This article was republished with permission and originally written by and where it was published in Richard Montgomery High School’s student newspaper The Tide.
For more than 45 years, Mr. John Fahrner, known as “Mr. RM,” has been at the heart of MCPS and RM culture, teaching vibrant classes, hosting pep rallies, coaching athletes, and, at the center of it all, focusing on the students of RM.
Mr. Fahrner’s life was already interwoven with Richard Montgomery from a young age. In 1954, his father, Carl John Fahrner, was hired as the new basketball coach at RM after coaching his team to the state finals at Annapolis High School. In 1956, Mr. Fahrner’s father brought him to Richard Montgomery, where he immediately fell in love with Richard Montgomery. “I was on that [gym] floor when I was three years old,” Mr. Fahrner said. “And the dream was to be a rocket.”
His time as a student at RM would also establish his love life. During his senior year in 1971, he and his soon-to-be wife were both heavily involved in athletics. Fahrner was the shortstop for his baseball team, and Ms. Fahrner was the track manager. Mr. Fahrner would walk his soon-to-be wife home every day; the moment he decided not to let go of her hand was the moment their relationship was sealed. “She would think she helped ruin my senior year baseball, but I wouldn’t have traded her for the world,” Fahrner said.
After studying physical education and health at Montgomery College, he started his coaching career in 1979, wandering from school to school in Montgomery County, never staying more than four to five years. As the head scout of the basketball team at Thomas Wootton High School, he led the team to its second consecutive state championship. Following that, Mr. Fahrner served as the JV coach in 1983, when Wootton won its third state championship in basketball. Despite his success, the pervasive doubt haunted him, believing “I’m not where I belong.”
After 25 years of searching, Mr. Fahrner finally became a Rocket in 2000, alongside other RM teachers such as Mr. Wheeler and Mrs. Contino. His first thought was “I finally made it.” He led three different sports teams: girls’ tennis, girls’ JV basketball and varsity football, and spent hours preparing his athletes. Matthew Wheeler, a physical education teacher and lifelong friend of Mr. Fahrner at RM, noticed how Mr. Fahrner devoted almost all his downtime to preparing his teams, his plays and his practices down to the minute.
Yet across his teams, Mr. Fahrner never won any RM championships to his name. Mr. Fahrner often confided in Mr. Wheeler about his disappointment in not being the star coach he had dreamed of being. That is, until Mr. Wheeler gave Mr. Fahrner one of the biggest wake-up calls of his life. “Matt Wheeler looked at me one day. He says, ‘Coach, don’t ever say that again.’” Mr. Fahrner said. “He says, I can’t go anywhere in Montgomery County without being asked two questions. They say, ‘Do you go to Richard Montgomery, and do you know Coach Fahrner?’” That realization defined success for Mr. Fahrner.
“I realized what was important was you, not me,” Mr. Fahrner said. “And that’s when my life changed.” This understanding shaped how Mr. Fahrner approached his students and coaching. He navigates what he calls “the Ys of life,” moments when one’s path splits and a decision must be made. Mr. Fahrner continues to embrace the idea that everything happens for a reason. Throughout his early years of coaching, Mr. Fahrner found himself similarly dwelling on the missed opportunities and second-guessing decisions. Over time, he learned that the best way to navigate life is not to regret the choices made, but to embrace them and use them for the future to come.
Mr. Fahrner later encouraged others to follow his life philosophy of focusing on the students. Mr. Oakes, currently the regional championship girls basketball coach, recounts the significance of being taught this philosophy himself. “I think the biggest thing is that although the wins and losses are important, the most important thing is the relationships that you have with the students and the athletes that you work with, ” Mr. Oakes said.
Coaching 2.0
Mr. Fahrner described his older style as “thunder and lightning,” unrelenting in pushing his players toward a state championship. In stark contrast, Sarah Levit, a girls’ tennis player under Mr. Fahrner during his last season in 2020 before he retired, described him as an “extremely easy-going coach.”
Despite his mindset change, Levit says Mr. Fahrner’s comprehensive approach to coaching continued. On a windy and freezing day, a condition where most coaches and tennis players would cancel practice, the RM girls’ tennis team found Mr. Fahrner sitting in his chair, waiting for them to start. “We were all like literally, dude, what are we doing here?” Levit said. Fahrner replied, “You gotta practice for the rain, you gotta practice for the shine. You play like this, you’ll play in any condition.”
As a sophomore at St. Mary’s College, Levit also credits her continued commitment to tennis in part to Mr. Fahrner’s influence. “When I went on the team, I was not inspired or motivated to be on the team…he was a catalyst to me realizing my passion for the game,” Levit said. “You see him, and you just want to make him proud. That’s why he’s Mr. RM, because he’s the pride of RM.”
Welcome to Room 18
Interviewing Mr. Fahrner, he proudly dressed in an RM baseball cap, vest and pants. He transformed the small library interview space into a classroom, talking animatedly about his memories of students, all of which he could tell you a hundred stories about.
“If you were lucky enough to have Coach Fahrner for health, he didn’t call it health. He said Life 101,” Mr. Wheeler said. Mr. Fahrner’s health class was a place for students to laugh, cry, cheer and on some days, just talk. Mr. Fahrner prides that its environment spread far beyond that of a typical health class. “What are you going to learn in room 18 that you will take with you for the rest of your life?” Mr. Fahrner would ask. “If all you get out of this class is a freaking A, you have wasted your time and mine. My goal is to reach each student’s mind, heart and feet.”
For two decades, the first day of “Life 101” stayed the same. First, point to your elbow partner. Introduce yourself. Then take turns telling each other, ‘You’re great,’ ‘You were born great’ and lastly ‘Greatness is within you.’ “I would do [these exercises] whenever I thought they seemed down or needed it”, Mr. Fahrner said.
