Joe Newton Retiring From York

I hope you are a teacher or coach or parent. Because if you are able to inspire and teach character any near as well as Joe Newton, you can take deep satisfaction in your ability to change young people's lives.

That's not meant as a dig. There are many good men coaching and teaching, and it would be great if you aspire to be more ethical, honorable and effective than the most successful high school cc coach in US history. That's one of the reasons Illinois cross country is so good. Generations of coaches and runners had to chase the excellence of York... and some succeeded in going past them.

Living in the western suburbs, I run into people all the time who brag they ran for Newton. It reminds me of the old guys you used to meet who served under Patton. They wanted you to know they were proud of having been part of such a powerful machine.

I have also run into people who ran for Newton and didn't like him. How could he be so bold, demanding and famously successful and not have detractors? For most of those guys, it usually says more about them than him. It's amazing that he could get 100-200 kids to show up every day for a very minor niche sport, then keep them mostly in line every year, all the while motivating more kids to work harder than anyone in the country.

The man is not, and never was Jesus Christ. There's only been one of those. Newton was driven to win, full of ferocious intensity that created glamour and excellence in a sport that is nothing more than a collection of misfits in most places. He could be profane and extremely funny. There's not a politically correct bone in his body. And his bite could be sharp if you crossed his pursuit of excellence.

And that's what ultimately drove so much of the anti-York people. Forget for a minute about the blistering hard workouts that were York's staple. Everything else he pushed was counter-cultural to the new Snowflake America. Kids had to show up - no excuses. They had to be on time. They couldn't let their helicopter parents intercede of their behalf. They had to be respectful. They were expected to work extremely hard if they wanted to be part of the Holy Grail - the top 7. They were expected to WIN, not just compete well. Not be second. The standard of excellence was higher than almost anywhere else. And he might call them out if they didn't hold up their end of the excellence bargain.

Winning, high expectations, no excuses, huge sacrifices of self and no respite from a man determined to achieve excellence all combine to make Newton a dinosaur in a soft society.

That's what York stood for longer than half a century - manly toughness. And that's much less popular today than it used to be. Those Elmhurst boys were lucky to have been a part of it.

Ha, if only girls had been lining up to date the top 7! Not sure what world your boss was living in, but I can assure you that guys on the team weren't any more in demand than others and certainly weren't pulling wool like the football team. Sure we got a bit more notoriety, being featured at pre and post state pep rally's and in the paper, but overall the success was expected and therefore not as big of a deal.

Jim Akita is head coach at Elmhurst College. Noah Lawrence is head track and field coach and assistant XC coach at Hinsdale Central HS, in the same conference. They were teammates at York and graduated the same year. Bob Schultz is coaching, Mike Lucchesi helped at North Central some years back, and there are others in the Chicago region who are York grads. Atone point, I think we counted 7 active York grads as coaches in Illinois.

I forgot to add that Collin Lawrence is helping coach at University High School in Carmel, IN.

"Joe routinely had dozens of seniors (all ability levels) in his program.

A solid majority of teams have fewer runners, total, than the number of seniors on Joe's teams."

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Thanks for this info. It speaks very, very highly of the programs.

Non-varsity seniors don't stick around if they don't see a purpose in what they are doing. If his "slower" seniors still felt purpose, that tells me he really did a great job running his program and wasn't just a "one-size-fits-all" meat grinder.

greenliner wrote:

Noah Lawrence is head track and field coach and assistant XC coach at Hinsdale Central HS, in the same conference.

Publicly released logs showing he ran upwards of 120 miles a week while being a 15:30 (completely flat) 3-mile runner.

