For 29 summers, Mitch Johnson spent the sunshine months preparing for Fountain-Fort Carson football’s season. He did not play golf. He did not go on long bike rides. He was too busy chasing victory.

The chase at F-FC is over. Johnson, 59, retired last week after District 8 demanded he reapply for his coaching job. He served, proudly and obsessively, as head coach since 1986, but never considered reapplying.

“Gosh, I was in shock,” Johnson says of District 8’s ludicrous demand.

The shock has dwindled, and the summer beckons. He plans to take an Alaska cruise with Peggy, his sweetheart since their days as F-FC students. “The love of my life,” he says of his wife. He will devote more time to his father, Bennie, a Vietnam veteran who suffers from Alzheimer’s.

Still, he’s clearly apprehensive about life away from Mitch Johnson Sports Complex. Yes, in 2012 District 8 named the complex after the same coach asked to reapply in 2016.

“It’s going to be awfully different for me not being on the sidelines,” Johnson says.

He’s been involved, with only a break for college, as a student, faculty member and coach in District 8 since 1971, when Bennie retired from the military and the Johnson family settled in Fountain.

Johnson played offensive guard and linebacker for F-FC and returned home after graduating from CSU-Pueblo to coach the football team. He spent eight years as an assistant before becoming head coach.

An epic run ended April 28.

“I am nervous,” he says. “I am afraid. For 37 years, I’ve always been involved in Friday night lights at Fountain High School. That’s all I’ve known. It’s going to be something that, gosh . .”

He pauses to gather his scattered thoughts.

“I don’t have any other hobbies. I don’t play golf. I don’t do anything else. It’s always been built around football all my life.”

Johnson should be spending his summer preparing for the 2016 season. His retirement is a result of District 8 bumbling. Administrators decided all F-FC coaches had to reapply for their jobs. This is a fad, a cruel one, in modern public education.

“My feelings were hurt over that,” Johnson says of the reapplication demand. “I was just so frustrated. I never thought I’d ever hear that come from our small, little community.”

“I wasn’t going to reapply for a job that I had performed honorably for 29 years. That’s a lot of years. I didn’t want to subject myself to going into an interview. That was the high road that I chose, and I left.”

Johnson led the 2014 Trojans to the state quarterfinals and finished the 2015 regular season on a seven-game winning streak. F-FC outscored opponents 252-109 in Johnson’s final six wins. He had not lost his touch.

It makes no sense to Johnson, or to me, for District 8 to throw a blanket over all coaches. Why demand every coach, regardless of achievement, to reapply?

Don’t bother searching for a valid answer. There isn’t one.

“You have lug nuts that need to be tightened up, you tighten those up,” Johnson says.

I get your point, Mitch. So should everyone else. Some lug nuts need no tightening. They’re already secure. They should be left alone.

Johnson hopes to watch F-FC play during the 2016 season, but he’s not sure where he will sit. He might watch from outside, maybe on the grassy knoll that overlooks Mitch Johnson Sports Complex.

He was a massive presence in the program’s past. He will not intrude on the future.

“It’s time for me to pass my armor and my sword and my trust to a new coach and hope that they will continue to uphold the tradition,” Johnson says.

That was a typical Johnson sentence. He talks often about honor and trust and dignity. He talks about coaching the whole person.

He loved – and loved is the right word – coaching high school football. He enjoyed such a long ride.

Is the ride over?

“I don’t want to say anything now,” he says. “My wife deserves a chance for us to kind of do some things. Only time will tell. It will be hard on Friday nights not being around and under those lights. I’ll re-evaluate that after a year.”

Johnson laughs. He knew the question was coming about a return to coaching.

He doesn’t yet know the answer.