However, Life 101 wasn’t just an optimistic classroom, it touched on some of the darker periods of life. One of the most life-changing units for many students was the depression unit. Mr. Fahrner would go in depth into the material and communicate the necessity of getting help. “And when we finished the unit, the last thing I would yell on Friday, because I knew about weekends, I would yell at them, and I would yell very loud, ‘Suicide is not an option.” He recounts the story of one particular student whose life he had changed drastically just with this small action. In his reflection of the 18 weeks of health, this student wrote to Mr. Fahrner, ‘Thank you for my life.’ The next time he saw him, the student confessed to Mr. Fahrner that his ‘suicide is not an option’ message had saved his life. “He said, ‘when you gave your Friday speech on suicide, I was thinking of killing myself on the next day.’” Mr. Fahrner said. “He said, ‘but I didn’t.’”
Fahrner’s Success
While some students may not see a health teacher and coach at MCPS as the peak of their careers, Mr. Fahrner believes this to be his greatest victory. “I was in Mrs. Contino’s class talking about success, and a kid in the back right said, ‘Would you ever do to be successful? Mr. Fahrner, you’re just a PE teacher.’”
In high school, Mr. Fahrner and his friends often visited the closed gym during weekends to play basketball. “We would leave a bathroom window open, go up to the gym, screwdriver, take the drawers off the gym, play in the gym, put the doors back and climb out the window. Never hurt anybody.” Until one day, when the principal called them in. They were told they could never have the key to the gym, and if they were caught again, they would be arrested and thrown out of Montgomery County. But Mr. Fahrner could not be deterred.
25 years later, the key sits in a frame at his desk. “I pulled out the key to that girl. And I say today, as I speak to you, ‘there is the key to the jail’”, said Mr. Fahrner. “And that class went nuts. I said, that’s what I did, and that’s it.”
It was this energy and personal aspect that allowed Mr. Fahrner to maintain relationships with students long after graduation. Tavares “Coop” Cooper, a security guard at RM, was a basketball and football player on Mr. Fahrner’s team and also took his health class for two semesters. He described how Mr. Fahrner always built relationships first. “He was more of that than a teacher. Whenever you’re feeling down, he knows how to pick you up,” Mr. Cooper said. “He’s a father figure to me…he helped me get through life.”
“He walked me down the aisle when I got married,” Mrs. Barbara Contino said. She entered RM as a teacher the same year as Mr. Fahrner, and when she got married, she requested that Mr. Fahrner walk her down in place of her late father. “He’s my confidant. He’s like my go-to guy, especially with teaching…I had a lot of issues just in life, and he would always get some comfort from him and good advice.”
The current athletic director at RM, Daniel Whitlow, similarly emphasizes the impact Mr. Fahrner has had on him as a coach and administrator. He first knew of Mr. Fahrner’s legacy through his coaching for Rockville High School tennis, which had been under Mr. Fahrner just the year before. Even as a first-time coach at MCPS, he had heard of Mr. Fahrner’s influence, something further amplified when he came to work at RM. “Whenever I’m around him, I’m reminded of what exactly the core of the job is, and that is doing what you need to do for student-athletes,” Mr. Whitlow said.
Present Day
After 45 years at MCPS, 20 of which he spent at RM, Mr. Fahrner ultimately retired. But his life as a teacher didn’t end there. He continues to build relationships at RM, maintain his connection to MCPS sports and spends his days doing what he loves.
Even today, Mr. Fahrner can be found substituting for Health and P.E. classes and building connections with new students. In one substitute class, Mr. Fahrner entered the classroom, finished taking attendance and took out a piece of paper. As he stood, he spoke to his substitute class about the role he wanted to play in their lives. Junior Sophia Sikander, who witnessed the same speech, says the message focused on building connections with students and making a real impact, rather than simply earning an A in the class. “I took a picture of the speech he gave, and I still take it throughout the day,” Sikander said.
Junior Tui Eversley remembers her friend, junior Scarlett Funes, beginning to cry as he spoke. “Everything he was saying was just so endearing and hopeful,” Eversley said. “I couldn’t go to other teachers the way I can go to him.” Funes adds that it was one of the few times when teachers truly resonated with what she believed in. “He actually inspires you to be better…He makes it known that you are a person, and just because of the things you’ve gone through doesn’t mean that you’re any less,” Funes said. “He was one of the few teachers who had ever actually done that.”
He has continued his passion for athletics, particularly here in Montgomery County. “I’ve been following athletes in Montgomery County since 1956, at the age of three. I didn’t talk until I was five.” His sustained interest has garnered him a breadth of knowledge about the nature of athletics throughout the county. He co-led the creation of the Mocoshow’s MCPS Basketball History: The Top 50 Players (1960-2013) And A Lot More article. “He’s seen countywide as being a historian of Montgomery County athletics,” Mr. Oakes said. “Whether it’s football, basketball, baseball, track, tennis, just kind of across the board.”
Even in his retirement days, he remains an embodiment of RM culture, affectionately named Mr. RM. He has a plaque dedicated to him in the RM Hall of Fame.
“He’s still going to the games,” Mrs. Contino said. “I mean, he’s everywhere, even being retired.” During RM games, he spends the time catching up with teachers and cheering on students. “He’s still kind of a part of the athletic culture of the school,” Mr. Oakes said.
One of his last pieces of advice he gave was the process of creating your bucket list, quietly illustrating the way he has lived his life. “When you do these sheets, the kids that get stuck here, I say, you’re 95 years old; you’re dying tomorrow. What did you do? What did you want? And work backwards.”
