Special moments mark the life of a coach who’s trying to ‘give back’

By John Shaughnessy

When John Bannister was 10, his father was killed by a drunk driver, leaving a heartbreaking hole in his young life.

Part of the void was filled by the men who coached him in the sports he played.

“Coaches meant everything to me,” Bannister recalls. “They always seemed to take me under their wing, especially in grade school because I was in the fifth grade when it happened. They seemed to look out for me. They taught me discipline, the value of teamwork, of setting goals. And those lessons carried me all the way through high school and into my business life.

“Part of me being a coach is my way of giving back. And once I started doing it, I just loved it.”

For the past 26 years, Bannister has been coaching boys in the basketball program at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Indianapolis—a tenure that recently led him to be honored with the St. John Bosco Medal, the highest award that the archdiocese’s Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) gives to a volunteer.

“I’ve been described as an old-school coach,” says Bannister, who has also served on the parish council and athletic commission. “I teach people to be accountable—to be accountable to themselves and be accountable to the team, to be responsible. If you show up five minutes before and you’re not ready to go, you’re late.

“And we teach teamwork. It’s not about the individual players. It’s moving the ball around and finding the better shot. We work a lot on fundamentals, and we work them hard. And we set goals every year. What we really want to be is the best team we can be.”

While Bannister is honored to receive the St. John Bosco Medal, he says, “You don’t coach for awards. You do it for the love of coaching.”

And he’s done it for the special moments that coaching can bring, including a city tournament game when his team was losing by a point in the final seconds and one of his players was fouled while shooting, giving him two free throws.

“The kid’s name was Trent,” Bannister says. “When the other team called timeout, our team gathered around me, and I said, ‘Listen, here’s what we’re going to do after Trent makes these two foul shots. There’s two seconds left so don’t foul, just apply pressure.’ As Trent was walking out, I just said, ‘You got these, Trent.’ Trent nailed both shots. They threw up a desperation shot and missed, and we won. That’s one of my special moments.”

So was the year when he coached with two of his three sons, Jon and Alec, for a team that included his oldest grandson, Henry.

“There are pictures of our three generations in the huddle,” Bannister says. “That is very cool. That’s a very special thing.”

So was the CYO’s Volunteer Awards Ceremony on May 13 at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis because on that same evening that he received the St. John Bosco Medal, his son Jon received the Msgr. Albert Busald Award.

Still, Bannister’s favorite moments are when he sees his former players as adults, some who now coach in the CYO and others who have moved away from Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish but return for Mass at Christmas and Easter.

“They see me and say, ‘Hey, Coach!’ And their dads still call me ‘Coach.’ I’ve had parents come up to me and say, ‘After all these years, you’re still my son’s favorite coach.’

“The fact that families give me that recognition means that I did good. That means everything to me.” †

 

Related: CYO recognition highlights volunteer efforts of adults and youths