USGTF Member’s Lifelong Passion for Teaching Defines Coach’s Career
Ben Hogan said, “The ultimate judge of your swing is the flight of the ball.” The beauty of this statement lies in its simplicity. It is no simple matter, though, to reach or teach masterful ball flight. As golfers pursue this ever-elusive dream and instructors help guide them toward it, the imagining of a ball’s perfect arc and landing never dies in a player’s 
heart.
Imagination, dreams and golf…they have a way of intertwining and lodging steadfastly in one’s mind, never to vanish. Everyone who appreciates golf seems to find a personal path to its lifelong pursuit.
For John Means Jr., an honorary member of the United Stated Golf Teachers Federation®, the path led to coaching. A natural inclination toward teaching and a desire to improve games and lives guided him to a career as a collegiate golf coach. He knew early on this was what he was meant to do.
“I enjoyed my years playing college golf, although the experience wasn’t quite what I had anticipated or hoped for,” says Means, currently the head men’s golf coach at the University of Idaho. “I remember thinking I could change people’s lives if I were to have the opportunity to coach college golf. It was then that I set my sights on a coaching career.”
Coaching Champions: Realizing the Dream
Means, a scratch golfer, is known for his dedication to teaching and his ability to build championship-caliber teams. Never content with mediocrity, Means always sets his goals high and, by extension, those of his players, too. The results reside in the record books, which still are being written for Coach Means.
Launching his golf-coaching career in 1979 at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, where he also taught physical education, Means saw his National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I teams win 11 conference titles in as many years and compete in the NCAA Championships eight years in a row. With 24 players on his team, including one woman, Means had many opportunities to apply his teaching and coaching philosophy and techniques, and to enjoy his growing success.
”I love to teach,” says Means.
That love of teaching was enhanced when, beginning in 1982 during his Army coaching years, Means was invited to instruct in some National Golf Foundation programs, where he met some of the finest teachers in the game at that time: Bill Strausbaugh, Bob Toski, Jim Flick, Manuel de la Torre, Mike Hebron, Claude Harmon and Jimmy Ballard. While maintaining his own teaching style, Means had the invaluable opportunity to observe and learn from the best, an experience he treasures still.
During a tournament at Penn State in the spring of 1990, Means was sitting in his room with his colored pens, marking a book with caddie-like notations he had made while walking the golf course during practice rounds with his team. The custom was that his team members would copy and study the book before tournament play. The telephone rang; it was the athletic director at the University of Minnesota, asking if Means would be interested in coaching the men’s golf team, which perennially seemed to finish last in the Big 10 Conference.
“I had spent some of my growing-up years in Minnesota, and opportunity beckoned,” says Means, who accepted the position, where he subsequently augmented his coaching success during his tenure as head men’s golf coach from 1990-2002.
In just three seasons, Means led the team to the NCAA Championships, the first of eight successive NCAA appearances by the Golden Gophers and eight successive seasons of a top-20 team ranking. Means had shaped the team into a national powerhouse.
Means identifies three highlights of his coaching tenure at Minnesota. In 1998, James McLean, then a freshman, won the individual NCAA Championship title and later went on to play the Tour. In 1999 and 2000, the team was ranked #1 in the country. And in 2002, after Means had just left to pursue a new teaching opportunity, the team won the national championship.
“I remember crying like a baby,” Means says. “It was a dream come true.”
In 2002, Means departed college golf (temporarily, as it would turn out) to design a world-class teaching facility, Mulligan Masters Golf Learning Center in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, where he served as director of golf and consultant. In 2005, he assumed the coaching position for the women’s golf team at the University of Wisconsin Eau-Claire, where he led the Blugolds to two Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference titles (in 2006 and 2009) and a third-place finish at the NCAA Division III Championship.
“I greatly enjoyed coaching the women’s team at Wisconsin Eau-Clair,” says Means. “The players were extremely receptive to learning and improving their skills, and I saw great leaps of progress in a number of players during my tenure there.”
