Clarke Central's Norton follows in the family business
On paper, Christian Norton’s career path seems natural, if not predictable.
Norton is the new head coach of the Clarke Central boy’s track and field team, which opened its season last weekend. He is also the son of University of Georgia track and field head coach Wayne Norton. Yet Norton is pursuing a dream neither he nor his father imagined.
“Actually, I tried to steer my children almost away from athletics,” Wayne Norton says. “I really wanted them to focus more on the academic side — just being good students, being disciplined, taking care of your business, going to class, doing all of those things.”
Passion, not pressure, has led Norton to where he is today.
In the Norton household, being a well-rounded citizen was the highest priority and was established at the most basic of levels, like reading the daily newspaper. Norton and his three younger sisters had to follow a strict set of rules if they wanted to read the sports section. One, read the first paragraph of every story on the front page. Two, read one full story from every section of the paper. Three — the ultimate goal for Norton — read the sports page.
In spite of the elder Norton’s attempts to push his children away from athletics, the Georgia coach admits that he could see his son drifting that direction from an early age. At less than a year old, when most children stick to words like “mama” and “dada,” Norton was saying “football.”
As Norton grew, his love of sports developed into dreams of success. He began playing basketball in fifth grade, his first organized team sport, and made elaborate plans to play in the NBA, NFL and MLB, and run track in the Olympics — all at the same time.
Although he was not considering a future in coaching at the time, two key events in seventh grade changed the eventual course of Norton’s career: He joined the track team and he skipped straight to the sports section on one memorable day.
Norton brought the paper to school with him that day, where he was free of the observing eye of his parents. He passed over the daily news in his hurry to read of Hart County football coach William DeVane, who had led his team to four undefeated regular seasons in a row.
“Man, that’s who I want to play for,” Norton said to himself on that day.
Although Norton lived in Clarke County and had never put on a helmet and shoulder pads before, a dream was born. By the end of eighth grade, he had finished his first year of football and received some fateful news: DeVane was coming to Clarke Central to become the head football coach of the Gladiators.
“I feel like it was orchestrated just for me,” Norton says. “After my four years were up, he left and went back to Hart County. I like to think that he came here just to coach me and then he went back to Hart County to get back to his life.”
During those four years from 2002-05, Norton formed a bond with DeVane that has lasted to this day. He also excelled in the sport, helping the Gladiators win a region championship and compete in the state playoffs on two separate occasions. But perhaps the most significant aspect of Norton’s time at Clarke Central was that he began to develop as a coach himself.
“He had what I call go-get,” DeVane says. “He wasn’t afraid of hard work. He wasn’t the biggest fellow in the world, but he made up for it with heart and determination. I did see that in him, that he wanted to form those relationships with younger players and kind of guide and help them.”
That go-get became especially evident when Norton decided to walk on to the UGA football team at the defensive back position. An injury forced him to retire from the sport before ever playing in a game. But during his time on the team, his father would occasionally look over from the track and observe Norton at football practice.
“He’d go with the big, 300-pound football players and be talking to them. He’s got their attention,” the elder Norton says. “You would think they’re just going, ‘Hey, get out of my way little guy,’ but they’re listening to him. He com
mands attention and respect, and he’s been like that since he was young.”
Norton received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in economics and sport management from UGA while coaching football and track at Clarke Central and Clarke Middle on the side. In the summer of 2012, he moved to Houston to begin teaching full-time with no plans to join the ranks of coaching.
But passion doesn’t rest. A few weeks into his new job, he sent an email to the head football coach at Sharpstown High School and was back on the field as a defensive assistant that very first fall.
It wasn’t easy, however. Norton lived 40 miles away from the high school and did not have a car. He’d wake up at 5 a.m. to catch the morning bus in time to be at his teaching job. After teaching and coaching all day, he’d get back on the bus at 7:30 p.m. and reach his house by 10 p.m. after transferring several times.
“I didn’t have time to do anything but what I loved, and that’s working with young people and athletics,” he says. “It got away all the extra stuff in life and kind of left the core of what’s important.”
And what’s important to Norton, in addition to his family, his faith and his passion for sports, is his love of Clarke Central. His longing to return to his alma mater, what he calls his “favorite place in the world,” brought him back to Athens in 2013.
Norton now spends his days as a special education and history teacher at Hilsman Middle School. In the fall, he coaches wide receivers at Clarke Central.
And this spring, Norton is directing a team of young athletes on the track as a first-time head coach. The Gladiators’ most recent success was in 2011 when they won the state title. They have had lackluster seasons since then and former head coach Stefan Smith moved to rival high school Cedar Shoals to run its track program. The Gladiators are in Norton’s hands now.
“At Clarke Central, if I do my best and become the best coach I can be, and become the best teacher I can be, I feel like I can achieve most of my career goals just within this block,” he says. “The opportunity to be here is worth it. This is where I want to be.”
Norton now echoes to his athletes the same messages that his father imparted to him. In fact, he has laid out three specific expectations for his team: be excellent in the community, be excellent in the classroom and be excellent in competition — in that order. Norton also has expectations of a winning season, but he is most concerned with laying the foundation for a program that develops athletes into productive citizens.
“Coach Norton has emphasized that,” Marcus Ellis, a junior on the team, says. “You have to be a good person everywhere, as well as on the track. The most important thing is that you be the best person you can be.”
— The Grady Sports Bureau is part of the sports media program at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
