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Nov. 23—ROCHESTER — A track and field guy, through and through.
That was Dick Norman, the longtime track and field head coach at Rochester Mayo High School who died on Friday, Nov. 21, 2025, at the age of 90.
"What I think of most of all was his desire to make the track and field world easier for people," said his daughter, Signe Walker. "He was always thinking of new ideas. He'd always be saying, 'Why didn't someone think of this before? There had to be an easier way to do this.' That started in the 1970s."
Dick Norman, married to Gloria Norman, who died in 2018, and the father of three boys and a girl, was born on a farm in Granite Falls, Minn., two hours to the west of the Twin Cities. He later attended and graduated from St. Olaf College, where he played football for four years.
From the time Mayo High School opened in 1966 to the time he retired in 1993, Norman was a biology and horticulture teacher at the school, as well as its head track and field coach.
And he was a tinkerer. A track and field tinkerer and the owner of RGN (his initials) Track Supplies, which he operated out of his garage and got continual assistance from his kids. Among his creations was a laser to measure the distance a shot putter, discus thrower or hammer thrower flung his or her object. He got help from an IBM worker as well as his math educator kids Hal (a teacher at Mayo) and Signe (a teacher at John Marshall) on that one. It was an instrument that caught on worldwide, earned a patent, and did away with the former way of measuring throwing distances using a tape measure.
It was even used in the Olympic Games, something that Norman became intimately familiar with, the massive track and field enthusiast having attended six different Olympic Games , the first in 1960 in Rome, which he took in with his wife.
There were all kinds of memorable Olympic trips for Norman, likely the most meaningful in 1976 in Montreal, where he got to watch former Mayo star and his pupil Mark Lutz participate as a sprinter.
"Dick and Bob Robinson were my high school coaches for four years," Lutz said. "They were very good. Dick (whose speciality was the field events) was more of a supervisor type guy. He had a distance coach and a sprints and hurdles coach. But he seemed to know something about all of it. He was a very smart guy."
Smart, extremely committed and forever bleeding Mayo's green and gold colors.
Former Mayo boys basketball coach and Mayo star athlete Mark Kieffer recalls Norman as making the heaviest push for their school to have its own outdoor sports stadium. For years, Mayo played its football games at John Marshall.
But Norman pushed hard for Mayo to have its own identity, including that stadium. It eventually got built, thanks in good part to Norman's push.
"He was the one lighting the fire to get Mayo Stadium built, for football," the 69-year-old Kieffer recalled. "It was just an injustice that for so many years after the school was built, we didn't have a stadium. (Norman) kept shaking the bushes to get that done."
Included in that building was a nine-lane all-weather track, the first of its type in the area.
Norman was also constantly shaking the bushes to field ultra-competitive track and field teams. Signe Walker recalls seeing her dad at the beginning of every school year, scouring the Mayo hallways for potential athletes.
He'd give them his spiel to get them out.
"He'd watch these kids going down the hallway," Signe said. "If he saw a kid that had the stature to be a jumper or a hurdler, he'd tell them, 'Have you ever considered going out for the track and field team?"
He got ample kids to come out that way, building a program that eventually hosted its own invitational, which, in its early years, was a big two-day event. It went from being called the Mayo Invitational to its present-day Dick Norman Invitational.
Signe Walker is missing her father. His enthusiasm for life and sports and family all jumped out, as did that dry sense of humor of his.
Signe has a son Janek, who along with his wife, have a 7-month old son, Quincy, who is just starting to crawl.
Recently, his great-grandfather — Dick — watched the baby do its thing. He had this to say:
"His first comment was, 'It looks like he doesn't have a very good drive off his lead leg,"' Signe recalled. "He said, 'It looks like he needs better knee drive.' Even in his last week, Dad was talking about sports."
There was no word yet on whether Dick had successfully or not recruited him for the track and field team.
Funeral arrangements were still pending as of Sunday evening.
Mark Kieffer, former pole vaulter under Dick Norman and later a Mayo coach:
"I enjoyed pole vaulting for Dick for four years. He knew his stuff. He had high expectations and he had kind of a real in-charge presence. He had a real passion for it. He kept statistics at all the meets we were in. He was the guy. You could tell that. . .He was also the one lighting the fire for Mayo Stadium to get built. He kept constantly shaking the bushes for that to get done. And he bled green and gold."
Mark Lutz, former athlete under Dick Norman and an eventual Olympian in the sprints:
"Dick was more of the supervisor type guy. He oversaw the whole (track and field program). He had a distance coach and a sprint and hurdles coach. . .He loved to talk when the Olympics were on. He wanted to talk about all the results. Or if there was a track meet on TV, he'd call me. We'd been in touch off and on for all of these years. I always sat next to him at Quarterbacks Club meetings."
Donny Holcomb, former head Mayo track and field coach after Dick Norman retired:
"It was amazing how detailed coach Norman was with keeping records and workouts, and how much he loved the sport and built it up at Mayo. He was very smart and very patient. . .Just his passion for Mayo really stood out. The green and gold meant a lot to him."
Rich Halverson, a former assistant coach in charge of distance events under Norman:
"The best part of coaching under him, was he let Bob Robinson (sprints coach) and me — we were his assistants — run our own areas. He never interfered with us. All he was interested in was the results. He was really good to work with. I worked with Dick for 20 years."
