Is Doug Soles the greatest high school boys coach of all time?

I live in Georgia now. I had to look up Westminster School because I had never heard of it. I have definitely heard of York HS and Joe Newton, though.

Georgia has seven different classifications. When I ran in PA many years ago, there were only two classes - AA and AAA. And the population of PA back then was about 12 million compared to about 6.5 million for GA. The competition is simply watered down here. I think they should drop to three classes max, but I am sure football has a lot to do with it. The state organization can make a lot more money hosting seven state football games than just three, along with seven basketball tournaments, etc.

That would've been impossible as he often had 100 - 200 boys to coach.

you want us to compare the times of the 17 year olds on his team to when they were 14?

Of course they got faster, they went through puberty and they also live at altitude.

Georgia has 10.8 million people. Yes too many classifications but at same time in state like Georgia its harder to train for xc and harder to develop a running culture in a football centric state so there's that...

The answer to this question is, and will always be, Joe Newton. You are talking about a coach who won 28 state titles in one of the toughest states in the nation, most of the time with only 2 classes, and who was in the top 3 something like 45 times. You are talking about a man who built such a culture of success that executives still talk about him, Seb Coe lauds him, and his former runners are coaches across the country. York won the first NXN race, won a ton of postal championships, had runners like Don Sage, Marius Bakken, Jim White, Ron Craker, the Dettman twins and many more. Former runner Jim Akita coaches one of the US teams now, his former runner Noah Lawrence is a coach at top school HInsdale Central, and the York boys team under Newton never had less than at least 100 runners. Ask the coaches, not kids with recency bias, who the best XC coach in history is and they will all tell you Newton.

https://spincutler.medium.com/what-teachers-should-learn-legendary-cross-country-coach-joe-newton-ceb3e5b82956

Glitch- Jim Akita coaches one of the UW teams, not US- typo.

I’m not going to comment on his approach to training but as a person he is top notch. There’s no coach more giving of his time and willing to share his thoughts regarding training. When my daughter started running, I randomly reached out to him and he was incredibly generous with his time. I was actually shocked at how helpful he was.

I think this is important to note when it comes to runners "peaking in high school" or being burnt out. The bottom line is that the level to be a top NCAA runner is much higher than the level of a high school runner. If you're going to top out at around 15 min for 5k, I think it's better to train hard and reach that level in high school where you can be a state level runner/ be part of a national caliber team. High school is also a good time to put more focus on running since you're living at home and have a much easier balancing act with your schedule. In college, you've got to focus in on certain things and look ahead, meaning for 99.9% of people, running is no longer as important.

Also want to add about Soles in general is that the dude knows how to build a program, not just a varsity team. I haven't followed how deep his squad is at Herriman but I remember his Great Oak teams would sweep invitationals with their JV and FS squads on both the men's and women's side. One criticism I think you could have of Brosnan's Newbury Park team was that it was essentially just the varsity guy and it seemed like that was basically the whole program. I think both are great coaches but this was an aspect I always thought was impressive about Soles' Great Oak team.

One thing about the late coach Newton- he had a superb feeder system. It began in the junior high schools, where the xc/track coaches would begin to develop runners while letting Newton know who was advancing fastest. Those kids were invited to run with the York team between end of 8th grade and beginning of 9th, in the summer running program. So Newton had good young runners in shape even before those kids were in high school. My kids ran for him, and that summer (after 8th grade but before they began HS) they put in just over 300 miles of running; the next summer they hit 1000+. And every summer after so that by the time they got to college, the college training was actually a bit easier.

My take on Sean Brosnan is that he had the advantage of transfers into his program, so that developing younger runners was a secondary action. I could be wrong since I do not have details of their program.

Certainly, Coach soles deserves respect for his accomplishments. But they are recent and at present not yet longstanding. If you look at Newton or the Kraniks, that is success over a generation or longer.

Soles has been around forever.

