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"Joe Newton's amazing success is not based on any magic training formula, but on his character," said Marc Bloom, the nation's top authority on high school cross country. "He gets teenaged boys -- many of them modest natural talents -- to trust him, because Joe is the genuine article: honest, hard-working, with high standards on and off the race course."
It's an approach born of the hard work Newton needed to build a program from the ground up. A sprinter in high school and at Northwestern University, he had little knowledge about distance running.
"I went to clinics and interviewed famous people," Newton said. "I just applied myself and learned. I learned that the mental is much more important than the physical. I consider myself an expert on the mental part. I really pride myself on that. I call it PMA: Positive Mental Attitude. That's 85 percent of success in life. [W]hen you go to a meet, just worry about doing your best. I never talk about winning. My guys just [run] free. The secret is to take all the pressure off."
On the first day of practice, Newton asks his runners three questions: "You can trust me. Can I trust you? I'm committed to cross country. Are you? Do you care about me because I care about you? I learned that from Lou Holtz." Part of Newton's success over the years has been a product of looking for talent in unconventional, but logical, places. Newton has regularly achieved great success in scouting York gym classes and convincing non-athletes to give his sport a try. He sells them on being part of a family. So many buy into it that he often starts tryouts with more than 200 candidates, even though only seven can run in the big meets. In some meets, he is allowed to use an unlimited number of runners, earning York the nickname of the "Long, Green Line," a play off of the school's green and white color scheme. In bringing out the school band and cheerleaders, Newton does everything in his power to make running three miles as enjoyable as possible.
Newton needed just three years to give the Dukes their first state championship (in 1962). The impression he's made with many of his athletes, though, has lasted decades.
Jim Nash -- one of those kids recruited from a gym class -- was the No. 3 runner on that '62 team and remembers Newton as being "very fair, but also very strict. If you missed two unexcused practices or were late twice, you were off the team. He was very energetic and a 'rah-rah' coach. If it was raining, that was 'liquid sunshine.' In cold weather, he'd say it was 'beautiful in Elmhurst, because it's 20 below zero in Kodak, Alaska.' He's one of the most positive people I know."
Don Sage, who won five state titles (four in track), said Newton "taught us to be competitive and tough. He gets you in a good mental state so you don't beat yourself. He teaches how to prepare yourself mentally. Physically, he prepared me to run in college (where Sage won the NCAA 1500 meters for Stanford in '02). Some people accuse him of training too hard, but I don't agree with that at all." Jim Hedman, who ran on the 1978 state championship team, has seen Newton from both sides because he now is a volunteer assistant coach at York. He was having academic problems as a freshman, so his counselor recommended that he run cross country "to help me as a person. Nine out of 10 guys will tell you that [Newton] was a second father to them."
The affection runs in both directions. Years ago Newton began giving every runner a nickname, which Newton uses to call over each squad member after practice, said Hedman. Newton then shakes each runner's hand and chats briefly with him. It takes about an hour every day to make contact with more than 200 runners. Hedman's nickname at York was "Heds." He has twin boys in eighth grade and Newton already has nicknamed them "Heds 1 and 2."
Ironically, if Newton had not been so small (5-foot-7, 145), he may have excelled in basketball and wound up coaching that sport all of his life. "Basketball was my favorite sport," he says today. "I started thinking about being a coach because I idolized my basketball coach (Eddie O'Farrell). He was a great coach. He just could motivate you. Anything he would say, I would just jump."
Newton graduated early from Parker (now part of Robeson High) in January of '47 and went to Northwestern. That spring -- when he still should have been in high school -- he ran the 100-yard dash in a swift 9.8 seconds, the 220 in 21.4 and long jumped 22-9. He also pulled down straight A's his junior and senior years to graduate "with distinction" from Northwestern in '51. He moved on to serve in the U.S. Army, where he started coaching, before briefly delving deeper into his passion at Waterman (Ill.) High before coming to York in '56. As a teacher he missed only one day in 45 years due to illness.
As steadfast as Newton has been in and out of the classroom, he says he has changed his coaching philosophy -- a bit. "I listen more to the kids now. They're more inquisitive and want to know why." He added that parents want to be much more involved today than in the past, when the coach's word always was law. Despite the trials associated with aging -- Newton had a back operation a year-and-a-half ago and will have a hip replacement in January -- he has his sights set on winning 30 state championships. He's five short, which means the Long Green Line will be casting its shadow across Illinois for years to come.
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