No matter if you had a class taught by
Mr. Mojzik,
wrestled, played football or attended Jackson for more than a week
between 1969 and 1975... chances are you knew Tim Mozjik.
Tim Mozjik
loved to coach and teach at Jackson High School. Mojzik would
have loved coaching and teaching kids anywhere. That's just the
kind of guy he was. At least with my class ('75) Mojzik was among, if
not our favorite
teacher at JHS.
It made news of his death more difficult
after hearing
that two 18 year olds and a 23 yr old had been charged with Tim's
murder. Kids barely older than those that
Tim Mojzik dedicated his life to helping.
It was apparent as the news began to reach JHS alumni that time hadn't changed the way
we felt about Mojzik. Maybe
it's because we are such a small group or we related to him because he
was only 4 or 5 years older than the JHS seniors when he arrived
at Jackson in '69. (His moustache helped...see both photos to
judge whether it worked or not).
I thought of him showing up here in cyberspace
but never had I thought about cyberspace being the place that would
let alumni know why he wouldn't make it back.
While many of us can remember Mojzik cruising through the halls
or standing behind the lectern teaching class, it's those memories of him
as the coach that come to mind for many alumni and former faculty. And
not just the guys who remember "Coach Mojzik". I remember seeing him with
his clipboard or outside
swinging his whistle many an afternoon as I was leaving Jackson and
football practice was just getting started. You'd see Mojzik wearing his black windbreaker or t-shirt and shorts chatting with a group of girls while the
guys ran laps. Just another fall day and Mojzik moment. In
the four years my class was at Jackson, Mojzik earned our respect as an
educator and coach despite or because of that irrepressible Mojzik charm.
Vince Lombardi would have liked Mojzik- if Lombardi
could get a word in edgewise.
"Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all time
thing. You don't win once in a while, you don't do things right once
in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit.
Unfortunately, so is losing."
- Vince Lombardi
Tim was a player. Despite having been pinned in the final match.
In our hearts Mojzik was and will remain a champion and a winner.
My last memory is more like a Mojzik moment when he and Bridget
attended our 15th class reunion. Part of the night surrounded by the football
players and wrestlers, later with a group of us listening as he told stories.
He wanted to know what we were doing and it seemed that at one point
or another he'd had us all laughing. He was still the same, he
even looked the same looked the same despite the years. No doubt he'd
still had that charm and gregarious personality. He was glad to
see us and we were glad to see him. I was trying to imagine Mozjik
being 54 yrs old, it was hard, it's even harder
to imagine he's gone.
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear- not absence of
fear.
- Mark Twain
As I sit here throwing away words and thinking back on those days when
Mojzik ruled JHS, I thought of all the other alumni doing the same
thing as word spread about Mojzik. For a second I was back. I
saw the
cyber hallways of Jackson lined with former students from all
JHS classes as each one came back to pay respect to the young Coach and teacher
we remembered.
It would have taken a long time
for Mojzik to make his way down that hallway. He would have
stopped to talk to each of us, and been curious as to how we were
making out. He would have loved seeing the football players,
wrestlers and other athletes and would have taken a moment with each
one recalling a moment with a particular win or accomplishment.
Despite the years, he'd have remembered us. I don't believe he'd be too surprised to
see us there. He always expected the best from the athletes and
saw the best in us as kids. It wouldn't be too difficult for him to
believe that we would want to be there for him like he was
always there for any of us. That's the kinda guy he was.
This time it's not the doors of Jackson
High School closing or the end of the reunion. This time we're
back to remember a good coach, a good teacher and someone who turned
out to be a friend. Goodbye Mojzik.
Honest men esteem and value nothing so much in this
world as a real friend. Such a one is as it were another self, to whom
we impart our most secret thoughts,
who partakes of our joy, and comforts us in our affliction; add to
this, that his company is an
everlasting pleasure to us.
- Pilpay
a Brahmin gymnosophist,
JHS Comments
I'm a Riley graduate, and stumbled upon the Jackson website by a
link through their alumni page. Bridget Bradley Mojzik is
my sister, and I was moved after reading your editorial that was
associated with the SBT article on the Jackson website.
As you can imagine, this has been a terrible tragedy for
Bridget, their children, and Tim's family, and I'm sure that they
would appreciate the expressions of sympathy from old friends.
Sharing old memories would be a wonderful healing process
for everyone. It was genuinely a joy to read the memories of Tim that
were written by former students. He would be proud....
Megan Tipton
Wow, J, that is so sad. He was a great teacher!
What a sad sad thing, I am very sorry to hear about that. Jan Sharp Streich '71
Yes I knew him. He was coaching the freshmen team
when we were seniors at Jackson. He was cool and a hip guy.
Such sad news.
Dear
Friends:
I went on the web and found the news article in the Charlotte, NC
web newspaper. Tim was shot while inside a Wendy's and killed by three
men who have been arrested and charged with first-degree murder and
felony conspiracy to commit armed robbery. Two of the thugs are 18 and
the other one is 23. All three lived in the area and might be linked
to other similar type robberies.
What would you think if I followed this case to trial and sentencing?
We would be able to send the sentencing Judge some of our thoughts on
this senseless murder of one of our former coaches and Jackson
teacher.
For those
interested I am sending the link to the newspaper article.
Tim was a good guy. Even though I wasn't on the football team, I did get to interact with him a bit. I was a member of the cross country team and was in and out of the locker room a lot. He seemed upbeat and involved with the football team. Remember, he was just out of college, so he wasn't but four years older than we seniors were anyway.
But what really hits hard, is the senseless way he had to die. The restaurant industry is acutely aware of the hazards of handling big sums of cash. We take every measure to insure the safety of all our staff, not just the managers.
