Best High School Cross Country Coaches Ever

Brian Hunsaker

same lukezic. he and fayant had some intense battles. lukezic had run 4:08 and 8:57 the year before, getting second in both to michael kiter (shadle park, spokane). he was thought of to be THE guy to end spokane's xc/track dominance-- there were like 15 straight individual xc titles from spokane i think. but fayant dug it out and withstood lukezic's kick. it was a huge surprise but, considering he was a fayant from mead, not a huge surprise. fayant then went on to outkick lukezic in the 3200 that spring.

spokane xc wrote:

same lukezic. he and fayant had some intense battles. lukezic had run 4:08 and 8:57 the year before, getting second in both to michael kiter (shadle park, spokane). he was thought of to be THE guy to end spokane's xc/track dominance-- there were like 15 straight individual xc titles from spokane i think. but fayant dug it out and withstood lukezic's kick. it was a huge surprise but, considering he was a fayant from mead, not a huge surprise. fayant then went on to outkick lukezic in the 3200 that spring.

Wow, Kiter, another spokane great from a different high school than the big 4 previously mentioned. It's great to know that Lukezic is representing Washington so well.

I knew a dude from a Spokane school who ran 4:18 in a dual meet and got 5th.

Spokane HS running has been insane for years. I was around during the Chris Lewis/Nathan Davis era. There were quality guys in the GSL who could break 4:20 and 9:20 and had no hope of going to state. Not sure how it is now but at that time GSL sent 2 people to state. Lewis had run 4:04 and 9:02 (eventually running 8:50, both times were national leaders). Davis was around 4:10, and Stuart Burnham from Ferris was around 9:05 (being the second entrant in the 3200m). There were about 4-5 other guys in the GSL who ran between 4:15 and 4:20 or sub 9:20 and I imagine if their season lasted longer they'd have scared 4:10 and 9:10...

Tyson is just an amazing coach and person. At the time, my father was working near Spokane and my Sr year I gave some thought to moving out there and going to Mead. I stayed where I was because I had a decent coach and wanted a shot at going to state. I made it to state in the 1600, but if I could do that over again I would gladly get knocked out in the league meet and have run for Tyson. Who knows, under Tyson, maybe I would have knocked off Davis or Burnham. ;-0

It is very possible to be a very crappy coach and have a FL champion. There are other things more important than winning.

I agree. I think the top 3 coaches are Joe Newton, Pat Tyson and Danny Green.

I don't know all of Joe Newton or Pat Tyson's accomplishments but I'll list some things my coach (Danny Green, The Woodlands HS, TX) has done in his 27 years (this year is his 28th year) of coaching at The Woodlands/McCullough HS.

-27 District Championships(lost only 1 to Kingwood back in the day when BOTH teams were currently ranked in the top 10 in the country!!!)

-23 Regional Championships

-12 State Championships

-6 State Runner-ups

-6 Individual State Champions

-9 Athletes to Footlocker Nationals (with a total of 12 trips made in all b/c some athletes went twice....is more than any school in the country has)

-4 years of having a Footlocker National Finialist make it in a row....twice! (1984,1985,1986,1987, then 2002,2003,2004,2005) also more than any HS has ever done.

-25 years in a row of making it to the state meet, we've never had a team not make it since 1979.

Now I know we haven't won nearly as many state championships as York has, we won our 12th state title my senior year, they are going for #13 this season, but Coach Green hasn't been around for nearly as long as Coach Joe Newton! I think he will catch up before it's all said and done with.

In no order I think that the best coaches AND programs year after year after year are...

Joe Newton (York)

Pat Tyson (Mead)

Danny Green (The Woodlands)

That's impressive about footlocker. It made me think about the west region. It must be a tough region to make it out of with washington, california and utah among others. I'm not sure how many mead guys made it out of there, but it can't be easy.

[QUOTE=bulldog35]Brian Hunsaker[/QUOTE]

i think not

All I know is that while none of you have probably ever heard of him, I wouldn't trade my HS coach for anyone. I'm sure a lot of people here feel the same. Beyond turning me from a 12:00 3200 runner to a 9:30 guy, he got me into the sport and he has been a good friend ever since. For me, he was the best coach out there, hands down.

"Has anybody on this board been coached by any of those mentioned. If so, what do you have to say about your coach."

As I mentioned above, I was coached by Coach Dan Green at The Woodlands High School. Durning my 4 years there we were state runner up in 2002 (we were ranked #1 in the nation then 2 of our top 3 guys got sick just before state and Kingwood beat us and we dropped in the rankings). In 2003 we were state champions and national champions (we were ranked #1 in the nation all year) and had one of our strongest teams ever. We did a 2 mile time trial on the track, our 8th man was 9:29, 5 of those 8 guys were sub 9:20, all in one race, those were not PRs. In 2004, my senior year, we were state champions, ranked #3 in the nation all year and finished a very disappointing 7th at the first ever Nike Team Nationals after having a very long season.

