By Michael Newman

DyeStat Illinois Editor

[email protected]

Earlier this summer on August 3, York High School announced that long time Cross Counry Coach Joe Newton would be retiring at the end of this cross country season. Going on his 56th season as the York Head Coach, his teams have won 28 state championships. It is a number that won't be reached in this cross country crazy state. The reason the interest is so big is because of what Mr. Newton did at this high school in Elmhurst, Illinois.

In the first few meets of the season, I was approached by runners and coaches from various schools across the state. The common question that they asked me was: "What was it like to run for Mr. Newton."

I was a member of the York High School Cross Country Team from 1976 to 1979. I was named co-captain of the team in 1979. Not too many guys get that honor. I was fortunate that my teammates thought so highly of me that I was chosen.

In 2013, I decided to write about my junior year of cross country at the school. I wanted to do something different and unique. I was sitting at my desk and looked up at the wall where I started staring at a poster that was created for a team that I was on in 1978. I realized that this fall would be 38 years since my friends and I went on a journey, running together under coach Joe Newton, that took us to the Illinois State Cross Country Meet.

So why not put something in a weekly blog that talked about what was happening in that same week back in 1978? In the first place if there was the internet back then, do you think that Joe Newton would have let us done that?

Put Your Hand on Seven: A Journey to a State Championship goes through the weekly happenings of what I was doing in the fall of my junior year at York High School in Elmhurst, Ill. I went back and looked at training notes that I took and also XC yearbooks that I had. I also looked at a box of newspaper clippings that my parents saved for me.

That box came in handy as I have tried to piece together how a group of 12 individuals eventually formed a tight unit of seven that dreamed the impossible.

Each week’s blog will come out on Thursday with the exception of the week of the state meet where I had to split it up into two different sections.

I hope you enjoy it. This is dedicated to all the parents of the 1978 team for all the sacrifices that they made for us, to Mr. Joe Newton who coached us to become great runners and greater men, and to Phil Williams, Rob Ragusin, Mike Wagner, Mike Frega, David Haller, Jim Hedman, and the rest of the York High School Cross Country Team of 1978. It is a bond that will remain with us for the rest of our lives.

Put Your Hand on Seven: A Journey To A State Championship

1  The Road To The Summer of ‘78

2  Finding Ways

3  Summer Running, Had Me A Blast?

4  Camp Olympia

5  East End and Intra Squad

6  Lessons

7 First Home Meet

8 Running Scared

9 Coming Out Party

10 You Are Only As Good As Your Next Race

11 Bloodbath

12 There Is No Place like Home

13 Take Two 

14 Firsts

15 State Week

16 T minus 24 hours and counting?

17 Fifteen Minutes

18 The Days After