By Michael Newman

DyeStat Illinois Editor

[email protected]

The end of July and the beginning of August, I am usually busy getting ready for the upcoming cross country season. Once I have an idea of how I want to do the rankings, I begin to start contacting coaches. One of the first that I contact is Joe Newton my coach at York.

The conversation this year was different than the rest. I usually ask him how he is doing before we start talking about his team. “I’ve decided that I am going to retire,” Mr. Newton said. “I feel good about the decision.”

I was a little melancholy when I heard the news but it was something that was not unexpected. He is 87 years old. I know many people that age are not as active as he is. He has a groin injury that has slowed him down a little. His heart and mind are still in the sport. In 1999, he made the announcement that he was going to retire after the track season. He decided after his York team won the 2A state cross country championship at Detweiller Park that he would continue cross country. His words back then he was 99.99% sure that he would retire. After he reversed that decision, he stated that he pulled a “Michael Jordan”. I asked him that when I was on the phone and he chuckled. “No, this is it Michael.”

I wanted to write something different about Mr. Newton. I could talk about all his state championships and all the all-state runners that have gone through his program. Instead, I decided to give you some insight on what I (and others) have learned from the York program that Mr. Newton developed.

~~~

I first started running for Mr. Newton 40 years ago in 1976. It was actually a little before that. When I was in 8^th grade, four guys from our junior high team were invited to run with York’s freshman team at a dual meet at Proviso East. That is where I got my first taste of high school running and my first experience with Mr. Newton. In the following spring, Mr. Newton came back to our junior high school to talk to the gym classes. “I remember you. You’re Newman. You could be a great runner the next four years for York.”

That made me feel good. He has a way of motivating you. He has said that to perhaps hundreds of prospective freshmen as he goes to gym classes the first day of school at York. “Do you know Donald Sage” he would say to a freshman in one of the freshman. The freshman’s eyes would open up nodding their head. “He was sitting in the same spot you were. You could be a great York runner like him.” It was simple words coming out of this short man with a booming voice that would get your attention.

One of the first things that he says to his team on the first day of practice was this: “If you don’t know me, my name is Mr. Newton. Not coach, or hey you. My name is Mr. Newton.” I almost would start laughing when I would return to practice to watch when a freshman would approach him at the end of a workout asking “I’m done coach.” Newton’s immediate reply is usually “Do I call you student?” I still makes me laugh but it made a point to the youngster. He would smile and make a joke to the kid to relax him. That was the beginning of the relationship with this legendary coach for that freshman and every other athlete that started in the program. It was a matter of respect that he was trying to get across to his freshmen. It is a lesson that York grads remember. When they come back to visit Mr. Newton, they always greet him as Mr. Newton.

After that announcement at the beginning of the first meeting, he will say this to his team:

“Can I trust you…because I trust you.

Are you committed to excellence…because I am.

Do you care about me…because I love each and every one of you.”

I heard that four times in my high school life. When I go back now for the first day of practice, I watch the eyes of the students as he is saying those words. I remember what I thought when I was a senior. I believed those words because I had been through all the practices, races, and experiences with this man.

Checking in and checking out is another thing that was so important. You checked in with him every practice and checked out with him. Usually at the end of the workout, he would have something positive to say to you.

My freshman year, he gave me my nickname “Newms”. It was something that I did not think it would stick, but here it is 40 years later. It is the same for every other runner that has accepted the challenge from Mr. Newton. He calls them by the nickname he gave them. Just that showing of love that he has for all of us.

~~~

Mr. Newton’s meetings and workouts were not just practice. You were in a classroom when you sat on that cold floor in the foyer outside of the gymnasium but he had your attention. Every meeting we learned something new not only about running but life. He would respect you but you needed to respect him. There were a number of times where some of our teammates would be talking to the point where he could hear them. That was a huge no no. “If you are not going to listen to me, I am not going to give this meeting.” Mr. Newton storm out from behind the desk that he was giving the meeting and into his office. It was lesson of respect. He was our coach he was in charge. After a few minutes, the senior leaders of the team would go to the office, apologize for what had happened, and asked if he would come out and finish the meeting.

