HANCOCK COUNTY — Veteran coach Bruce Kendall got a head start on social distancing.
It’s not that he wanted to, he had to.
Kendall has the sentiments of many during this unprecedented time.
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“It’s been a crappy year,” he said.
The 66-year old longtime Mt. Vernon High School cross-country and track and field coach is recovering from cancer surgery.
“Around Thanksgiving, I knew something was wrong,” said Kendall, who began his teaching and coaching career at the high school in 1975.
Had the spring sports season not been cancelled Thursday, Kendall would be entering his 40th as the Marauders boys track and field head coach. This past fall was his 39th as head coach of the boys cross-country team.
Over his career, he has been head coach of 110 different teams, including 28 as head girls cross-country coach, two as head girls track and field coach, with one each of girls volleyball, boys volleyball — that’s right, boys volleyball in 1976 — and freshman boys basketball.
His coaching résumé includes 54 team titles (28 county, 10 conference, nine sectional, six regional and one cross-country semistate). He’s taken five cross country teams to the state meet.
Kendall said he had noticed blood in his urine. He hadn’t been having any pain until December when a tumor in his kidney ruptured and he began developing blood clots, but it would be 40 days before they could have surgery.
“The pain is terrifying,” Kendall said of what he calls a December that he can hardly remember. He was told he was in renal failure. “I was in pretty bad shape in December.
“I’m strong in my faith. I didn’t have fear. When He takes me. He takes me.”
His doctor asked if he had a flu shot and if not, he needed to do his best staying away from people.
“I’ve been social distancing for five months. They said it would be 40 days before surgery or do it over the summer and I said, ‘Let’s get it done,’” said the coach, who retired from teaching in 2015.
Like coaching, Kendall taught a variety of subjects over his teaching career, including Earth Sciences, Astronomy, Meteorology, Biology, Physics, Health and Physical Education.
The cancer was the size of a golf ball, Kendall said. The surgery, which happened Feb. 25, removed the entire kidney and with the cancer encapsulated to the organ, the coach said he is most-likely cancer free, though he won’t know officially if he’s clean until this summer when he has CAT scan and ultrasound tests.
“I think I’m in the clear, but I won’t know until this summer,” he said.
It’s the second time he has had cancer. He beat prostate cancer in 2011.
He joked that he is running out of organs to be removed.
“It’s another hurdle I have to jump over,” Kendall said of his recovery. “I’m treating this like a speed bump.”
The coach said he’s feeling pretty good and doesn’t plan on retiring from coaching (though his wife Cynthia, he said, is “ready for me to be done”) at the school he had no idea he would end up spending his entire teaching and coaching career.
He grew up in Indianapolis and went to Northwest High School. He had hoped, after graduating from Ball State University, where he played volleyball for Don Shondell, to return to the city and hopefully land a job at Pike High School.
He said he applied at 13 different schools and had interviewed at Pike before Mt. Vernon offered him a position. He signed a contract on May 30, 1975 and has been there ever since. Pike offered him a job the very next day.
“I didn’t plan being here that long,” he said. “It just kind of worked out. I never thought I’d be in a place this long. I’m a city boy, but I wish I grew up out here (in Hancock County), I can really see the benefits.”
With no track season this year, Kendall, like the rest of the state and most of the country, is hunkered down at home.
He said since his illness and surgery a lot of track and cross-country alums have wanted to come by to see him and offer help, or just come by to catch up.
He has appreciated it, but knows that, during these times, it’s not a good time to visit.
“It’s been weird during this virus — alums come by the house and want to do something for me,” Kendall said, then added his perspective and humor to it like only the longtime coach can. “I tell them, ‘Stay Away!’ I’ve had cancer, old age and I’m diabetic, if I start smoking I’ll cover all the bases (for vulnerability to catch the virus).”
For now he is trying to stay busy, noting that if this is a preview of what retirement will be like, he’ll go stir crazy.
(In fact, he said he completely cleaned a chainsaw during the interview for this story.)
Minus visitors and a team to coach, he’s doing his best to stay busy.
“I’m just beginning to feel normal,” the recovering coach said. “I’ve cleaned the garage. I’ve cleaned the bedroom. I’ve got stuff done that I’d never get done.”
