Rest in Peace to a legend. Al created a culture of positivity that spread throughout collegiate running and will leave a legacy that will live on forever.
Legendary coach. Also survived stage 4 cancer for 5 years in his late 70's and 80's. I think he was even trying to watch his grandson run his first race for North Central this past weekend.
Sad to hear. Truly, a legend whose success will never be rivaled.
The lives he touched and the affect he had on others can't be measured.
RIP.
I did not run for NCC, but I ran against them often. Al Carius was always a fixture at every meet NCC was at. It seemed like a lot of his athletes really gravitated to him and respected him.
One race, I was racing a bunch of NCC guys, and one of the NCC runners took the lead and Carius said, “If you take the lead, do something with it!” I will never forget that. Even though I never ran for him, I had a respect for him. I can’t quite describe it.
I actually took his advice to heart in my own racing, if I am leading a race or a pack I “do something.” That is, I try to increase the tempo of the race and not just run on auto-pilot in the front. I know it is basic advice, but the way he conveyed it, in that moment, stuck with me. RIP Al Carius.
Damn, that’s sad. RIP Coach Carius. To me, somebody who only knew of him through interviews, racing NCC at nats, etc. he seemed to embody what makes a great coach—an educator and mentor who also knew how to get people to run fast.
Many paths to a good life, and Coach Carius walked his with clarity and purpose.
Al Carius lived for fun and personal best. I will truly miss him.
For you dickheads that downvote these kind of posts, here's something to downvote.
At the pearly gates, Gabriel has checked Coach Al Carius in and the good Lord has said, You Have Done Well!
TheLittleRunnerBoy wrote:
Legendary coach. Also survived stage 4 cancer for 5 years in his late 70's and 80's. I think he was even trying to watch his grandson run his first race for North Central this past weekend.
I'm stunned we aren't getting more tributes to the guy. What a damn legend.
Check this stat out from a local newspaper article.
Under Carius, NCC's cross country teams won 19 national titles and finished fourth place or better nationally in 42 of 47 championship appearances.
PS. I'm giving that article QOD honors for tmw. This quote:
“The impact that he has had is hard to really describe," Crain told the Journal Star in 2020. "He was more than just a college coach. He was a father figure, a friend. The biggest thing that he’s most proud of is not the runners that he’s created but he builds winners in life.”
I knew Carius since the ‘70s, even dated his ex wife, Carol, back when I was a student. Surprised he never produced a sub 4 miler. His fastest miler may have been 4:04. He was never the same after crashing his corvette.
Al was such a genuine person. Humble, generous, caring, tough, passionate, patient. His achievements as an athlete and obviously as a coach were impressive, but he was not shy about sharing stories about his errors and even personal shortcomings. I wasn't a distance guy, but as an athlete who was on the track team for 4 years at NCC, I was very lucky to spend my share of time with him on team trips. When I met him in probably 2001 he was already a living legend. When he would introduce us to coaches of other track teams (he loved other coaches!), he would tell us how good those coaches were, and in turn they would say something like "well, you know Al is the 'coach of the century'", to which Al would completely downplay that accolade...That's really something. After that unusual honor, he coached another 20 years! He may still be in the running for another coach of the century award for the 21st century.
I've not had much direct involvement in track/xc other than as a fan over the past two decades, but whenever I've ran into Al while attending a meet, he's been so consistent in his positivity and aura.
Rojo - Great choice for QoD! Al was very proud of being from Morton, so including a Peoria newspaper quoting a Dunlap athlete (peoria and dunlap both being suburbs of Morton) would make Al smile.
DkWt wrote:
I did not run for NCC, but I ran against them often. Al Carius was always a fixture at every meet NCC was at. It seemed like a lot of his athletes really gravitated to him and respected him.
One race, I was racing a bunch of NCC guys, and one of the NCC runners took the lead and Carius said, “If you take the lead, do something with it!” I will never forget that. Even though I never ran for him, I had a respect for him. I can’t quite describe it.
I actually took his advice to heart in my own racing, if I am leading a race or a pack I “do something.” That is, I try to increase the tempo of the race and not just run on auto-pilot in the front. I know it is basic advice, but the way he conveyed it, in that moment, stuck with me. RIP Al Carius.
RIP Mr Carius.
That's a phenomenal record over decades for division 3 athletes and I'd be interested to know what his training methods were to produce such good athletes some of whom came to college probably, I'm guessing, with modest times like 10 minutes for two miles.
I think I read somewhere that his basic philosophy was mileage and tempo but I can't remember exactly where I got that information from. I think he produced a lot of athletes who were quite modest in high school like 10 minutes for two miles who ended up being 14 minutes 29 minute runners which is pretty phenomenal.
Al Carius was a good man. I ran the North Central marathon as a 16-year-old kid in December 1973 on a sunny cold morning. My dad got lost in Naperville before the race and we got there moments before the gun went off. There was no time to register so I ran as a bandit. I did well that day and afterwards inside the North Central fieldhouse, Al was surprised a young kid finished in the top 10 and greeted me warmly. I apologized for being a bandit and he thought it was amusing. RIP good man.
Im not the posting type but feel compelled.
Coach Carius was truly a legendary figure, a gentleman, a great Coach and just an all-around impactful guy. I ran at St. Thomas in the '80s when we finally managed to match up with them. He was always so respectful and complimentary, but you could tell super competitive at the same time. There was almost never a year where NC was not going to be right up in the mix for the NCAA X-C title. They would just keep developing and cranking out All Americans year after year, but you could tell that, like we were at St. Thomas, there was just a sustainability, a standard of excellence and uncompromising expectations. Easy to have that mutual respect and appreciation. Our Coach at the time Dr. Larry Russ had great respect and Al delivered it back to "Doc". Those candy stripe singlets and you could tell they, like our Tommies, were a very tight knit group. When we won the NCAA at Fredonia and broke NC's low score record at the time, Al went out of his way to congratulate us. I could tell a more colorful story about the '87 NCAA Track Nationals that NC hosted but that's for another time. This is a track record that could be placed alongside any of the best Coaching records in X-C and T&F at any level.
RIP Coach Carius, Jeff Hyman
An alum told me that there had been over 300 coaches at various levels that came from the North Central program during Al's 50+ years there. That is a remarkable statistic. They said there was a list somewhere at some point.
JHyman37 wrote:
Im not the posting type but feel compelled.
Coach Carius was truly a legendary figure, a gentleman, a great Coach and just an all-around impactful guy. I ran at St. Thomas in the '80s when we finally managed to match up with them. He was always so respectful and complimentary, but you could tell super competitive at the same time. There was almost never a year where NC was not going to be right up in the mix for the NCAA X-C title. They would just keep developing and cranking out All Americans year after year, but you could tell that, like we were at St. Thomas, there was just a sustainability, a standard of excellence and uncompromising expectations. Easy to have that mutual respect and appreciation. Our Coach at the time Dr. Larry Russ had great respect and Al delivered it back to "Doc". Those candy stripe singlets and you could tell they, like our Tommies, were a very tight knit group. When we won the NCAA at Fredonia and broke NC's low score record at the time, Al went out of his way to congratulate us. I could tell a more colorful story about the '87 NCAA Track Nationals that NC hosted but that's for another time. This is a track record that could be placed alongside any of the best Coaching records in X-C and T&F at any level.
RIP Coach Carius, Jeff Hyman
My program was orders of magnitude below NCC, but every story I heard about Al Carius (including firsthand) was like this one, emphasizing the respect/sportsmanship and focus on school and life in addition to running fast.
Considering how many people he coached became coaches themselves, I think we underestimate how much of the beauty of D3 culture was built by Coach Carius.
