Whats the best book for High School Coaching

"The Long Green Line" or any other book by the dean of cross country coaches Joe Newton!

Joe Newton's Book is an awesome book on to coach high school. Not only does he cover the ideal training, he covers every single thing you don't want to have to deal with but you do have to deal with as a high school coach including recruiting kids for the team, motivation, dealing with parents, alumni, administrators, teachers, dicipline, tactics, jealous rival coaches, failure, dealing with the local newspaper reporter and everything else you can possibly think of. It is the consumate book for the high school coach. When you finish reading it, you immediately realize you have just read what a fantasy/idealistic HS program should look like but the amazing thing is that it is real. As a high school coach you know you can never come close to that perfection but at least you know how you can strive to be the best you can be.

As far as training, the guy was years ahead of his time. In the early 60s he read Lydiard's 1962 classic book Run to the Top and incorporated Lydiard's methods into his program. In his book (page ix) he credits Lydiard for teaching him Lydiard's marathon training system. This led to an immediate state championship team in the fall of 1962. Since then he has had more than 20 state XC championship teams in one of the toughest, if not the toughest state in the country. Also, his 4 X 800 team set the National high school record. Like Lydiard, he has his runners build a huge base of 100 miles per week and sometimes more for upperclassmen during the summer months. His underclassmen run lower mileage. Then he follows it up with 12 weeks of anaerobic development including Lydiard's famous 50 sprint/50 float workouts. During this 12 weeks of anaerobic training, like Lydiard, he has them continue a once weekly long run to maintain the aerobic base. Then like Lydiard, he has his men do short, sharp workouts near the end and taper and peak perfectly for the state meet. His teams peak perfectly every time. In 1984 he met Seb and Peter Coe. He incoporated some of their speed workouts into his 12 week anaerobic phase.

How do his runners do after they leave his system? Well, Don Sage went on the be an NCAA Champion in the 1500 and Marius Barken went on to run 13:08 in the 5000. Below is a complete list of the high schools that have recently produced 2 or more runners in the last 10 years that have had greater post HS success than Newton:

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For "opinion", our original poster: we are a classic Lydiard program, and have been for a while. "Distance training for Young Athletes", as Trackhead suggested, is a good start. We've certainly been successful with Lydiard's ideas over the years. However, you have to find what works: over many seasons, we have used 5-tier training, Bowerman's theories, Jack Daniels' ideas, and Dr. Vigil's training - and produced champions with all of them. These people are successful for a reason: they have a systematic approach to training with far more in common rather than different. Look at each, and find one that fits your style. Modify it to meet your athletes and their current circumstances , and you'll find success. Good luck.

As for Chris...I have been to 2 levels of the Paavo clinic, enough to know that the system has both positive points...and serious flaws. Good? The individualization, "test-and-response" training, self timing, earning the right to train more. Flaws? The peaking system (!), the % of effort on paces for anyone other than your very best kids - and particularly for girls - is DEEPLY flawed, the PPM cycles have to be CAREFULLY managed or your team will peak in Sept....ETC. You've had one class, so it all looks good. The presentation, Chris, could (with some CLARITY on Marshall's part) easily be done in one clinic. They make it a lot more complicated than it actually is.

The presentation, Chris, could (with some CLARITY on Marshall's part) easily be done in one clinic. They make it a lot more complicated than it actually is. >>

Ole' Marsh wouldn't collect as much $$$ if they did that! I went to an intro Paavo clinic one time and thought the system reeked of snake oil.

To add to what John Molvar said, not only did Mr. Newton add the training from Seb and Peter Coe, he is a good friend with Joe Vigil and uses some of his work as well. Peter Coe still comes to visit York HS once every couple of years and it was just a few years ago that Seb Coe was in town running on the track- which had just been upgraded to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars and has to be the envy of most of the local colleges. And they just built a new field house with a great indoor 200m track. Newton has won 23 state titles, and has been second an additional 19 times- and has never finished lower than 5th. He is still the only HS coach to ever be selected as an Olympic coach (1988).

Okay, okay, I'm biased, I like him and he is a friend.

Another good friend of Coach N- Bobby Knight. I don't know how Newton does it, but his runners just are good folk- the xc team has the highest gpa, even though it has 130 runners; kids wear sport coats for each meet day, and your gpa cannot drop below a "c" average ever- and this is checked each week, not once per term. Over the past few years York has had several D1 All Americans- Sage, Kyle Erickson (hurdles-UCLA), Jim Costello (throws- IA), and Maria Cicero (distance, BC- not Newton coached). At D3, there have been several runners that did well the last 5 years. Many kids are still running or did run- Roach, Cioni, Hobbs, Akita, Lucchesi, Walters, Janulis, Marotta, Olson, Stasiulis, and several are also coaching- Lawrences, Lucchesi, Akita is getting ready to. Jim Akita managed to get his 10k down to around 30.13 for D3, I think.

Once again, please stop stating ignorant thoughts without really knowing what goes on.

The bible. If the crimes against humanity in Revelations fail to motivate the little buggers nothing will. Whoever wrote that filth should be tried for terroristic threats against all mankind.