And another, this is bio is from a few years ago -

"Paul Hass -- Head Coach at Glenbard West

Mr. Hass has served as head coach of girls cross country since 2003, and has been coaching in the program since 1997. Mr. Hass has also served as an assistant girls track coach for distance runners since 1997. Some coaching highlights for Mr. Hass include the 2010 and 2011 cross country seasons when the teams placed 9th and 6th in the state, respectively. Prior to his arrival at Glenbard West, Mr. Hass served as an assistant coach on the girls cross country team at Naperville North High School, and worked as an assistant coach at Kennedy Junior High School in Lisle coaching the boys distance runners on the track team. Mr. Hass graduated from York High School where he ran cross country for four years under legendary coach Joe Newton."

I ran high school in Illinois from 1974-1978, and I have nothing but good to say about Joe Newton.

My high school team and my father's teams (he went into business shortly after his coaching success) from 15 years prior beat Joe's teams soundly (state champions in each decade), and Joe was nothing but gracious and supportive to me and my brother. He could have easily acted otherwise. My grandparents lived two blocks from York High School and indeed my brother and I considered living with them to go to York to run (and after all, my grandfather was an exceedingly prominent guy in Chicago and very well off with plenty of room to spare in his home and my father and all of my cousins and aunts and uncles went to York, so it was hardly a stretch to consider this). We instead went to a school near my mother's family twenty five miles distant with no particular cross country success (although I have nothing but great things to say about my own high coach - a great man in his own right), and Joe's constant encouragement to me provided a great lesson into what it meant to be a good sport.

I was thrown for years by Joe's take on the Bloom cross country state championship incident - where it was alleged that Bloom's fifth man hid in the woods at the state meet - and vaulted Bloom to a state title. I respected and thought the world of those Bloom guys, because, Chicago Heights was a far cry from the candy soft suburb I grew up in (fantastic education for me, though), and they were succeeding in what was, and still is, largely a middle to upper middle class sport. My guess is that Joe was pretty taken by the emotion of the moment, and I can understand his sense of bitterness, even though I think the right course then was just to move on.

By the way, I ran on occasion with Joe's guys over the summer when I stayed with my grandparents (some of Joe's guys were the sons of my father's high school buddies, so it was an easy thing to do). My brother and I were never into any kind of long distance - 45 miles a week was a lot - Igloi type training on steroids, and we trained more far intensely than the York guys we ran with in the summers. I don't buy the screed that Joe burned out his runners. The training sessions to me were a testimony to Joe's ability to get large numbers of guys out for the sport (numbers make a huge difference), and motivate them to a common goal. Far, far easier said than done.

Ironically, my daughter recently married a top runner on a state championship team she dated since high school. To a one, every guy on that team (and they are really successful ten years on) speaks to the cross country experience as the differentiating event in their lives. Can you imagine how many guys say the same thing about Joe and his contributions? My guess is that you can't calculate the human capital and social fabric he has created - far more important than running fast times.

In the end, I find it unfathomable to say anything but positive things about Joe's enormous contribution to the sport, and to the guys he coached.

Good post. Great post actually.

Someone's masculinity is painfully fragile

"Publicly released logs showing he ran upwards of 120 miles a week while being a 15:30 (completely flat) 3-mile runner."

Rooak, Noah is my son. Just saying...

Good synopsis by one peer on others regarding the approach / styles / images of boys high school xc coaches in northern IL -

https://ernstblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/a-not-so-quick-story-about-reading-chris-quicks-one-way-uphill-only/

Newton and Vandersteen (Neuqua) are included.

The book itself gets into more detail. Great read, sort of a Running With the Buffalloes from a high school coach perspective.

I agree for the most that is pretty incredible to motivate that many kids. I have never met that man but if he is a great teacher, leader and coach kudos to him. If he gets people to believe in themselves and accomplish great things he deserves all the praise in the world. Also I agree that he shouldn't cater his training to the top 10% or even 1% who may or may not even run in college.

I think many of us know how hard the DI level is, nothing is given and a lot more can go wrong than right. But since following the sport for like 10ish years have we ever heard of really really elite York guys in Cross or distance at the D1 level? Don Sage definitely, besides that?

