Does anyone know any of the titles of any of the Joe Newton books. I am looking for the one he wrote a number of years ago which was inspirational, but any titles would be helpful. This is important, so if you could help, it would be great!
Does anyone know any of the titles of any of the Joe Newton books. I am looking for the one he wrote a number of years ago which was inspirational, but any titles would be helpful. This is important, so if you could help, it would be great!
the long green line
running to the top of the mountain
I have Coaching Cross Country Successfully.I think its his most recent one.I really enjoyed it and I'm not even a coach.
Who is Joe Newton's most successful post HS runner? Sage, Bakken?
Bakken. Sage is obviously very good, but 13:0x is tough to beat.
Its kinda hard to find long green line, but try here...
He only had Bakken for a year.
Joe Newton's coaching record is phenomenal by any standards. He has now won 22 Illinois High School Association Team Titles at Cross-Country for boys. His record of wins dates back to 1962 (before some of the parents of posters on Let's Run.com were born!)
Joe Newton's ability to coach and to motivate "average" kids to perform well in the big arena is unparalleled. Last Saturday he put all seven runners in the top 111 out of 252 runners. His team were beaten into 2nd place at the previous week's Sectional competition. However on the big day at the Championship his places were 13, 23, 45, 47, 70, 93, and 111, and their time gap was 14:54 for 13 to 15:54 for 111. This team was made up of two seniors, one junior, one sophomore, and three freeshman. It would be reasonable to infer that the 73-year old Newton might be back to add a few more State Titles to his record.
Illinois is a tough cross-country State and Championship wins do not come easily. In the Class AA Boys Championship recent individual winners include Tim Broe (1993 and 1994); Jorge Torres (1996, 1997, 1998); and Donald Sage (1999). The course record for 3 miles is still held by Craig Virgin 13:50.6 (1972).
On the Class AA Girls side individual winners over recent years include Jenelle Deatherage (1993); Maria Cicero (2000) and Erika Odlaug (2001).
Joe Newton is an incredible coach.
I will agree that Joe Newton is an incredible coach, but would have done a lot more for the running world if he would have been in a college or university setting. His ability to motivate is the key to his success, absolutely no one can come close to him at any level of coaching distance runners.
Somehow I get the feeling that Joe Newton isn't interested in his legacy in the running world and is quite content with motivating kids within his own sphere of influence. He should be commended.
My twins ran for Coach N for 4 years before heading off to college. So I know the ol' fella pretty well (name dropper!), and my kids count him as their greatest personal influence beyond their parents. Coach was offered numerous coaching positions at the college level but never wished to leave the high school ranks. I think he just lives for this now, as he is pretty much retired except for xc coaching. In fact, he no longer coaches the track team at York any more. Winters are spent in Arizona. He was just quoted as saying he will return until he wins 25 state titles, so that is at least 3 more years. You should have seen him last Saturday after they finally got the mess at the chute straightened out- he was pumping his fists in the air. What an old crust he is.
His book now out is Coaching Cross Country Successfully, and is on Human Kinetics Press. Page 65 has pics of my kids.
This year, Lyons Township and York clashed 4 times before state, with LT winning 3 of the 4 meetings. At state, York kept their pack together pretty well, while LT simply could not respond- the LT team had 3 runners up (the 3 runner team score was 48 for York and 52 for LT), but the remaining LT runners all finished 100th or lower, while York's 5th man was 70th. In fact, if York scored its 2-6 runners, it still would have won the meet.
3 years ago, York won the state meet with 22 points. Its combined time was over a minute faster than the previous record. Sage ran 14.03, but the top 6 runners had a split of less than a minute. There were 6 all staters in that team, 6 in the top 25 and 5 in the top 12. That team had an amazing bunch- look at the top 3200m times for the top 5 runners: 8.42.79, 9.06, 9.11, 9.13 and 9.17. This team also set indoor and outdoor 4x800 records, 7.42 and 7.34 (this was brroker this past year). 1600 times were 4.04, 4.11, 4.13, 4.17 and 4.24 and at least 9 kids could run under 2 min for 800. They won the state track meet as well. Newton had never done that in all his years.
Coach is a great fellow and has a wonderful tradition. How many high school xc teams have 125 runners every year?
(PS. there were no juniors on the state title team- a misprint, the top returners are 3 frosh and 2 soph with 2 seniors graduating, only one of which placed).
York runners include Don Sage, Marius Bakken, Jim White and Ron Craker- and don't forget Maria Cicero at BC!
This is probably going to sound like a typical letsrun.com hater, but it would be nice to get a thoughtful response from this parent or others who know Newton.