The opportunity to return to a Division I program arose last year when Means was invited to coach the men’s golf team at the University of Idaho; he accepted. Embracing the challenge of building another winning team, Means hopes to do so “from the snowy country.” The Vandals are a worthy team, with players such as senior Jarred Bossio, who won the 2010 Washington State Amateur. The coach and his team are excited about the winning possibilities.
“I’m doing what I love to do,” says Means.
An Early Love of the Game Impels the Journey
Means, born in 1955 in Madison, Wisconsin, and the third of six children, remembers vividly the day he was introduced to golf. It was May 12, 1962, the day his sister Shellie was born. As a gift to his mother, his father bought Patty Berg and Sam Snead Blue Ridge golf clubs for the two of them, so they could play golf as a couple.
“I recall seeing some funny-looking sticks with heads in the bedroom and wondering what they were,” says Means, who remembers enjoying a “Norman Rockwell childhood.”
His mother Ruby and father John (or Richard, as he was known) began playing golf together at Sun Prairie Golf Club in Madison, eventually bringing John Jr. along. The golf pro gave the seven-year-old a 5-iron that had a broken grip, and thus a career was born.
“I loved the game immediately,” Means says. “I watched Mom and Dad; they were awful. I wanted to learn to play. I beat my dad when I was nine years old.”
Means recalls nostalgically how he evolved from an observer of the game to a player.
“I used to hide in the trunk of the car,” Means says. “I would be in there for five or six miles on the way to the golf course. I did it six or seven times before my parents started checking the trunk. I got hooked on golf, and eventually they started encouraging me. They bought a membership for the family.”
Means attended high school in Burnsville, Minnesota, where he played on the golf team for four years, as captain his senior year. Although the team didn’t make it to the state championship, Means did – as an individual – finishing third in 1971. The team achieved a top-ten state finish every year he was there.
Arriving at the University of Tulsa in 1972 on a partial golf scholarship, Means found his freshmanyear roommate to be a student named Hank Haney, who later went on to golf teaching fame. While there, Means also met Arnold Palmer, whom he admires greatly to this day. During Means’s sophomore year, the university added a women’s golf program; Means got to know team member Nancy Lopez, future Tour player of great renown. His junior year, Means transferred to the University of Oklahoma, where he graduated and completed his college golf career.
“I loved playing collegiate golf,” says Means, looking back on the experience. “I learned a lot but also saw some things I thought I would do differently if I ever were to become a coach. Those memories and goals still motivate me.”
As do many talented young players, Means thought about what it would be like to compete on tour. He realized, though, that he had been beaten in nearly every college tournament by players such as David Edwards, Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite. So he laid that aspiration to rest.
In spring of 1978, just before graduating with a B.S. in education with a concentration in physical education, Means was having no luck landing a job. Then what he refers to as a “weird twist of fate” took him to New Orleans with some fellow students to a national P.E. teachers’ conference. One of his peers mentioned a bulletin board with jobs posted; Means perused it but found nothing of interest. Near the end of the conference, though, he noticed a posting from the University of Colorado: a graduate-assistant opening offering a Master’s degree in P.E.
“My whole life changed that day,” Means says.
Moving on to the University of Colorado, Means earned his Master’s degree in 1979, in just nine months’ time, preparing him well for when his first coaching opportunity arose at the U.S. Military Academy, where his collegiate coaching journey began.
A Teacher at Heart
Observing Means in teaching mode, one marvels at his energy and passion. No question is too unworthy, no swing adjustment too minor for his attention. His voice takes on a vibrant timbre and his eyes shine as he addresses any group of golfers, large or small, indoors or out, young or seasoned players, beginners or skilled. Regaling listeners with stories of successes and near-successes, of philosophy, technique, theory, physics, fascinating people he has known…whatever the topic, Means commands attention with his aura of leadership and caring. His style gallivants from serious to humorous, stern to inspirational.
“This is how I teach,” says Means.
Means’s love of teaching is real, palpable and unforgettable. He is a born teacher. And his students are the lucky ones.
