Chapter 12: The workout that started with a bloodbath

The Sunday run at Bull Frog Lake was a run that everyone needed. Mr. Newton would say a few things to us and we would head to the trails of Bullfrog Lake after being told that we needed to be back in two hours. He would sit in the parking lot doing paperwork, looking at results in the Sunday newspapers, and listening to the Bears game.

I do not think there was ever a more ardent Chicago Bears fan than Mr. Newton. He had season tickets. He would sacrifice those games during the fall so that he could be with us on Sunday afternoon. You can imagine the sacrifices that we would make for him.

It was the age where everyone was letting their hair grow, both guys and gals. We would have our hair short. At meets, other teams would call us "York Dorks" for the way that we looked. It did not matter to us. Just let us get our spikes on and race you. By the end of the race that name-calling would be muffled. It was a sacrifice we made for him.

There were so many instances after we graduated when one of us would ask Mr. Newton if he could make a phone call to a prospective employer or school on our behalf. He never hesitated. He told us time and time again about our hair getting our hair cut, “If you make that one sacrifice, I will do anything for you.”

That statement was true. When I had an interview with a company, I would always put his name down as a reference. When I talked to the president of the company, he told me of a 20-minute conversation he had with Mr. Newton. The old coach ended the phone call telling this president that he would a fool not to hire me. I got the job.

A number of years ago, a couple of parents complained to the principal that Mr. Newton was requiring the kids to get haircuts. Newton was told that he could no longer tell kids to do that. Otherwise, there would be consequences. Nevertheless, the runners at York still wear short hair. Newton has not said one word about it, but the legacy he built makes that gesture by runners commonplace.

Our run was a good cleansing of all the running that we did the day before. My hamstring was sore throughout the run but improved the hour that we were on the trails. We decided we would get a good concentrated run in for an hour, then go to the field overlooking the lake for some football using a tennis ball. Two-hand touch. We knew that we had big races coming up. The last thing that we needed was someone to get tackled and injured. As aggressive as we all were, that was a possibility. More so, this was a chance for us to laugh together, poke fun at each other, and take a break from what we were going through. It was almost one month until state. We needed that tiny escape.

It was just the top eight that played the game. We did not know where the rest of the team was. It was time for us. Halfway through the game, we noticed a group of guys running on the trail. They were all wearing the same thing. It was Thornridge. We knew all about them. There was an article every week in the newspaper and monthly in Illinois Track & Field News about this group. They were a good team that would be challenging for the state championship. We would not race them until state.

Dave Haller and I really wanted to race them. Their top seven had a group of runners that the press labeled “Super Sophs.” Mike Kirk, Cliff Hall, Mike Sullivan, Perry Asauskas and Cliff Young were all great runners that were given a chance to run on the varsity level the year before. In 1977, they were supposed to race at the York Frosh/Soph Invitational. We were looking forward to running against them and showing that we were a good group as well. They cancelled at the last minute. There were so many rumors flying around as to why they did not come.

One of the press clippings that I saved was a preview for the 1977 state meet. It mentioned this Thornridge group. They may be affected by the circumstances of the meet, said the writer of the article, but in two years this group would be state champs. I had nothing against those guys. We didn't have an animosity toward them. Actually, they had our respect. All that Henry and I wanted to do was race them and prove that article wrong. Whenever I looked at that piece, I told myself, “We’ll see about that.”

They ran past us thinking 'That was York?' We kept playing knowing the work we had put in and the races we still had to run … touchdown.

As we approached the parking lot, there was this wire that blocked the path so that vehicles would not get on the trail. While everyone else went on the trail around this low hanging wire, I decided to exhibit my prowess as a hurdler and as a goof-off. The wire was so low, it would be easy to get over it so I thought.

When I ran, my right leg would swing to the night. It was not something that was non-noticeable (In next week’s blog, I’ll get into that further). I cleared the wire easily with my left leg. The right leg decided to hug the wire with the result of a face-planting on the ground. I jumped up quickly, stating to everyone that I was OK. My leg told another story, as blood started gushing from my knee.

I had driven to the park with Phil Williams. The first thing that Willie said was "There is no way that you are getting in my car, Newms." I did not know if he was joking or not. What I did not think of was that we were getting closer to Newton.

He saw my knee and reacted.

“What in the hell happened? Were you guys playing football again?”

Willie, since he was our captain, spoke out. “No, Newms thought he could hurdle the wire over there and … ”

Newton stopped him. I was thinking the worst, but he was smiling. “Go get yourself cleaned up,” he said. I am sure on the drive home, he got a good laugh from that.

I got home, and I started thinking about Saturday’s race. As I was reading a book for school, my mind kept drifting back to the race and how I ran it. I was angry at myself. It was towards me. In my mind, I knew I had to prove to myself that I belonged with Willie, with Rags, and the rest of the team. I went to bed on Sunday night thinking of the 10 x 880s that we would have to run tomorrow.

Some of the runs that we did during the year would enter into the folklore of York. There were times I would come back to visit Mr. Newton and watch a practice and he would mention those runs. The one that he would mention the most was The Bloodbath. I was the instigator.