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That was Dick Norman, the longtime track and field head coach at Rochester Mayo High School who died on Friday, Nov. 21, 2025, at the age of 90.
"What I think of most of all was his desire to make the track and field world easier for people," said his daughter, Signe Walker. "He was always thinking of new ideas. He'd always be saying, 'Why didn't someone think of this before? There had to be an easier way to do this.' That started in the 1970s."
Dick Norman, married to Gloria Norman, who died in 2018, and the father of three boys and a girl, was born on a farm in Granite Falls, Minn., two hours to the west of the Twin Cities. He later attended and graduated from St. Olaf College, where he played football for four years.
From the time Mayo High School opened in 1966 to the time he retired in 1993, Norman was a biology and horticulture teacher at the school, as well as its head track and field coach.
And he was a tinkerer. A track and field tinkerer and the owner of RGN (his initials) Track Supplies, which he operated out of his garage and got continual assistance from his kids. Among his creations was a laser to measure the distance a shot putter, discus thrower or hammer thrower flung his or her object. He got help from an IBM worker as well as his math educator kids Hal (a teacher at Mayo) and Signe (a teacher at John Marshall) on that one. It was an instrument that caught on worldwide, earned a patent, and did away with the former way of measuring throwing distances using a tape measure.
It was even used in the Olympic Games, something that Norman became intimately familiar with, the massive track and field enthusiast having attended six different Olympic Games , the first in 1960 in Rome, which he took in with his wife.
There were all kinds of memorable Olympic trips for Norman, likely the most meaningful in 1976 in Montreal, where he got to watch former Mayo star and his pupil Mark Lutz participate as a sprinter.
"Dick and Bob Robinson were my high school coaches for four years," Lutz said. "They were very good. Dick (whose speciality was the field events) was more of a supervisor type guy. He had a distance coach and a sprints and hurdles coach. But he seemed to know something about all of it. He was a very smart guy."
Smart, extremely committed and forever bleeding Mayo's green and gold colors.
Former Mayo boys basketball coach and Mayo star athlete Mark Kieffer recalls Norman as making the heaviest push for their school to have its own outdoor sports stadium. For years, Mayo played its football games at John Marshall.
But Norman pushed hard for Mayo to have its own identity, including that stadium. It eventually got built, thanks in good part to Norman's push.
"He was the one lighting the fire to get Mayo Stadium built, for football," the 69-year-old Kieffer recalled. "It was just an injustice that for so many years after the school was built, we didn't have a stadium. (Norman) kept shaking the bushes to get that done."
Included in that building was a nine-lane all-weather track, the first of its type in the area.
Norman was also constantly shaking the bushes to field ultra-competitive track and field teams. Signe Walker recalls seeing her dad at the beginning of every school year, scouring the Mayo hallways for potential athletes.
He'd give them his spiel to get them out.
"He'd watch these kids going down the hallway," Signe said. "If he saw a kid that had the stature to be a jumper or a hurdler, he'd tell them, 'Have you ever considered going out for the track and field team?"
He got ample kids to come out that way, building a program that eventually hosted its own invitational, which, in its early years, was a big two-day event. It went from being called the Mayo Invitational to its present-day Dick Norman Invitational.
Signe Walker is missing her father. His enthusiasm for life and sports and family all jumped out, as did that dry sense of humor of his.
Signe has a son Janek, who along with his wife, have a 7-month old son, Quincy, who is just starting to crawl.
Recently, his great-grandfather — Dick — watched the baby do its thing. He had this to say:
"His first comment was, 'It looks like he doesn't have a very good drive off his lead leg,"' Signe recalled. "He said, 'It looks like he needs better knee drive.' Even in his last week, Dad was talking about sports."
There was no word yet on whether Dick had successfully or not recruited him for the track and field team.
Funeral arrangements were still pending as of Sunday evening.
Mark Kieffer, former pole vaulter under Dick Norman and later a Mayo coach:
"I enjoyed pole vaulting for Dick for four years. He knew his stuff. He had high expectations and he had kind of a real in-charge presence. He had a real passion for it. He kept statistics at all the meets we were in. He was the guy. You could tell that. . .He was also the one lighting the fire for Mayo Stadium to get built. He kept constantly shaking the bushes for that to get done. And he bled green and gold."
Mark Lutz, former athlete under Dick Norman and an eventual Olympian in the sprints:
"Dick was more of the supervisor type guy. He oversaw the whole (track and field program). He had a distance coach and a sprint and hurdles coach. . .He loved to talk when the Olympics were on. He wanted to talk about all the results. Or if there was a track meet on TV, he'd call me. We'd been in touch off and on for all of these years. I always sat next to him at Quarterbacks Club meetings."
Donny Holcomb, former head Mayo track and field coach after Dick Norman retired:
"It was amazing how detailed coach Norman was with keeping records and workouts, and how much he loved the sport and built it up at Mayo. He was very smart and very patient. . .Just his passion for Mayo really stood out. The green and gold meant a lot to him."
Rich Halverson, a former assistant coach in charge of distance events under Norman:
"The best part of coaching under him, was he let Bob Robinson (sprints coach) and me — we were his assistants — run our own areas. He never interfered with us. All he was interested in was the results. He was really good to work with. I worked with Dick for 20 years."
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