It was a way to get another message to his team. He was the coach in charge of this team. But the seniors knew that he wanted them to be in charge of the team on the day of the meet. It was matter of training us to be leaders and being responsible for our team. It was not his team. It was ours.

By the time I was a senior, we knew the lessons that we had learned from him on that subject. We never had to go to his office in the middle of the meeting. We had his trust. I’ll get to that in a little bit.

His “shouting out instructions” during a race was legendary. “You’re killing us Newms” was something that I heard once in a while. That was a good thing to hear during a workout or a race. When he used your first name during race, something was wrong and he was upset. You did not want to hear “What’s going on Michael?” in the middle of a run. No nickname, just first name. Uh oh. The worst was when he did not yell at you during a race. After you entered the finish chute or crossed the finish line, you knew you had to talk him. He would point out what you did wrong. But it was never negative. At the end of the conversation, his lower lip would stick out and he would shake your hand with the words “Good moose”. It was those conversations that you would remember to make yourself better in the next effort you would make in the green and white. There was one race where he lost his voice and you could not hear what he was saying. But you could see from his motions as you approached him around the track what his message was.

As an underclassmen, you of course respected Mr. Newton, but in some cases you did not know if he knew who you were but you knew he loved each and every one of us. There was one day that was a defining one for me that changed me for sure. The Saturday before, our team was split up with the varsity squad running at the DuPage County Meet and the Frosh / Soph squad was at a meet at Evanston. I was feeling great going into that meeting. I ran under 10 minutes for the first time in the 2 mile. I was looking forward to the meeting to hear his feedback since he was with the varsity. The meet for the Varsity did not go as well and Mr. Newton was upset. Our track meetings happened on the indoor track. Back then, it was a cement 133 yard a lap track. It was in May and there was no air conditioning. We sat there for three hours as he questioned the character of the varsity team. It was tough to listen to but he was trying to get his point across five days before our conference meet.

He did not have us run outside that day. We ran three miles around that indoor oval sweating to death looking for fresh air to breathe every lap we took. As my best friend David Haller and I went to check out with Mr. Newton, he was standing there with our weight coach Corby Howard. Howard asked Mr. Newton, “What about Haller and Newman?” Mr. Newton’s reply was memorable and one that I will always remember. “Henry and Newms…” he started. “I would go to war with them.” He then shook our hands. I knew where I stood with him. But I knew I had to keep working to be where I wanted to be.

Those words always stayed with me when I went into management. Some meetings I would be critical but always positive. I knew that way I would be able to get more out of my staff. When higher management would complement how a store looked and said it was because of me, I would always reply I was fortunate to have a great staff. They were the ones that deserved that praise.

 A Newtonism that I always kept with me that he said was:

