Profile: Final Draft

Reliving a Legacy

by Jenny Thomson

Bruce Johnson, K’76, doesn’t walk anymore. He limps.

A recent knee surgery attempting to reverse years of strain left him with a slightly impaired gait.

He still bikes and swims. He is still active at Gazelle Sports, the store he co-founded in downtown Kalamazoo, where he is forced to master a set of stairs each time he travels between the store on the first level and his office above.

He doesn’t talk about it, except to explain why he needs someone to run for him in this year’s Kalamazoo College Triathlon.

“I can bike and swim, but I can’t do the run,” Johnson said.

The Triathlon is an event he looks forward to every year. He won in 1989.

This year, he won’t be able to participate.

Worse still, Johnson can’t play the sport he loves, his passion. It is the same sport that took his knee from him so early, the same that left him a legacy at ‘K’. Ultimate Frisbee.

Johnson’s Frisbee legacy began the summer before he arrived at ‘K’ when he bought a bus ticket to Atlantic Mine, Michigan. Traveling 14 hours to the heart of the Keweenaw, he was attracted to the International Frisbee Tournament.

The event hosted teams from all over the country, as far as California and Boston. People competed in Guts Frisbee and throwing and accuracy events. They also competed in Ultimate.

“There were these guys there from Maplewood, New Jersey. I remember they had these shirts on that said CHS – Columbia High School. These were the guys that invented Ultimate. It seemed like a cool game, so I learned to play,” Johnson said

He had the right idea. A couple guys donning maroon and gold – Calvin College colors – learned to play with him.

Johnson hitchhiked back to ‘K’ with Ultimate on his mind.

He became passionate about starting an Ultimate team. For him, nothing was better than playing a team sport in which he got to use his running ability.

“It looked a lot like running. From the standpoint of running, I can do better than most people. I loved to throw a Frisbee, so to combine my passion of Frisbee throwing with a sport I was good at – I mean, you’re going to like something you’re good at.”

At first, no one knew who he was.

“At a freshman dorm meeting,” Johnson remembers, “I made an announcement that I was starting an Ultimate Frisbee team. I told anyone who wanted to play to stop by my dorm. Later, in the middle of the night, this guy came and knocked on my door – probably drunk, you know – and yelled ‘Hey Frisbee guy, I wanna sign up for your game! Hey Frisbee I wanna play!’ The nickname just stuck.”

Soon, “Fris” was notorious across campus for the Ultimate team and for the discs he bought and sold to students from his usual spot on the quad. The Ultimate Frisbee team kept practicing, and was finally ready, Johnson thought, for a game.

He contacted those guys from Calvin, and ‘K’ played the first Midwestern Ultimate Frisbee game versus Calvin College at Angell Field.

He doesn’t even have to think twice about the date. It was the summer of 1974.

His passion for Frisbee continued throughout his four years at ‘K’. In 1975, Ultimate Frisbee was offered as a physical education credit during the since terminated summer quarter.

Johnson encouraged people to play Frisbee whenever, wherever, and however they could.

“Frisbee golf, the most popular Frisbee sport here at K, is simple,” he wrote in The Index in 1975. “Just pick a tree or a sign, give it a par, and you’re in business. There’s even a 36 hole course here around campus.”

Despite his excellent reputation at ‘K’, Johnson couldn’t find his niche after he graduated in 1976.

When the owner of the local sports store he worked at was looking to sell, Bruce offered to buy.

“I got the loan, and then the owner decided he wanted $5,000 more. I quit on the spot.”

Johnson was stuck. He didn’t want to work at a corporate store that didn’t care about its customers. He wanted to sell the stuff he knew best – sports gear – at a local place where patrons could get quality service.

His persistence paid off. Gazelle Sports was born.

More than 30 years later, Johnson continues to be passionate about athletics at ‘K’.

Through Gazelle Sports, he sponsored one of the “4 and Forever” events and donated – more than once – toward the Homecoming 5K and the Triathlon. The Gazelle sports logo is sported by students all across campus on T-shirts acquired at these events.

“I could tell Bruce was one of those who really enjoyed his time at ‘K’,” said Heather Jach, a Major Gifts Officer at the college. “He is very concerned about his own community, and is willing to do something about it.”

Though he can no longer play himself, Johnson has stayed invested in the Ultimate team.

“I first met [Johnson] when he came to see us play at practice,” said Kyle Shelton, one of the team captains. “He just stood to the side and watched us play. And he got us our jerseys at wholesale, which was pretty cool.”

But most people don’t know how Ultimate at ‘K’ got started, or that the first Ultimate game west of Pennsylvania was played here, or that the Disc Golf course actually has 36 holes. For most ‘K’ students, Johnson’s legacy lives on silently.

“I guess passion is the legacy I left there,” he said.

It is a passion that is evident in everything he recounts. His story lets others relive that legacy. But few, besides those like Jach and Shelton, have had the privilege to hear it.

“Stories go so far,” Jach stressed. “People sharing their experiences help us relate to each another. Stories are such a great part of what happens, but we don’t use that to our advantage, because people want to hear them, including me.”