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ESHS's Biggest
Winner
by Varun Roperia, Staff Writer
A robust man despite his age, Coach John Stevenson has been a major
part of El Segundo for the past 48 years. He is as permanent a
fixture as the school’s tower. Coach Stevenson this year has
recorded his 1000th victory as a baseball coach, an
achievement realized by only seven people in the history of the
sport in the USA. Coach Stevenson is the ONLY Californian to achieve
this remarkable feat. Already a Hall of Famer, Coach Stevenson has
added to his long list of incredible achievements with another
sports record.
As a young boy, Stevenson loved to play sports. Always
athletic, he was further encouraged by his father, as well as his
mother and sister. It was his dad who first mentioned that he should
perhaps coach. However, as he says now, “there is no such thing as a
coach; you have to be a teacher.” Stevenson followed this route
himself, teaching here at ESHS for nineteen years, and then he was
the athletic director for fifteen years. A geography teacher,
Stevenson says he did this to be a coach, also saying that “you
don’t get paid that much to coach, that’s not why you do it. About
90% of your salary comes from the teaching.”
When asked about why he coached for so longs, Stevenson replies
that he never found a reason to leave. “My wife liked it here and I
loved it to. My son went all the way through school here, and El
Segundo is a great place to live.” He also says that he takes one
year at a time. “You cannot generalize teams, and you have to make
concessions for each person as an individual.” Stevenson also says
that each person is different, and every year new people and new
players help create new, pleasant memories.
The biggest help along his way to this achievement,
Stevenson says, is the consistency of the baseball program here at
El Segundo. “Some schools have good players some years, but then
graduate and then do poorly for another few. Here we have
consistently strong players who are hard-working and talented. Our
achievement is a proof of this consistency.” When asked about what
helps him be such a coach, he says that a good coach needs to know
the team and how to motivate him, as that is the key to success.
However, it is not the winning that keeps Stevenson
coaching. “The best thing about coaching is the every year you
connect with a new group of players, and that many former players
come back to keep in touch as contemporaries.” At the age of 73,
Coach Stevenson says he doesn’t make long term plans, but feels that
as long as he can make a difference in a healthy and positive way,
he will continue to coach, “until Nature, as it always does, tells
us it is time to move on.”
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