“The greatest achievement in life is not and never falling but rising again after you fall.”  There would be bad races that phrase would hit me afterwards. There were bad moments in my life that phrase rang through my head. But it built me up ready for my next battle.

~~~

Part of the success of a distance runner is to get them out of their comfort zone. There are so many lessons that I learned from Mr. Newton that I use to this day. The first was just before a 2 Mile Run I was going to race in. The third part of my race was my problem point (like most everyone else). He came up to me before the start of the race and said, “I don’t care how you finish. I want you to blast that half mile after the mile. You need to work on that”. I get close to the mile running against a guy that I had never defeated before. I took off and left him in my dust on that cinder track. I thought I could ease up after that two laps. There was Mr. Newton just standing on the curve telling me “YOU LOOK GREAT! You can keep up this pace!” I did. It was my best outdoor time by ten seconds. I got confidence from that. After the race, he approached me and said, “See what I mean?” I just shook my head. He took me out of my comfort zone.

The second time was just before my senior year. The year before we had won the state cross country championship. Critics said it was supposed to be a rebuilding year because we only had two runners coming back…me and David Haller. To complicate things, Mr. Newton was chosen to be a manager for the United States Track & Field team at the Pan Am Games in Puerto Rico. He would be away from the team for about three weeks. Since he did not have any assistant coaches to run the team while he was gone. Dave was going to be at band camp at the University of Illinois during that time. So, he took me aside and told me that I was in charge. “This season relies on how this team does in the next three weeks of practice,” he told me. Here I am, an extreme introvert. I was comfortable my junior year in the background while the seniors got the limelight. Now he put me in this position.

I cannot deny that I was not my best three weeks. I slowly crawled into that role. One moment was when we decided that instead of running in front of the school, we went on the Prairie Path to get our long run in. There was an incident a few years before that Mr. Newton barred us from leaving the front of the school for our training. As we were coming off of the Prairie Path heading back to the school, I saw Mrs. Newton in a car and she saw us. My mind raced knowing that he would be calling me that night to explain myself. Sure enough at 5 PM just like every other night while he was away, my house phone would ring with Mr. Newton on the other end. I let my mom answer it and then called to me that I had a telephone call. I answered and it was him. “Mrs. Newton said that she saw you running on the Prairie Path. Why weren’t you running in front of the school?” As my heart was jumping into my throat, I explained to him that we had to get from in front of the school. We had one of the best workouts of that summer with all the guys together. I went on to talk about each of the guys just trying to relay the confidence that I was getting from the pack to him. That put him at ease. When he returned the following week, he could see that we had been doing our work.

I did not have that confidence to lead before Mr. Newton put me in that position. That confidence that I got from his action brought me out of my comfort zone and changed my life.

~~~

Mr. Newton is the most prepared person that I have ever seen. Later in my life, I would have managers that I worked with asking me why I was so prepared for every day. They could see the lists that I had on my desk. My reply was that I learned it from my high school coach. If you go look in his file cabinets in his office at York High School, you would see every workout that his team did from the last 50 years. Notes from meetings, workouts from former runners that he could refer to and use in his meetings to motivate his current runners.

You could not tell by his desk which most of the times was a mess but he or his managers knew where things were. That was the important thing. Preparedness in anything in life will bring you success. When it comes to that, you could see that from Mr. Newton.

His preparedness came from every workout and the willingness to change things up. After he came back from being a manager on the 1988 United States Olympic Team in Seoul, he told me that he was going to be changing things up. He got this Vo2 max workout from Coach Joe Vigil that he was going to try with the team. He found success from that. He knew that this series of workouts would help him with future teams. He was always look ahead. If you look at some of the workouts that we ran and the teams now run, they are drastically different. He was always looking positive ideas to help the Dukes of York.

Regardless of the situation, he was always looking ahead. In 1979 after we lost the state meet by two points and one second to a great Maine East team, the mood in Mr. Newton’s station wagon was down. As soon as we were on the highway heading for home, he told me to get the meet program and the results. He wanted to know the runners who would be coming back the next year. So as we are driving in the dark, his light was on in his car as I looked up facts for him. He was just getting ready for the next “battle”. The problem with that was having the light on drained the battery and his alternator in the car. We stalled out near Pontiac until we got help.

Two years ago after the state meet, we thought that it could be the last meet for Mr. Newton. He was having trouble moving around. He needed help getting to his car. Two days later, I was in the waiting room with my mom as my dad was having surgery. I went to the car to get my computer bag out and my phone rang. It was Mr. Newton. “Hey Michael. If you have a minute, I want to over the top runners coming back for next season and who you think the top teams will be?”

I started smiling. He was preparing for the next season. He is an information sponge. When I ran for him, he would always study the latest Timely Times and know what every team had. Since he does not know how to use the internet, I would get a call on Saturday night from him. He would ask “Are you busy?” My reply was it’s a Saturday night but I always have time to talk to you.