His boys teams:

2015 - NXN Champions

2016 - NXN 6th Place

2017 - NXN 6th Place

2018 - NXN 2nd Place

2019 - NXN 2nd Place

2022 - NXN 3rd Place

2023 - NXN Champions

He also had 3 girls podiums from 2014-2016. His boys appear to be the favorites to win again next year.

Temo from AF has four 2nd places for boys. Bill Aris from Manlius has like 16 total podiums. Right now, who in the country is a better coach than Soles is?

Definitely have respect for each Coach for different reasons. As you say, Newton's longevity and sheer volume of titles is amazing. Being from CA, I can only think of Walt Lange at Jesuit who has been a consistent producer of runners and titles over so many decades. Brosnan I respect a lot for raising the bar for high school runners in general and producing the greatest high school cross country team there likely ever will be. Soles deserves immense credit for building two national championship programs in different states and essentially from scratch (I think Great Oak was literally a brand new school when he took over and apologies if Herriman has some tradition of success that I'm not aware of). For me, as someone who ran just prior to the Great Oak era in CA SS and was coaching during their peak years, Soles' teams just always impressed me and were exactly what I'd want an xc/track program to be: highly competitive for both the men and women and down the ranks of each grade level.

I really think it depends on your views. Is it the job of the HS coach to set up the athletes for college success? Is it the HS coaches job to get the most out of the athletes in HS no matter the cost? Some have very different opinions on those questions.

Gotta remember Ken Reeves at Nordoff High, assistant at Ventura and Foothill Tech. 15 state titles as a head coach in CA and sprinkle in the state titles with Bill Toker at Ventura. He had his hands in state titles in 4 different decades and that does not include the one we are currently in.

Walt Lange is a great addition. He is also one of the best coaches in history. Pat Tyson was great at Mead in OR, as well. Bill Aris is a great coach. I forget their names but coaches at Mountain View and Bingham, were good.

Soles has not been around forever. Newton kind of was- 50+ years. I say this in no way to demean Soles, who is clearly a great coach. But credit where it is due. Newton spent half a century at York! And could not be replaced, as Coach Kern has tried. It's a different era now- training differs, shoes differ, and so on. I give Soles far more accolades than I do Brosnan, who I think benefited from transfers in. Newbury was great, absolutely. But it isn't going to remain that way. Herriman will remain a force, and I think you will see other teams rise. In IL, Downers Grove North has a superb coach, as does Hinsdale Central (couple of coaches) and the Plainfields. But these teams ebb and flow.

There are so many things wrong with the above post:

1. NXN was not weak this year.

2. How an athlete adapts to college coaching is on the college coach, not the HS coach.

Number 2 is something that HS coaches that don't care about the future of their athletes would say.

Downers also has a couple coaches. Their head track and head distance coach in the spring (asst. in the fall for CC) won a state title at a different school in Illinois before coming to Downers.

I think you have to say he is for the modern internet/ NXN era.

the consistency and both genders being successful AND doing it at two different schools/ states is pretty impressive.

Joe Newton’s time was different, barely any overlap into the modern era.

This is all based off of results only. Not training or development/ size of school/ etc. but overall results he’s he best

Yes, to DGN, correct. They've done a hell of a job over the past few years.

The question of developing runners for college is interesting and has been going on forever. Obviously, once a runner graduates his coach is not longer the issue, so what happens in college is, in a sense, up to the runner. What I often see is that you see college runners who were not top HS runners end up developing superbly, and sometimes top runners do. They used a accuse York of not having great college runners, but this is not true. It is true that people ran at all kinds of levels- D1, D2, D3 and so on- and achieved success, but running was no longer their be-all and end-all. For. some York runners, running is all they did. So they were free, so to say, in college. Could run for fun, as part of a team or not at all.

Newton died in 2018, and I think he was the last of his breed- old school, big discipline, high mileage. We won't see his likes again, not in this internet savvy age.