Johnston Now Honors: Inspiring Coach Award winner pours himself into others

By Randy Capps

Austin Turnage was always going to be helping people. It was only a question of where.

Fate led him to North Johnston Middle, where he now teaches life skills, helps to coach the track team and serves as the first responder at the school’s athletic events.

For all of that, and a bit more, he’s the 2024 Johnston Now Honors Inspiring Coach Award winner.

He didn’t plan on any of that, though.

“I had planned on being a suicide counselor,” he said. “I was going to go get my master's degree. I was actually supposed to move to Montana and start working at a college. The day I took the job at North, I was a week away from moving to Montana.”

His parents weren’t keen on him moving so far away, so to appease them, he took an interview at North Johnston.

“(I) walked into the North and the principal at the time was my old track coach (Kenneth Sumner), and I went, ‘crap.’ And then the rest is history. He spent the entire time basically convincing me that I should stay, and I did, and I don't regret it for a second. It has been like the best job.”

So, he dove in. He took lateral entry courses to get the necessary certifications and finished up his EMT training. In the midst of all of that, he knew he needed to find a way to integrate himself into his new community.

“I'm not from Kenly, I'm from Benson,” he said. “They're not far apart, but they are. There are worlds of difference, community wise. And if you're going to be a good teacher or a good coach or anything that deals with the community, you've got to be in it and doing stuff.”

With his track background and EMT license, he started coaching hurdles and volunteering to be the first responder at the school’s athletic events.

“I went and started coaching hurdles,” he said. “It turns out I was pretty good at coaching hurdles and just kind of stuck that way. … Then this year was actually the first year that they actually had a paid first responder position for middle school, and since I'd been doing it for years for free, they were like, ‘hey, you get it.’ 

“Never really thought I was going this way, but it’s just kind of what happened.”

He’s been at North Johnston Middle for six years, where he worked as a resource and inclusion teacher before taking on his current role. He was the school’s 2023 Leading From The Heart honoree, a program named for former Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyewski’s book that “recognizes employees who demonstrate leadership, compassion and heart on a daily basis.”

“I could not do any of this stuff without the team that I've got at the school,” he said. “I learned how to coach from Mr. (Garfield) Baker, who's the head coach. … The medical paperwork and stuff like that, well, I learned that from EMT, but the school version of it, I learned from our athletic director and our principal, we have just an amazing school.

“We're like a really big family, and I don't think I could do any of the stuff that I do without them.”

Turnage’s passion for serving others isn’t limited to school hours.

“I just quit working as an EMT about a year ago during the summer,” he said. I now work as a direct service professional for adults with disabilities in a group home (on the weekends).

“I've always been the person that wants to go and jump in and do the jobs nobody really wants to do, the ones that don't get paid well — the community jobs where I'm out talking to people and making people feel better.”

His work in the group home is a prime example.

“We'll do a snack, we watch movies,” he said of the work. “I help them shower, help them cook, feed themselves and make sure they get their medicine. 

“When I'm working at the day program during the summer, I actually will be teaching and stuff.”

Even from a young age, he was all about helping people who needed it most.

“My grandmother says that she's known that I was going to work with special needs populations since I was a little kid,” he said. “She tells the story all the time. We were at some campground or something, and there's kids playing everywhere. And the only kid I wanted to talk to was the kid that was completely deaf. 

“She says, by the end of the night, me and him had our own language and we had figured out how to communicate without any words. And she said that was the day she knew that was what I was going to do. … I've just always been drawn to whoever needs help. It doesn't even have to be someone with special needs. I'm just very much a person that's like, if I can do it, why shouldn't I?”