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In Memoriam - Joe Newton 1929-2017 - By Michael Newman

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DyeStat.com   Dec 10th 2017, 1:32am
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In Memoriam – Joe Newton 1929-2017

By Michael Newman of DyeStat, York Class of 1980

[email protected]

When a male student entered the York High School running program, he was a boy. Four years later, he graduated a man.

Joe Newton was the coach of 28 Illinois state cross country championship teams and got one more in track and field in the final year coaching the spring sport in 2000. He had many all-state and All-America runners.

The biggest legacy that Mr. Newton will leave is the countless number of boys that he developed into men.

In an article written in the Nov. 12, 1977 edition of Illinois Track & Field News, Taylor Gunn wrote: 

“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 were times when York teams came into meets as clear underdogs. The biggest underdog might have been Mr. Newton himself. He started teaching at York High in Elmhurst, Ill. in 1956 as a P.E. teacher and assistant coach of the track and field team. He was the named the head cross country coach of the Dukes in 1960 without knowing much about distance running. He had been a sprinter at Parker High in Chicago and then at Northwestern University. 

Yet, two years later in 1962, York won its first state cross country title.

Mr. Newton was a tireless worker and willing to read and learn everything that he could about the sport. He demanded excellence from himself in the way that he taught and the way that he coached us, his runners. He demanded excellence in us at every workout that we took part in, as well as every time we stepped to the starting line.

READ THE SERIES "PUT YOUR HAND ON SEVEN" by Mike Newman

I learned that during my freshman year after a bad race on the track. He was not at that meet because he was with the varsity squad.

At the beginning of practice the next day when I checked in with him, he asked: “What the hell happened yesterday, Michael?”

I was speechless. I thought I had let him down.

At the end of that practice, which was a good one for me, I shook his hand checking out.

“That was a good one. Keep your head up.”

I did not let him down. You could never let him down.

He would get on us at times if he saw something that he did not like in our running. But there was always a positive reaffirmation comment that he would give us.

“The greatest achievement in life is not in never falling, but rising again after you fall.”

Mr. Newton told us that over and over in practices. Something bad might happen, but he would always remind us that the next day would be better.

One of the questions that he was asked many times was who was the best runner that he ever coached. Or who was the runner that showed the most improvement over four years. He always had trouble answering those questions.

You see, the one thing that he taught us was that there was nothing more important than the team. The accomplishments of the individual were important, but foremost because they were contributions to the team's success. Every runner on a York team was important from the No. 1 runner on team to the final runner that might have trouble breaking 25 minutes for 3 miles.

He would give every runner on his team a nickname that would stick for life. Mine was “Newms.” Later, it expanded to “Number 1” since there were three Newman men that ran for him. I was always called by one of those names every time I came back to visit him.

On the last day of the season in the final meeting of the year, he would always thank us for the sacrifices that we made for him. He told us that he would do anything for us. It was a display of how much he loved us. How we ran for him and the way that we represented York at meets and then later in life was a display of how much we loved him.

It is a love that will never end.

He has a wife Joan, a daughter Cindy, and two sons, Thomas and John. His family expands further than that. Every runner that put on the green and white, every manager who helped him run the team, and every man who had the privilege to be his assistant coach, is his son.

He might have been our coach and teacher. More importantly, that relationship grew to become our mentor and our friend. He became a father figure to nearly all of us.

One coach that I talked to recently called Joe Newton the ultimate cross country coach. While he might have worked to get to that point, he would never have made a claim like that about himself. Another coached called him “Illinois High School Cross Country” as if he had propped up all of it.

Mr. Newton gave the sport of cross country unprecedented exposure in Illinois. In the 1970s when I ran, there would be crowds to watch every meet. Now, as many as 10,000 people flood Detweiller Park to watch the state meet. I’ve been asked why Illinois is such a hotbed for cross country. The answer is simple. It is the impact that Joe Newton has had on the sport and its culture.

There are things that coaches now duplicate that Mr. Newton started. Paul Vandersteen of Neuqua Valley High in Naperville, Ill. makes it an emphasis that he shakes the hand of every member of his team after every practice. It is part of the team's culture. It was something that Mr. Newton did with us every day. Every runner was important.

I have been asked what my favorite memory was at York High. Was it a particular workout? Was it a state championship?

My favorite moment was the beginning of practice. The meeting. We learned so many lessons about life in those talks, which we carried into workouts and races.  

The most important thing was not running for him. It was his words, which shaped us, built us up, and turned us into the men we are now. The races and the workouts were a culmination of all of this. He gave us lessons about life that we would recall and use every day after leaving York.

Making sure that we were at practice on time. Being respectful of others. Being respectful of our teammates. Giving 110 percent in every workout. Having 33 percent left at the end of races. 

He would yell at us toward the end of the race: “IF YOU DON’T PASS THAT GUY, WE LOSE BY ONE POINT!” The runner for the other team would hear that, too, and would be just as motivated as we were. He was just throwing that challenge at us and waiting to see us pass that runner, to overcome the thing that looked like it might be impossible to do. He wanted us to climb to the top of the mountain just to see what we had in our hearts.

Those are lessons that carry on with us.

He might be gone physically, but the spirit of what he gave to the Men of York and to the sport of cross country lives with us.

In November 2016, after the celebration for Mr. Newton's retirement at York High, a small group of family and friends met at a small restaurant in downtown Elmhurst to hold our own celebration with Mr. Newton. Stories were swapped. No tears were shed, but there was laughter in hearing all of the tales that we knew by heart. 

At the end of the night when we were ready to leave, though none of us wanted to, we went up to check out one more time.

I shook his hand and he looked me in the eyes. 

“Thank you, Michael, for everything that you have done for me. It means a lot Number 1.”

No, Mr. Newton. Thank YOU for everything that you have given to me.



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