common good
LIBERAL ARTS LIVES
Dave Johnson, smiling against a backdrop of fall foliage, wearing a Penn Relays polo shirt
laurence kesterson
At Swarthmore, Johnson learned “how to map out a complex task into smaller pieces and set up a procedure. Most of the things I’ve done or accomplished have been through task management and getting the pieces in order and fitting together.”

Nearing the Finish Line

For years, he’s gone the extra mile as director of Penn Relays
by Sherry L. Howard

Track and field has been the running theme in Dave Johnson ’73’s life: as a cross-country runner in high school and at Swarthmore (where in 1970 he co-founded the 18-lap McCabe Mile in the library’s basement stacks); as a writer for several publications; and as a 50-year collector of books, programs, scrapbooks, and meet results that fill his basement and two storage lockers.

Johnson will be retiring this spring as director of the venerable Penn Relays, but he won’t be leaving town.

Instead, he’ll move down the hall from his office at the University of Pennsylvania to a space where he’ll develop a research library covering the Relays and track and field in the Philadelphia region and along the East Coast. It will include a collection Johnson started in high school when he retrieved old track records from his coach. His knowledge and the records in his collection help to piece together answers for callers searching for a relative who was in the Relays.

Most important, Johnson has for years orchestrated hundreds of officials, volunteers, and staff in pulling off one of the most prestigious competitions in the country.

“I need to have at least a sense of what all these different groups are doing and try to make sure they’re on the same page with each other, that each adjacent jigsaw puzzle is meshing properly,” says Johnson, who spends his 25-minute train commute from Lenni, Pa., with the New York Times crossword. “I’ve always loved puzzles.”

Each April, more than 15,000 athletes and 110,000 visitors converge on Penn’s Franklin Field for three days of track and field events. Begun in 1895, Penn Relays was the first track meet in the world to feature relay races, and it remains the largest. In October 2019, it was awarded a World Athletics Heritage Plaque, which was to be celebrated this year but for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Johnson’s first Relays as director was in 1996. His main accomplishment, he says, was the move from paper to digital. The number of athletes has increased by 40%, and “the races are run with a greater rate of frequency, with the pace of the meet becoming more frenetic,” he says. “In the heats of the 4×100, 36 athletes are on and off the track, with setup and running of each race lasting less than 90 seconds.”

At Swarthmore High School, Johnson was dragged into track by a friend. By senior year he was the cross-county co-captain.

“The town and the College changed my life immensely,” he says. “It was just a tremendous place to live and grow up, and a fabulous place to go to college.”

Aiming for a degree in political science, Johnson switched to religion instead. Though raised a Presbyterian, he discovered an affinity toward Asian religions after a class with Professor Don Swearer and his own readings in Taoism.

“At the time, Asian religions felt innate to me, and Christianity was something that I had to learn,” Johnson says. He graduated with a major in religion and a minor in philosophy. He likened the final day of the Relays to the completion of the Honors Program at Swarthmore.

“You grind away for an entire year,” he says. “At the end there’s this three-day ‘stand and deliver,’ and you have no choice but to do it the best you can and hope it all works.”

Dave Johnson ’73
Running Man