coach_years death_date overall_record coach_team sport article_title name
1926-1947 1955 54-49 -lrb- basketball -rrb- bucknell basketball , boxing , track and field john plant -lrb- coach -rrb-
 john plant
john plant -lrb- coach -rrb-

john d. plant was an athletic coach at bucknell university from 1926 to 1947 , including being the head basketball coach from 1926 to 1932 .
plant was originally from stoke-on-trent , staffordshire , england .
as a child , he served as a laborer in the pottery mills of trenton , new jersey .
he often recalled that he and his brother were given cigarettes to smoke in order to keep his lungs clear of dust .
in his teens and twenties , he played basketball and football in early professional and amateur leagues .
he attended the peddie school , then a prep school affiliated with the northern baptist convention , located in hightstown , new jersey starting in the early years of the 20th century and at some point began coaching there .
his basketball teams won six new jersey prep school championships and he was a successful football coach .
among his players were john j. mccloy , peddie class of 1912 , who served as assistant secretary of war during world war 2 and as united states high commissioner for germany and george murphy , class of 1920 , later a hollywood actor and senator from california .
mccloy credited plant with the phrase `` run with the swift '' and with an approach to life that those words embodied and which mccloy made his own .
-lrb- evan thomas the wise men -rrb- too old to volunteer for the first world war , plant joined the ymca and ran athletic competitions for american doughboys stationed in france .
he came to bucknell university in 1926 , coaching basketball -lrb- 1926 -- 1932 -rrb- , track and field -lrb- 1926 -- 1947 -rrb- , and boxing -lrb- co-coach from 1928 -- 1930 -rrb- .
he also was the director of physical education , and was involved in the creation of the school 's intramural program .
the intramural program stressed `` participation for all '' and was emulated by other schools .
he retired in 1947 , and he was given the honor of `` the grand old man of bucknell athletics '' .
he was entered into the bucknell athletics hall of fame in 1982 .
