Keith Mitchell, right, talks with Columbus East throwing coach Jonathan Martin at Thursday’s Columbus North Sectional boys track and field meet.
Nicholas Shaw | For The Republic
Keith Mitchell coached track and field at Northside Junior High and Columbus North High School for 31 years, but that pales in comparison to his service as a track official.
Mitchell spent 56 years as an official, beginning in 1965 through his retirement in 2021. Thursday, the 93-year-old was recognized as the Honorary Throws Marshal at the North Sectional.
A graduate of Trafalgar High School and Franklin College, Mitchell began teaching at Whiteland in 1958. He moved to Northside in 1961 and became the school’s track coach in 1969.
Mitchell coached at Northside for 12 years, then coached the hurdlers at North High School for 19 years before retiring in 2000.
“With no knowledge of track and field and sitting around the campfire and being asked by Willie Hagan to be his assistant coach, that first year, he went to Southside as a principal, and he said, ‘You can do it,’” Mitchell said. “Since then, it’s been either here or Indiana University, learn-by-doing sessions. (Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp.) was always very good about getting me released from school to go over there to their learn-by-doing sessions. I even got to meet at one time a runner from England (Sebastian Coe). It’s been a very pleasant time.”
Rick Weinhemer, who coached North to five boys and one girls cross-country state championship, got his start in coaching at age 22 as Mitchell’s assistant ninth-grade coach at Northside. Both moved to to the high school, where Mitchell coached hurdlers and Weinheimer coached the distance runners.
“He got kids to work really hard, but they knew he loved them, so they would do anything for him,” Weinheimer said. “He’s also the world’s best storyteller. On a bus ride, he’ll talk from the minute the bus starts to minute the bus gets to the meet.”
Mitchell became a USA Track and Field Master Official and was inducted in the USATF Hall of Fame in 2009. Along the way, he officiated 39 Indiana state track meets; numerous MAC, ACC, SEC and Big Ten Conference championships and 11 collegiate national championships.
Mitchell worked numerous national and international level meets, including the USA vs. USSR meet in 1992; the Pan-American Games in 1987; Olympic Trials in 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000 and the 1996 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Atlanta.
“My very first thing was the World Indoor Championships,” Mitchell said. “Ralph Sieboldt had the women, and I had the men. Then, I was supposed to be resting while he (officiated) the women. Instead, he asked me to help call the floor so we would know for sure if (a throw) was legal or illegal.”
In 2007, Mitchell won the Horace Crow Award as the nation’s outstanding official.
Jonathan Martin, a former North and Indiana University football player, has been an assistant football and track coach at Columbus East for more than 30 years. He credits Mitchell with getting him started in officiating at the state meet.
“In 1992, I’m a young first-year coach, and Keith says, ‘Hey, we have an opening on the shot put and discus team. Would you want to come and do that?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, sure,’ Martin said. “That was my first state track meet, and I’ve done one every year after that. This will be year No. 33. I started out as a shagger, then I pulled tape, then I was the second eyes on the ring, then I became the first eyes on the ring and Keith was my second eyes and I’ve been running the (shot and discus at the) state meet for about 15 years. Keith got me started in it. I knew him in high school, and he knew my dad, so we go way, way back. I’ve known Keith a long time.”
Mitchell, who is looking forward to becoming a great grandfather in the near future, recalls a memorable experience in the sport of track and field.
“When it came to track and field and the throws, I was a better official than I was a coach,” Mitchell said. “I didn’t coach hardly at all once I got into officiating.”
