It looks like Belvidere North is starting to have a very good program.
It looks like Belvidere North is starting to have a very good program.
The interesting thing about Belvidere North is that the school has only existed for a few years, so of course it's just starting to have a very good program. I believe that it was built in 2008. The coach for Belvidere North is the same coach that used to coach at Belvidere High School before they built North and split the high school (90 percent sure on this).
Before North was built Belvidere was a decent program but not fantastic. It's interesting that since splitting the school and thus halving the talent pool they have gotten ridiculously good in such a short amount of time. I honestly don't know much about their training, but you have to ask yourself how this happened so quickly.
Probably has something to do with the kids that happened to come up through the system just now, or the increased rivalry involved in opening up a new school in the district, or the "new school, new tradition" factor, or the youth age-group scene starting to figure things out, or maybe the coach finally got the kind of kids he is best at coaching, or maybe the coach just now figured it out...
or maybe it's some combination of the above.
Who knows.
Expanding on what watchout said, I I think that the kids in high school when the schools split got to choose the school they went to, so maybe they had a core of kids who chose North and got a good vibe going on the team to kick things off? Also, I think that they have a pretty serious summer running camp thing, which probably helps.
I didn't know about the splitting of the school thing. That makes it very interesting if they have the same coach. What DID happen there?
Well basically the old Belvidere had a ton of kids because they area has grown a lot and they had to do all kinds of crazy stuff with the schedules to accomodate everyone in the old building....so they built another Belvidere High School (North) and split the district. North opened in fall 2008. Is that what you're asking? Or if the coach is the same?
goobtron wrote:
I didn't know about the splitting of the school thing. That makes it very interesting if they have the same coach. What DID happen there?
There is a school in my area that used to have a sorry team. Some random gym teacher was the coach. He didn't care at all about distance running. Then coaching running sort of grew on him, he learned some more about running, changed his methods, and the team became good.
Regarding your comment:
"I think that the kids in high school when the schools split got to choose the school"
Not true, they did not get to choose their school. The school district drew a line through town, and that decided for you. (During the first year, if they wanted to, the seniors got to finish out at with the Belvidere Bucs, the old school. Not all did.)
All of the runners that attend Belvidere North happen to live on that side of town, they are legitimate. Coach Troy Yunk also lives within the boundaries of Belvidere North, and he took the opportunity to coach at a brand new school. An added bonus, his oldest son (quite a good runner) was a freshman during the first year the school opened. His other two sons are following, and are also quite good. The middle son ran in the 9:20s as a sophomore. The son in junior high was under 5:00.
Not all of the teams at Belvidere North were legitimate. There was a guy who was a starter in all three of the "ball sports" whose parents rented some BS apartment just to get a Belv. North address so he could attend the new school. Everybody knew, but had people seemed to wear blinders.
I just was surprised because the team kind of came out of nowhere and is extremely good. I wanted to know what kind of work they did to come out of the blue like that.
From Boone County IL wrote:
Regarding your comment:
"I think that the kids in high school when the schools split got to choose the school"
Not true, they did not get to choose their school. The school district drew a line through town, and that decided for you. (During the first year, if they wanted to, the seniors got to finish out at with the Belvidere Bucs, the old school. Not all did.)
Ah yeah, that must be what I'm thinking of and my memory turned it into something it wasn't. I graduated from a Nic-9 school a couple years before they built North so I really don't know much in the way of specifics. Thanks for clarifying. I will say, though, that there were a lot of teachers from my school (admittedly not Belvidere) talking about Gerrymandering in the district for sports teams. Dunno if that has any truth to it or not. Even if it did, that still wouldn't explain either school getting better at sports after the split.
I'm guessing from your handle that your from north or belvidere or north boone, so could you comment on their training at all if you know anything?
York is a high mileage team, pretty well known. But B-North is a bunch of pussies that are hardly ever over 40mpw. I know a bunch of guys on the team and they don't like hard running at all.
Belvidere North has their top runners between 55-60 mpw. This allows them to continue to develop and does not maximize them during high school. I was a jv cross runner and maxed out at about 40 per week.
Belvidere was a one HS town until the 2007/2008 school year. The juniors and seniors had a choice as to where they wanted to attend, Freshmen and Sophomores went to the school depending on how the lines were drawn. Not only did Yunk leave Belvidere for Belvidere North, the entire track/cross country staff went to North.
One thing I don't think that was mentioned is that Illinois went from 2 cross country and track and field classifications to 3 during this time. Belvidere was a 2A school, which was the biggest class. When Belvidere North was established, was the first year that the classes split up I believe. So Belvidere North was a 2A school, yet this time it was the middle sized classification.
Oh well the guys I ran with, Tyler Yunk, Paxon Menard, etc. Didn't weren't up that high for mileage. I would say they were 40mpw to 50mpw max. And I ran with them for a bit this summer. Not to bash on them, but they didn't like running hard. So like I said in my first post, almost the opposite of Yorks training.
I dont know any runners at York but I know many of Norths runners trained together long before high school. In 2006 their club team (Belv. Tornados) won the AAU XC National Championship. Our team (Rockford Wildcats) ran against them. I am not sure what their training methods were but I heard their club coach ran for Nike and almost made the Olympics. You will have to ask them. Whatever they are doing it seems to be working. They are Beasts.
My dad said Belvidere had great runners when he was in school. Now their kids are competing. He said they have a good program and success breeds success. Parents will move if their child is talented enough. Yorks reputation probably helped the same way.
What happened is that Troy Yunk built up a really, really good feeder program over the last 10 years. Summer running club, park district support, parent involvement, etc. The club was built up around the ages of his 3 sons, who were runners from birth.
It just happened that the opening of BNHS coincided with his first son's entrance into high school. This crop of runners that grew up with his first 2 kids were all really good, and Yunk has just been collecting on his investment.
This is a story of many, many years of hard work and planning.
Hey I noticed this online. I ran for north and graduated in 09. I can help answer some comments. Yes the coach is the same coach from the old school. North was build in 2007 and belvidere was split into two schools. North was lucky to get all the talent besides one who went to the old school. The coaching is still the same. I think what improved our program was us being tired of losing. My sophomore year we were the worst team in belvidere history. The first team not to make it out of regionals. I think the runners who experienced that race that went to North wanted that to change and we worked harder than ever to accomplish a better outcome. Our coach is an amazing guy and has been but it was our attitudes that motivated us to become great.