Mark WiedmerWith his Friday night induction into the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Athletics Hall of Fame, John Tyszkiewicz became one of 213 former athletes, coaches or supporters who have been so honored.
But the retired Sayreville (N.J.) War Memorial High School teacher and coach is surely the only one of those to be singled out in a song by the rock band Bon Jovi.
“I think my kids knew about the song before I did,” the 71-year-old Tyszkiewicz (pronounced Tiss-ka-vich) said just before the induction ceremony began at the Chattanooga Golf and Country Club. “It was nice to hear about. Jon (Bon Jovi) and I are very good friends. I never coached him, but I always thought he was a good enough athlete to have been a pretty good running back or defensive back.”
The reference to the Mocs’ two-time Little All-American comes near the end of Bon Jovi’s “Just Older,” one of 14 songs on the “Crush” album released in 2000.
An ode to growing older rather than old, it contains the line “Tell Coach T I cut my hair.”