I'm from New York State and Fayetville Manlius is probably the closest thing we have to York. They have had Alex Hatz and Tommy Gruenewald pretty recently if memory serves correctly? Not to be a hater but for a team so good from a big state from Illinois you NEVER hear about any good York runners.

RacingtheCanteloupe wrote:

I don't mean this as a criticism of Joe Newton, I'd really like an answer.

How would he treat guys who couldn't handle the mileage? Let's say you are a 17:00 guy (for 3 miles) as a senior with no shot of running 80-100 mpw, no shot at cracking varsity and you are often injured. Do you still get to run JV? Are you part of the team atmosphere? Do you get a jersey? Etc.

Many high-mileage coaches are very "my-way-or-the-highway" and I think people assume Joe is like this by association.

My gut would tell me that he would never get the number of athletes out that he does if he and his staff were like this.

Can anyone chime in?

I've seen them run at several large meets over the course of several years in IL.

1) York can usually field over 100 runners at any given meet.

2) In the open races, there is always a huge group (dozens) of York runners usually near the back of the pack, singing in unison while running (usually some marching tune). I've seen this multiple times, over multiple years.

Based on this, I would say that Newton is happy to have ANYONE on the team regardless of the talent level. I've never seen another coach who would be happy seeing 20-30 of their runners jog together at the back of the pack in a race.

Both of those runners are guys critics use to call burnout.

Read the rest of the thread, or otherwise learn who made up the York teams. They don't make noise on the DI level because the team doesn't make DI talent (I'm talking the sub 8:50, top 20 footlocker types. They're the ones that make a splash in college.)

York makes championship teams with their 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th men. It is a myth that they do or should produce regular DI stars.

Thanks, it is really neat to hear these stories.

My only criticism of many really successful programs (from an achievement standpoint) is that they take what could be an incredibly life-changing tool for many kids and turn it into a burnout machine—the kids who survive are fast, but there are a lot of burned out, injured kids along the way.

It sounds like York is the opposite of that. They have figured out a way to give the talented, durable kids a framework to have high levels of success, while still giving less talented or less durable kids a chance to contribute.

That, to me, is more impressive than the state titles, and is a masterful work of psychology, motivation, and leadership.

Whipp wrote:

Both of those runners are guys critics use to call burnout.

Read the rest of the thread, or otherwise learn who made up the York teams. They don't make noise on the DI level because the team doesn't make DI talent (I'm talking the sub 8:50, top 20 footlocker types. They're the ones that make a splash in college.)

York makes championship teams with their 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th men. It is a myth that they do or should produce regular DI stars.

Your argument about the 4th guy is a bit flawed.

1) For a long time York would have been a top 5 team at NXN. For reference most teams had at least 1 kid in the speed ratings of 190 per tully runners. That would put you about 20th at Footlocker (admittedly a little watered down now) but 190 speed rating honestly puts you in very very elite company. Again it is a little fishy that we can point to very few All-Americans, major conference champs or even really big contributors from York

2) The 4th runner for the best team in New York was:

26 18 Terrell Coleman SR Liverpool Warriors 16:35.2 8:22 8:14 177.27 177

I've run at this course, that is a very good time. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if he ran under 9:20 this year in 2miles. You aren't going to get a scholarship to Stanford but that is D1 talent. You could be a walk on a very good school or get scholarship to a bad one but you would make the roster for a lot of teams. To say the 4th and 5th runners at york for all those years at York didn't have talent is kind of absurd IMHO.

Sounds like we agree. If Terrell Coleman never went on to break 14:00, score at conference on the track, qualify to regionals, or whatever, would you say his college coach burned him out? Of course not. But York gets criticized for burning out all these runners. But "all these runners" are just low key good runners; the expectation that they should be world D1 beaters is flawed, and so then, is the myth that Newton burned out the potential of these athletes.

Perhaps Joe Newton should have his own tab on LRC -

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=2539298&page=1

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=5122453

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=1602505&page=2

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=5545642

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=41204&page=1

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=502316

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=124651

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=5411529&page=1