I always heard his kids ran extremely high mileage (80+ starting in 9th grade), sometimes intervals several days in a row. His book suggested he wasn't that extreme, but did add weight to something I'd also heard: that his philosophy was that the vast majority of his kids wouldn't have a chance to be competitive after high school, so he trained them to max out in high school. By the time they got to college, they were pretty well burned out. Given that Sage is the only one who's been competitive at a national level, I wondered how true that is/was.
The best thing about my HS coach is that he motivated us to love what we did and take it as far as we wanted. I was never anywhere near as fast as the better York HS kids, so maybe I'm just jealous, but I'm still running at age 30. I hope they are.
If I'm a parent and Newton can motivate my kid to earn some scholarship money I'm all for it.
US Miler wrote:
He only had Bakken for a year.
Consider this quote from Marius' website:
Mr. Newton, the legendary American high school coach coached me as a 17 year old down from running 1.56 to 1.51 in the 800 meter and 4.15 to 3.53 in the 1500 meter. This came through workouts harder then I had ever done, and will do in my life. He taught me hard work, as well as love for the sport. He still calls me, and brings all his motivating and positive energy over to me. He has a great heart for both his runners and the people around him. I can never thank this man enough. Together with Per and Mr. Coe he is the most influential person in my running career.
Sage is the only one that has reached a national class level? Are you nuts? Torres and Torres ring a bell?
Um, they ring a bell, but they went to Wheeling HS. Not York. Seems like I remember they trained with an outside coach and may have skipped senior year track, but I don't think the other coach was Newton.
To the person with the comment about getting a scholarship -- any kid with that attitude is screwed before they start.
To address the question do the frosh kids run 80+ mpw. The answer is no. Most York kids dont run over 40 mpw as freshmen. They just slowly build up the mileage to their senior year where they are able to handle high mileage. They work their butts off and that is why they are good.
Just a side note, you cant count Maria Cicero as one of Newton's success stories since the girls team has their own coach, who is a great coach in their own right.
Okay, I am that parent who can talk. I have heard this complaint aobut Coach N, that he ruins them for college, so much I am ill of it. It is simply not true. At least not over the last 7 years. My kids went on to successful running careers at Grinnell College (where son Noah holds the 12th fastest 8k time in their history, 25.18, as well as the second fastest 10k, 31.26, 5th fastest 5k and fastest outdoor 3k- don't ask on that last since no one runs it any more!:-), while Collin ran similar times at Carleton College. Noah just ran and won his first marathon, Mad City in Madison, WI. But look at the list, and I apologize if I get a few colleges wrong here since I am doing this from memory: Dave Walters, Loyola; Mike Lucchesi, Illinois; Jim Akita; Elmhurst; Adam Roche, Iowa; Adam Palumbo, Iowa; Peter Cioni, Princeton; Pete Stasiulis, Illinois; Tim Hobbs (2x state winner in the 800), Illinois; Terre Mastrino (sprints), Illinois; John Janulis, Illinois; Kyle Erickson, UCLA (hurdles); Jim Costello, Iowa (throws) and others I just can't remember. Now, of course, these are not top runners like Sage, but they all kept running and a bunch have very decent 5 and 10k times, as well as 3k times. Akita has run low 31 for 10k, as have my twins, Lucchesi was Illinois's top runners for a few years; Hobbs is now sub 1.50 in the 800, and Palumbo has run, I believe a low 8.30 for 3k and a sub 25 for 8k.
Not everyone wishes to run in college, but it seems to me that out of the top 15 who graduate each year, most continue to run, whether at D3 like my kids or at D2 or 1.
Yes, my kids ran 1185 miles in the summer between 9th and 10th grade, and then ran 1311 miles the next summer and finally 1100 the last. Some days they ran 24 miles overall. They worked hard, and I think it helped them a lot. By the time they got to college there was nothing a coach could throw at them they could not handle, and boy, I tell you, coaches wanted York runners. Valparaiso was ready to offer my son a near full ride, but he just did not take to the school. And he was not a stellar runner- times of 2.02 for 800, 4.31 for 1600 and 9.40 for 3200 as well as 15.18 for 3 miles. So he went to Grinnell where there is no athletic scholarship money. it was a good choice.
Dana,
Thank you for sharing about Joe Newton and the York program.
I wrote to him in the mid 60's and he answered back with a
couple of very detailed letters to me that were very helpful.
Most people would not have bothered to answer an 18 year old
kid who lived on the other side of the country but he did.
It meant a lot to me at that time and still does.
Thanks for the reply. Sounds like your kids had a great experience, and Grinnell and Carleton are fantastic schools.
It does lead to the eternal dilemma. I ran roughly the same times as your kids when I was a senior in high school, but I never ran more than 38 miles in a week. Does that mean a) I should have run mega-miles and I would have run faster? or b) your kids would have done better if they hadn't been fried from the mega-miles? We'll never know, but it's fun to talk about.