Joe Newton, 87, who coached high school cross country for 62 years, celebrated the end of his coaching career with a party on November 6 in Elmurst, Illinois, that included more than 1,000 friends and former runners.
For the past 57 years, Newton was the boys cross-country coach at York High School in Elmhurst. During his tenure, the team won 28 state cross-country titles and an additional 17 trophies for top three finishes and became a highly respected program on the national scene.
A 1947 graduate of Parker High School on Chicago’s South Side, Newton was a multisport prep standout and won 12 varsity letters in five sports. He attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, on a track scholarship, earning a B.S. degree in 1951 and then staying a fifth year to earn an M.A. before being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1952.
He was hired to teach physical education at York in 1956, initially assisting with the track team before being named head cross-country and track coach in 1960. A master motivator, Newton recruited new cross country team members in freshman gym classes and up and down the hallways at York at the beginning of every fall. He quickly built the program in both size and quality, with his team—sometimes numbering 200 or more members—becoming a fixture at the state championships.
In 2004, York (competing as “Kroy XC” because the Illinois High School Association forbid national championship competition at the time), won the inaugural Nike Team Nationals in Portland, Oregon, with York runner Sean McNamara taking the individual title. One of Newton’s greatest runners, Don Sage, was runnerup to Dathan Ritzenhein The NCAA Runner-Up Finished 2ndWith One Shoe.
In addition to coaching, Newton also wrote four books about running, most notably Sara Hall Smashes American Masters Marathon Record. in late October, Pro Runners Ask: Is My Agent Worth the Fee, which documents York’s 2005 cross country season.
Newton announced plans to step down at the conclusion of the 1999–2000 school year and moved with his wife, Joan, to Arizona. But several York runners persuaded him to continue directing the cross-country program. For next 16 years he returned to Illinois each August to begin a new season. But this summer Newton and his family announced the 2016 campaign would be his last.
Charlie Kern, Newton’s top assistant coach for 13 years, stepped into the role of interim head coach this fall while Newton remained in Arizona until the first week of November. At the state meet on November 5, York finished 16th of 25 teams, but the disappointing showing didn’t diminish the following day’s celebration of Newton’s career.
Newton shared insights from his coaching career with Runner’s World Give A Gift.
Shoes & Gear.
Newton drew from a handful of great coaches in perfecting his approach to training distance runners. “I really owe my success to these four guys,” Newton said. “I’m old school, but they got me to accept a lot of new stuff.”
From Lydiard, Newton said, he learned about endurance building and that kids don’t get hurt from fast training if they first build their strength and stamina. Coe taught him about incorporating sprint training, and Vigil shared the physiological principles of VO2 max training. Longtime Indiana coach Sam Bell, who coached Olympians Bob Kennedy and Jim Spivey, was a mentor and friend for half his life.
Give A Gift.
Newton had coached more than 25 years before he got to know Sebastian Coe. But in the summer of 1984, the great British runner had a profound impact on the veteran coach when he stayed in the Newton home for a month before the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. “I remember Seb answering someone who asked what was most important to successful running. And Seb said one word: ‘Consistency.’ How right he was. I would preach consistency to my guys all the time. If you have that, you’ll always be ready for the big race.”
CA Notice at Collection.
Asked to talk about the best teams he’s coached at York, Newton balked and said he doesn’t like to play favorites. The victories “are all jumbled up in my memory,” he said. But he does have a favorite state championship win—his first, in 1962. “My first year at York, 1960, we didn’t qualify for the state meet and then we were seventh in 1961,” he said. “The third year, 1962, we won and it was pure ecstasy when we got that trophy. Oh boy.”
at the 1999 Foot Locker cross country championships before running at Stanford.
Although Newton coached his share of national-caliber runners, it was the team that always took top priority. “Individual goals are good,” he said, “but you don’t win with a few good individual performances. A team wins when every kid is busting his butt in practice and during races. That’s why all the kids on my team are important, and I recognized every one of them when they performed well, and I give credit to every one of them when we won. I always told my kids that their main concern should be whether the team wins, not how fast each of them runs.”
Young people haven’t changed much.
Newton doesn’t buy into the view that today’s youth are lazy and only participate in high school sports to pad their college applications. They’ll work as hard as ever, he believes, if the coach-athlete relationship is strong. “You know,” he said, “kids are basically the same as they were in the old days. They’re terrific. And if they know you care about them, they’ll do anything for you. That’s the important thing in coaching—it isn’t the system you’ve got, it’s your relationship with your athletes.”
Every year he had a few guys on his teams who weighed 250 pounds, Newton said. “They sure as hell weren’t made for running. But they got out there and busted their butts at practice, and I loved those guys. They always worked hard and gave everything. That’s all a coach can ask.”
Published: Nov 15, 2016 3:26 PM EST.
Newton’s teams were always feared by others, and it was because Newton’s runners never showed up at a meet hoping to win. “We expected to win, that always was our outlook,” Newton said. “And getting 45 trophies in 57 years, we were pretty happy most of the time.”