His stress on being prepared rubbed off on his runners being mentally and physically prepared every time we stepped to the line. Those lessons rubbed off on all of us in whatever chosen profession that we were in. Many of his runners have gone on after they left York and have been successful. Those lessons that we learned from Mr. Newton have stuck with us.

~~~

Mr. Newton and his wife Joan have three children Cindy, Thomas, and John. It goes deeper than that. They have more than a thousand sons that have run for him. Every guy that has worn the green and white have felt that way. I have been blessed that I had a good foundation in learning in my life from my parents, my college coaches Al Carius, Jim Nichols, and Ken Popejoy, and Mr. Newton. He is not only our teacher and coach, but a role model, mentor, and friend.

One thing that he would say at the beginning of the year was asking us to get a haircut. In the 70’s, it was the lifestyle for guys to have longer hair. “If you make that one sacrifice for me, I will do anything for you.”

On my last day of practice in 1979, he told the four seniors that were on that team that he was so proud of what we had accomplished. He would do anything for us if we needed him to. Mr. Newton has sent thousands of letters of recommendations out to colleges for his athletes. When I was applying for a management position, the regional president told me before offering the position, he talked to this man who just raved about me. Mr. Newton has done that not only for me but for all of the “Men of York” that have made the simple sacrifices for him. He was giving back to us.

Three years ago at the end of the season, I went to his office to drop off some statistical pages that he always used in his yearend notebook. He knew I was going through some tough times. ESPN had dropped DyeStat and I did not know what my next step would be. We sat in his office for almost two hours. We did not talk about the “next” season. We talked about life. It felt like one of those talks that I sat in while I was in high school. He had things that he had to do on that day but made that time for me. It was those sacrifices of giving back that he was again showing us. Giving back to something that you are passionate about is the greatest gift. He was just giving back to the “men” that had given him so many life experiences.

In an interview that Mr. Newton did with David Cutler on Spin Education Live http://www.spinedu.com/teachers-emulate-joe-newton-legendary-cross-country-coach/#.V56ldrgrLIV , Cutler asked him what he thought his legacy would be once he left York. His reply was a simple one.

“I think my greatest legacy is I love my kids and I have their welfare in mind to make them better people, when they leave York High School, once a Duke, always a Duke,” said Newton. “They know about life. They're going to make it with character and hard work. Hard work is everything in life. Helping other people is everything. They're getting that training at York, and that's my legacy. I try to help people be a better person. Winning is not everything. You've just got to do the best you can with what you've got.”

Nobody though that we had a chance to get a trophy at the 1977 State Cross Country Meet except us. In the November 12, 1977 issue of Illinois Track & Field News, there were predictions for the meet by several of their writers. One preview written by Taylor Gunn had us picked second. He said this in his article:

“2. York – gulp, that’s right. I’m going out on a limb, but the Dukes have come on strong the last 3 weeks. Failing to beat a super Glenbard West team by 3 points at their conference meet, then winning their district and sectional meets by wide margins gives this team the momentum…One more thing --- I’ve seen and talked to many runners this year and nowhere is there a better group of fine young men (with a capital “M”) than this York team. Newton does more than turn out great athletes.”

There was a time where not to many people who approach Mr. Newton at the state meet. Maybe it was his personality that they could understand. It is great now to see coaches, runners, and just fans approach him at the state meet asking for pictures or just talk to him for a second. It will be fun to watch that interaction one more time in Peoria this November. That is more than a tribute for everything he has done to grow cross country and running in the state of Illinois. More than 10,000 fans running around Detweiller Park at state is from what he has given to the sport.

When I moved back to Illinois, one of the things that I was determined to do was during the fall was take off from 2 PM to 6PM every Monday afternoon. Monday’s are extremely hectic for me so it was a little of a sacrifice. That did not matter. Lots of planning to get that time off. I would head over to York and spend time with Mr. Newton. Some were critical of me since I was a journalist and I should be partial.  I lost years in Ohio being able to watch him in practice, watch him motivate his runners, and talk about everything. He knew I would not talk about things that were off the record from other coaches, but those conversations I had with him were off the record also. Those practices I was able to be there for were moments that I will treasure. You have to treasure those forever moments.

The celebration that is planned at York the Sunday after the state meet will give York alumni another chance to check in and check out with the “old” coach.” It will also be a tribute to his teachings and coaching for the last 60 years in this school west of Chicago.

Not a goodbye, but the biggest thank you for one man.

Thank you Mr. Newton for the life lessons that you gave all of us. I am sure this fall there will be more.

How sweet it is!