What happen to Donald Sage?

the bottom line.

york is a school that has big numbers on its cross country team.

they pull out the cream of the crop from the top 30 kids of 200 who come out every fall. they have strength in numbers. they rareley have a guy who is national class, sage was one of them. but they have 10 guys who are good which allows them to score very well. they dont have a lot of spots between they're top 7, they're all good.

they go on to good colleges and many don't do anything else, much like thousands of other good college runners.

ryan craven, steve finley, jeremey (whatever), dettman twins tom robbins, tom achtien, tim keller, and the kid who went to dartmouth.

what happened to them?

like a lot of other talented HS runners, they were really good in their state, but never made the next step at the college level.

it happens.

tom robbins is the kid who went to dartmouth. he qualified for regionals and finished the season with something like a 3:46. he's also going to light up the track this year...

stember was the guy who pulled up with the torn achilles I believe at penn relays not sage.

Never happened. Don's dad would have taken his hide off, and Don is not the kind of person to showboat. He's the least arrogant person you would ever meet.

In response to other comments, I have the IL state meet on tape; it was broadcast live back then, and they broadcast the entire 3200. His last lap was in 58 for the 3200. Keller's was 73. Tim had a good career as well, and I think he went under 9 minutes something like 7 times that year, though I could be wrong.

The comment that Newton burns his runners out is the most outrageous big lie there is. It is simply not true. Newton runners are everywhere; it is just that most people don't recognize them. Someone earlier today posted a list of the top 100 runners set for the upcoming Chicago marathon, and 2 runners there are York runners- Jim Akita and Mike Lucchesi. There are York runners scattered across the nation, in D1 and D3 colleges right now. In the 10 years since my kids left, I've seen probably 40 runners from York, and I don't really track the team like I used to. Newton has a number of former runners now coaching, including both my kids, as well as Akita, and several others in the Chicago area, and now into Iowa as well. He himself comments on this issue over on Dyestat; it might be worth seeing what he has to say about the criticism. I am not sure why he draws the hate; he's arguably done more for high school XC than any human alive. He is good for the sport. He has integrity, and he teaches integrity. For those of you who know him only be reputation, and base your comments on that, you really don't know what you are talking about. At 80, he is still going strong, and when he passes we will be poorer for the loss.

Joe Newton and his men of York represent the quick route to early success... nothing more, nothing less

i think sage would have gotten faster if he stayed training with newton. i think newton knew how to get the best out of him.

all you people bashing the york program are so full of it.

we should have newton train athletes from when they enter high school to when they grad college, to after. we would prob be competing with the africans right now.

I AM a York parent. Enough of this "I heard" stuff. This never happened. Not as any kind of formal practice. Ever. Now, if some kid wants to go off on a Sunday morning and on their own run 18 miles, that happened, though not often be cause most York runners know that doing that would kill how they run in their next meet. But a 2-hour run during practice? Never. So, who you gonna believe? Someone who "heard it" or someone who was actually there?

I may have missed it, but apparently no one knows the answer.

However, that did not stop folks from all kinds of tangents and non-sequitirs.

I do!!!!!!!!

That was Jonathan Stevens, dickhead. Tore his achilles and never competed again.

Thank you for at least acknowledging Tim Keller's accomplishments, greenliner. I went to West Chicago High School, a high school that, for better or worse, has been the laughingstock of the DVC in football for a number of years now. However, we pride ourselves on our other sports, especially cross country and track. Tim Keller's arrival on the scene in 2000 was an addition to the crescendo of Dan Horyn's running career at the school. Unlike at York, where there have been both brilliant and consistent runners over Joe Newton's career whom are too numerous to name, Tim is still the remaining legacy at West Chicago High, a figure of inspiration for the runners there and for the school as a whole.

Both Tim and Don had successful careers in college, though neither as successful as they might otherwise have wanted. If I remember correctly, Tim suffered a few problems at Wisco, but generally ran rather well. I have lost track of him and no longer know what he is doing, but certainly he was a game competitor and in almost any other year he would have been the star by far. You had to feel for him in that state meet; this was before we had everyone going under 9 min on a regular basis- only 8 years ago, believe it or not- and his consistent running was something. During the regular and post-season, Don went under 9 min only twice- at conference and at state, but Tim went under a bunch of times.

Well, it definitely wasn't stember who pulled up, I ran the 4X800 and I saw him cross the finish line albeit from a distance as he brought the 4X800 title home for Stanford. When the showboating stanford guy pulled up somebody said it was Don Sage and I later asked a former Stanford runner from that era and he confirmed the story without me even finishing the description of events. He seemed to think it was Sage as well.

It doesn't sound like Sage to me at all.

Belated apologies to Don Sage. The race that I was referring to where one of the Standord runners pulled up after showboating to ruin the DMR's shot at the Championship of American in the 2001 Penn Relays was Jonathan Stevens. The pull-up was mentioned in an article at mensracing. I can't believe I've been telling the story using the wrong guy for the last ten years. I am a dickhead. That being said...just goes to show you, don't showboat!!

Changed his name to Donald Paige because of this thread .

Bump. Interested to know what happened to Sage over the past 2 years??

I'd like to what happened too!

fsda wrote:

You imply Sage has inferior talent to someone like Rupp? How old are you? Don't you remember Sage running 8:42 and 4:07 at his senior year state meet?

Is this a serious question? Rupp ran 26:48.