Education
He attended the Peddie School, then a prep school affiliated with the Northern Baptist Convention, located in Hightstown, New Jersey starting in the early years of the 20th century and at some point began coaching there.
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John Plant
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Career
Plant was originally from Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England. As a child, he served as a laborer in the pottery mills of Trenton, New Jersey. In his teens and twenties, he played basketball and football in early professional and amateur leagues.
Among his players were John Jay McCloy, Peddie Class of 1912, who served as Assistant Secretary of War during World War 2 and as United States High Commissioner for Germany and George Murphy, Class of 1920, later a Hollywood actor and Senator from California.
McCloy credited Plant with the phrase "run with the swift" and with an approach to life that those words embodied and which McCloy made his own. (Evan Thomas The Wise Men) Too old to volunteer for the First World War, Plant joined the Young Men’s Christian Association and ran athletic competitions for American Doughboys stationed in France.
He came to Bucknell University in 1926, coaching basketball (1926–1932), track and field (1926–1947), and boxing (co-coach from 1928–1930). He also was the director of physical education, and was involved in the creation of the school"s intramural program
The intramural program stressed "participation for all" and was emulated by other schools.
He retired in 1947, and he was given the honor of "The Grand Old Manitoba of Bucknell Athletics". He was entered into the Bucknell Athletics Hall of Fame in 1982.