Jim Bellows '71
Thanks for letting me know about Tim Mojzik. Also
let me know what I can do to help... Rick Streich and my brother were
pretty good buds in high school... glad to hear he is doing well.
Cheryl Husvar '75
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South Bend Tribune
His youthful enthusiasm remembered
most in wake of tragedy
COMMENTARY
By BILL MOOR
South Bend Tribune
Former Jackson High School football coach Wally Gartee wishes he could
have bottled up Tim Mojzik's enthusiasm and sold it.
"Tim was like a miniature Mike Ditka," Gartee recalls of his former
assistant from 30 years ago. "He was very enthusiastic and he would
get in the middle of the kids and really show them how to block and
tackle. All of the players, including my son Mike, loved him.
"We all did."
That's why the news stung so deeply when Mojzik's South Bend friends
learned that the former Jackson and Adams assistant football and
wrestling coach had been shot to death in Charlotte, N.C., last week.
According to the Charlotte Observer, the 54-year-old Mojzik died of a
gunshot wound to his chest early March 5 while closing the Wendy's
Restaurant that he had been managing. There were no signs of a
struggle, robbery or forced entry, and police continue to check on
leads.
He left behind his wife, Bridget, a South Bend native, and their two
teen-age daughters.
He also left behind hundreds of no-longer-young former students and
players from South Bend who still might remember how he showed them
that adulthood didn't have to be dull or drab.
"Tim was one of those guys who you couldn't help but like," says
Dale
Rems, who replaced Gartee as Jackson's head football coach in 1973 and
also coached wrestling. "He touched a lot of young people's lives."
After growing up in Hammond and playing football at the University of
South Dakota, Mojzik took a teaching and coaching job at Jackson in
1969.
"That was a tough fall at the school because (former Riley state pole
vault champ and Jackson student teacher) Bob Gordes died after a
trampoline accident at the school," Gartee says. "A lot of people had
a hard time with that, and Tim and all his energy really helped to get
the spirits back up."
Mojzik stayed at Jackson until it closed as a high school in the
spring of 1975 and then went over to Adams, where he taught history
and was a football assistant for Tom Connelly and a wrestling
assistant under Moe Aronson.
He left the teaching profession in 1978 to work for Eli Lilly in
Indianapolis. Then about 10 years ago, his wife's company transferred
the family to the Charlotte area, where he went back to teaching.
About three years ago, he entered restaurant management.
I remember Tim Mojzik from his South Bend days, too.
I ran into him a few times at Adams while I was a sports writer. I
admired the way he worked with the kids, and I enjoyed his sense of
humor. During one wrestling practice where Moe Aronson had worked
himself into a bit of a lather, Mojzik whispered to me, "I tell the
kids Moe has hair on his palms. That's why he's so tough."
"Oh, and Tim could do some great impersonations," Rems adds. "He would
have everyone in stitches."
Rems, who now lives in Florida, had stayed in contact with Mojzik over
the years.
"He always kept us updated," Rems says. "I actually think he liked
talking to my wife, Barb, more than me when he called up. She probably
is a better listener."
Mojzik did like to talk.
"When he was the head freshman coach at Jackson and I was his
assistant, we could be really loud on the sidelines and probably upset
a few parents right behind us," says Larry Szczechowski, now at
Washington High School. "We were young and really enjoying what we
were doing. It was always a lot of fun being around Tim."
In fact, Szczechowski would occasionally join Mojzik and his family
over in Hammond when they would go to Chicago Bears games.
"He and his dad and uncles loved the Bears," Szczechowski says. "They
were all good, salt-of-the-earth people."
According to family members, Mojzik had been waiting to hear from
doctoral education programs in Georgia and the Carolinas, and had
planned to return to teaching. He hoped to work with students with
special needs.
The classroom was calling him back.
"I talked to Tim on Thursday (five days before he was shot) and he
always talked about Jackson and had many good stories that he liked to
reminisce about," Barb Rems says.
And now he is gone -- in such a tragic way.
"But we will always have our memories of Tim," Dale Rems says.
I am totally shocked to hear that Tim was shot to death.
As I remember Tim, he was such a fine young man, a good teacher
and coach with an excellent future in front of him. I believe that
he was good for the youth of America as a teacher or as a manager
of Wendy's. It is truly a loss. The perpetrators should be
prosecuted to the fullest extent and his family should be
compensated as much as the law allows.
Joe
Kreitzman
JHS
Teacher and Coach
"If your in touch with Bridget, please tell her
that I am very sorry for her lost and I hope
that the police find the idiot (s) who did this.
After 25 years in law enforcement, I have had to
deal with many things but you still sit back and
feel sadness when it happens to someone you
know."
I will certainly be a part of whatever is eventually done. (i.e.
Rick Streich's comments) As I thought back,
he was actually my football and wrestling
coach for all four years. I spent quite a bit of
time with him and really liked him as a coach and
person. I know he will be missed by his family.
Kevin Geraghty
'75
I remember Tim as the most enthusiastic and
optimistic teachers I have ever had. His spark in
life will be missed, but will not be forgotten.
Rick Smith "72"
Thank you
for letting me know about Mr. Mojzik.
I came home from Holy Saturday
Mass last night
and read your email. I forwarded it to my brother Mike
who lives in Kansas City. How awful!!!
Kelly Cox '75
I never had Mr Mojzik as a teacher, but I remember him and Coach "Ski" as being buddies. He, being young himself, related well to us Seniors. I remember how every-body loved his classes and you could always find him chatting and laughing with someone in the hall.