My experience at The Woodlands under Coach Green was amazing. He brings his runners together, a band of brothers. I met my 2 best friends through running at The Woodlands (on of which was a FL finalist). Coach Green taught me discipline, respect, and hardwork. There is no price you can put on what he taught me. The cross country team clearly stands out at The Woodlands HS (even in the Texas dominated Football country). Before every meet the entire team wears dress pants, shirt and tie to class (like they are doing today b/c they have a meet tonight). Coach watches your grades and if you are failing at any point of the year, you don't run for the rest of the season. We do ALL our runs together, even on the weekends. If you drop off of your assigned group during a workout, you better prepare for a good old school butt chewing. These are just a few examples of things that set us apart from others, I could go on forever.

All in all, it is the atmosphere Coach Green creates. It's hard to sit behind a computer and explain how he creates great team after great team after great team. He gets you excited about running, and about being there. He is a great motivator, but if you don't do what you are suppose to do, you will get chewed out. I've seen many people (almost always new freshman) cry after he's done with them. He can take a guy with VERY minimal talent and turn him into a very respectable runner. Still to this day, as a college runner, I get advice from him on all sorts of things. He just has that kind of relationship with his runners, he's a guy you can trust to tell you the truth, weather it's what you want to hear or not. Ok too long, I'm done.

Maybe not the absolute 'best', but David Morton at Bishop McGuinness in Oklahoma City has an incredible number of "Team Champions". I just counted 25 for Cross Country (girl's and boy's).... combined with track, their teams have probably tallied up 50+ Championship wins! I believe he's been retired from coaching for a while, but my guess is he still gives advice cause their teams continue to win. I didn't run for him, but he gave me lots of advice early on in high school, including introducing me to tempo runs.

Thanks for sharing about your experiences with Coach Green.

I personally was coached by Zoe Simpson at Kingwood High School from 1994-1998. He is now the only Athletic Director at a 5A School District that is not a football coach in Texas:

4 Individual State Champions in 5 Years

Brad Hauser 93,94

Lewis Jones 95

Tyson Hendricksen 96

Jeff Wood 97

6 Straight 5A State Championships

1993-1998

2 Harrier Magazine National Championships 94,96

2 Harrier Magazine Runner Ups 93,95

4 Footlocker Finalists

Brad Hauser - 1992,93,94

Brent Hauser - 93,94

Lewis Jones - 93,94,95

Jeff Wood -97

I doubt there are coaches of FL Champions that are "very crappy." We aren't talking about winning the AAU Junior Olympics, here. Most of those coaches have had other athletes perform well. Those athletes' coaches probably weren't too concerned about their athletes winning either.

Neville Paul - Wellington College, New Zealand (Its a high school).

I was coached by Mr. Lange at Jesuit in the mid 90's and 2 of my brothers ran for him as well. I think it is well established that he has been one of the top HS coaches in the country. If you go check out the Jesuit high web page at

http://www.jesuittrack.org/

you can see for yourself.

Tyson, Green, etc. are all in the same league and I don't think one is/was better than the other. I have raced against athletes from most of these schools whether in HS or college and performances are pretty similiar across the board. Some athletes later went on to great things in college and beyond (Stember from Jesuit, Eric Henry from the Woodlands, the Davis brothers from Mead just to name a few) while others performed at various other levels. Success breeds success.

The commonality between programs I think is that the coaches put in a significant amount of time into each program, developed a training plan that works, capitalized on early success and were thus able to get kids to come out and compete. We had an avg of about 80 guys on the team when I was at Jesuit. A few years after State Champs we had over a 100. These large numbers meant quality workouts in practice and extreme team pride. All this leads to faith in the training system so that by the time an athlete puts on the uniform from one of these schools he is set to do well. This goes for the top athlete all the way to the kid who can barely run 21:00 5Ks.

One of the best, certainly on the east coast.....a great coach, better man (if possible), Tim St. Lawrence, Warwick Valley High School, NY

Are we talking about

1. Having lots of titles and national class performers while they're in high school?

2. Teaching life lessons and fostering a love of running and of competing?

3. Giving high school athletes the best possible foundation for becoming the best runners they can be later in their careers?

If it's 1 and 2, Joe Newton would have to rank way up there.

Most high school coaches never consider 3. But if we throw that in there, I've known coaches you will probably never hear about, some of whom coach at small schools or only coach a few individuals and not a team, some of whom have not a single sub-4:20 miler nor a state team title to their credit, yet who outrank by light years any of the celebrated ones with year after year of high school stars.

Katelyn wrote:

It is very possible to be a very crappy coach and have a FL champion. There are other things more important than winning.

Oh put a sock in it Katelyn