed shoulders with some of the greatest athletes in the world, Al Hobson now takes his place among the elite as the newest member of the NJCAA Track and Field Hall of Fame.
“It’s always good to be recognized as one of the best by your peers,” said Hobson, 75, who has upwards of 40 years working with young people, the last 20 years as head track coach at Kansas City Kansas Community College.
During those 20 years, Hobson has trained and coached a literal “Who’s Who” of track and field athletes including the world’s fastest man at the turn of the century. A graduate of Schlagle High School and a student at KCKCC although he did not run competitively for the College, Maurice Greene ran a world record 9.79 in 1999 and then won the 100 and 200-meter dashes in the 2000 Summer Olympics, two of his four Olympic medals.
That elite list also includes Olympians Justin Gatlin, Passion Richardson, Muna Lee, Ray Edwards, Tyrone Edgar, Dinsdale Morgan, Sherridan Kirk and Fina Ashby; NJCAA national champions Ernest Greene, Jason Thompson, Mark Jelks, Jerome Foster and Chris Wright; and a host of regional champions.
Because of that success, both the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals have reached out to Hobson to not only better their running skills but to prevent injuries. That list includes Pro Football Hall of Famer Derrick Thomas, Kevin Ross, Derick Johnson, J.C. Pearson, Reggie Jones and several other Chiefs and more recently, Lorenzo Cain of the Royals.
But it’s his work with developing youngsters at an early age that Hobson is most proud. “All the kids I coached, politicians, doctors, I’m just as proud or more proud of them as the Olympic champions,” he said. “When I was in the Marine Corps, I had a Master Sergeant who was determined I was not going to mess up my life and he turned my life around. One of the reasons I started working with young people was that Marine sergeant and I felt a certain obligation to do the same thing. I just think we’re all put here for a purpose, we just have different reasons.”
Hobson began working with youngsters when his daughter, Adrea, qualified for a national event at the age of 11.
“The coach then decided he was going to make going to the nationals a family event so there was not room for my daughter,” Hobson said. “She was crushed and I was determined I was not going to let that happen again.”
Although the son of an outstanding runner who passed away when he was 10, Hobson did not run as a youngster but played football and basketball and was an outstanding swimmer at segregated Sumner High School.
“Everyone assumed I’d be a runner but the pressure kept me away,” he said. “I refused to run and even had to explain it to the principal.”
However, when his daughter started to excel, Hobson began attending seminars and clinics. “I learned as much as I could.” That was in 1979 and over the next dozen or more years, promising young track athletes gravitated to Hobson, who founded the Kansas City Chargers team that achieved national success.
“For five years in a row, we had a different kid win the 100 meters each year – Duane Pighee, Raydale Hill, Wendell Gaskin, Tim Hardin and Maurice Greene,” Hobson said. “Another year we took just eight kids and we took first and second in the 4×100 relay and also won the 4×400.”
Maurice Greene began running for Hobson at age 11. At age 19, he burst into the national spotlight by beating Olympic world champion Carl Lewis in the 100 meters in 9.86 at the Texas Relays, an upset at which time Lewis famously said:
“Who is this guy?” What Lewis didn’t know was that Greene had been gunning for him. “When Maurice was in high school, he always said he could beat him,” Hobson said. “He put everything into it that day and was totally dehydrated and vomiting afterwards. Maurice first of all was gifted with ability but he also ran with a lot of determination and he always believed in himself.”
Ironically, none of this would have happened had not Hobson made major changes in his life as he readily admits in his well-written book, “The North End (As Quiet as It’s Kept).”
“I was a singer and started singing with a club,” Hobson said. However, it escalated beyond singing to ‘Al Hobson’s Gang,’ a gang that wasn’t adverse to taking on other gangs in street fights.
“The one thing I got blamed for I wasn’t even there,” Hobson said. “But I was going in the wrong direction.” On his 17th birthday July 22, 1957, Hobson left the gang and Sumner High and became the youngest member of the U.S. Marines and his life was changed forever. While in the Marines, he won the 3-meter diving championship at Camp Pendleton. After three years, he enrolled at Central Missouri on the GI Bill before beginning a 30-year career at General Motors, first as a material controller and then as a senior buyer. “GM was very good to me allowing me time off to travel around the country taking kids to track events.”
Retired from GM April 1, 1992, Hobson first came to KCKCC that fall as an assistant coach to Tom Lester. After one year, he worked as an assistant at Park University before returning to KCKCC as head coach in 1996. While KCKCC no longer offers track and field as a competitive sport, Hobson continues to work with local and area high school coaches and with police and fire departments on how to run correctly to help prevent injuries.