Posted on Mon, Feb. 25,
New coach in training? TCU ex makes fast start
By CHAREAN WILLIAMSStar-Telegram Staff Writer
New coach in training? TCU ex makes fast start
ARLINGTON – Tiara Sims, 17, calls him “Mr. Drummond,” as do most of the high school athletes Jon Drummond trains. The professional athletes he works with call him J.D., Jon, Mr. Big Head or sometimes something unprintable.
Drummond will answer to anything except coach.
“I don’t think I’ve earned that right,” said Drummond, an All-American sprinter for TCU in 1991. “When I’m successful, where I take a kid like from a high school level to the elite level, then I would be more comfortable with the term.”
Tyson Gay, the “Fastest Man in the World,” calls Lance Brauman his coach. But, with Brauman in federal prison last year, Drummond quietly helped Gay sweep the 100 and 200 meters at the World Championships and USA Championships.
Drummond refers to himself as a “consultant” for Gay, a role he will play again this year as Gay prepares for the Beijing Olympics.
Drummond, who, as a competitor, continually sought the spotlight as the self-proclaimed “Clown Prince of Track and Field,” won’t take any credit for Gay’s meteoric rise.
“I told Tyson I’m not selfish,” said Drummond, 39. "My focus and goal is his focus and goal, and that’s for him to be a champion. It worked last year, so let’s continue to upgrade it.
“I’m a believer in, if it ain’t broke, you upgrade it; you modify it; you make it better. And that’s what we’re planning to do.”
Drummond, a two-time Olympic medalist, was known as one of the fastest starters in history. Only his career as a trainer started off faster.
In 2004, after injuries forced Drummond to semi-retire, he began training several NFL prospects in Las Vegas, including running back Larry Croom from UNLV. A year later, Drummond moved to Arlington and began working with Orlando Brown.
Brown, who was introduced to Drummond by their mutual friend, gospel singer Kirk Franklin, has been in the personal training business for 12 years. Three years ago, Brown opened O’s Personal Fitness, a 3,800-square-foot personal training studio in a downtown Arlington office building. It’s a gym rat’s gym, lacking the “fluff and stuff” of a health club or a fitness center.
Clients don’t join to socialize, pick up a date or sit in the whirlpool. They come to dead lift 225 pounds in the back room or to wear themselves out on the Keiser air-resistance machines. They come to get faster, stronger or more fit using Drummond’s copyrighted training program, START or Speed Technique Agility Reaction Training.
Track workouts are a couple of miles away at UT-Arlington’s Maverick Stadium.
“Jon is really intense,” said Marshavet Hooker, a four-time NCAA champion for the University of Texas. "But we get the work done.
“It’s a really good workout environment.”
Brown said about 50 percent of customers are soccer moms and 50 percent hard-core athletes.
Drummond works with about 25 regulars, including Olympic hopefuls Hooker, LaShauntea Moore and Nadine Palmer, Buffalo Bills running back Jonathan Evans and former Baylor running back Brandon Whitaker.
The core of his athletes, though, are in high school. He trains sprinters, receivers, pole vaulters and swimmers from Lancaster, Mansfield Summit, Arlington, Arlington Lamar, Southlake Carroll and South Grand Prairie.
On the bulletin board in the gym are the report cards from some of Drummond’s protégées.
“He doesn’t cut them any slack, on the track or in the classroom,” said Tyrone Sims, the father of Tiara, a former sprinter at Lancaster who now attends a private school and runs unattached. "That’s what I like about him. He demands greatness, which is what he always demanded of himself. We, as a family, watched him compete. He was the best.
“There is no better person to have in my daughter’s life. He has been there, done that.”
Drummond became as much entertainer as world-class sprinter during his long athletic career, which netted a gold medal in the 4x100 relay in the 2000 Olympics after he won a silver with the relay team in 1996.
Drummond talked trash to Carl Lewis. He ripped his shirt off and flexed his biceps. He ran into the stands. He wore only one sock. He once won a 200-meter race with his shorts splitting with every step. And, in 1993, Drummond unintentionally ran with a comb in his head.
The fans loved him.
“It worked for me,” said Drummond, whose personal bests are 9.92 seconds in the 100 and 20.03 in the 200. "It didn’t hurt to go to the world championships and win medals.
“But I found my niche, and I made it work… I am just short of crazy.”
A career later, Drummond is just short of being called coach