That Monday afternoon, Mr. Newton reviewed the meet. He was happy with the split, but not happy about how slow we went out. He told us the workout -- warm up of four miles in front of the school on that quarter-mile dirt loop.

We were competitive. If one guy started to push the pace, others would stay with the guy. The one that started the “surge” knew he would get some ribbing afterwards.

We started that run and my hamstring was sore. It was something that I was not thinking about. My thoughts were about Saturday. I was angry at myself. I took that out on the warm-up.

The first mile was controlled. It had to be near six-minute pace. I decided that it was not fast enough. I looked down and went. I did not look back, but I could sense through the sounds of pounding feet on the ground that everyone was close. I decided I wanted to be alone and picked the pace up. By the last mile, we were running race pace. I started to pull away the last two laps. Newton walked out of the school and saw what was happening. All he would say as we passed was, “Way to go guys.”

I was punishing myself and the guys decided to take the ride with me. I had started my watch at the beginning of the run. When we stopped, I looked at the clock: 21 minutes.

I did not look back. I went to the lobby to get a drink of water. I did not want to look back. I did not want to look at the faces of my teammates. I did not want to look at the carnage that I had started. I had looked back enough at the race from two days before. That warmup got that out if my mind and out of my system. No more looking back.

I came back out to the front of the school and there were two guys that were holding Mike Frega back. I was ducking as things were flying by my head that Mike was throwing at me.

“What in the hell are you doing Newms?” he screamed at me. “Are you out of your mind?”

Newton was calming him down. I think he saw something that he wanted to see. The race on Saturday did not set us back. It showed the character that we had on this team. Saturday was a setback. It would not detour us from our dream.

We still had intervals to do. Our second workout, I guess. My hamstring tightened up again while we were stretching. My legs were cashed. All I knew is that I could not drop back during those 880s. How would it look if I was the guy who started that warm-up and then wimped out?

It was a rehearsal of sorts. The first five were in the 2:24 range. The last five were near 2:20. We traded off the lead on each of the intervals. As I was running, the hamstring would loosen up. During the rest period, I kept moving around. I knew if I stood still, it would tighten up. We finished the workout. In my mind I felt that if I could get through all of that, I could survive any race. That exorcised a few demons in my mind.

Henry and I walked and talked about the workout. He wanted to know what in the world I was thinking during that warm up. I told him. He did not say a word, but he understood. The rest of the time we just talked and walked. Not about running, but about everything else. When we split off heading to our respective houses, all I was thinking of was the ice pack in the freezer that was waiting for my leg.

My hamstring was getting worse and yet I felt I had to keep it to myself. If I told my mom, she would tell my dad. Since my dad would talk to Newton at meets, I was sure that my hamstring would enter the conversation. The next thing I knew, Newton would be resting me. Next thing I knew, I would not be running in state. It was self-preservation. I had to suck up the pain and find a way to make it through to November.

Thursday’s dual meet against Lyons Township would be at home and the last dual of the year. There was no Saturday meet so the focus was on that race. In the meeting the day before the race, Newton told us that there would be a challenge for the conference title. We kind of figured that was going to be the case. That Riverside race was still on his mind.

Lyons was not a bad team. They were ranked in the Timely Times poll, so we were not going to take them lightly. We had learned that lesson. They had one runner that we were watching. His name was John Walsh. We nicknamed him "The Animal.'' He would just go and flat-out run. He was tough. We respected that, but we did not want him to beat us.

Years later at a meet, I had talked to Mike Kuharic who in 1978 was in his first year of coaching at Lyons Township. The biggest wake-up call he got during that first year was coaching a team that ran against York at East End Park. He passed away a few years ago but he was such a great coach developing runners into all-state runners in cross country and especially in track in the 2-mile relay. He is one of those coaches that I miss talking to.

I think the challenge for the seven spots for conference was a moot point. Well, at least in the mind of the seven that ran at Peoria. That race got us closer as a team. The workout on Monday, even though that half of the guys wanted to kill me, got us closer. It was a matter of running the race and taking care of business.

My hamstring was sore but manageable at the start. The first half mile the pain was gone. That was a good sign. By the mile and a half, Willie and I had separated ourselves from the last of the pack. This was after the first mile where Animal was embedded in our pack. We made roll call. Seven answered and then we went.

The last lap I started to gap Willie just a little bit. I knew he had a killer kick and I had to get myself away from him before we got to the last 300 of the race.

TURTLES could out-kick me.

If Willie was close, it would be his race. It was not a matter of no confidence in my kick, it was knowing he had the wheels to blow by me.

A funny thing happened. We would do a 300 at the end of every workout. The slowest guy would go first, the fastest guy would go last. Guess who was first? Every 300, my goal was to not let anyone pass me. Every 300, it got a little better. Guys would, indeed, pass me. But it would be tougher for them. We would then pair off into 110s and Henry and I would challenge each other.

What you do in a workout will translate into a race if you want it to. I had in my mind that I did not have the best kick in the world, but I had confidence building inside of me that I would be tough to pass at the end. Every race I would visualize that final 300 before the meet. I kept that in my mind.

Coming down the home stretch, I had the lead. I knew Willie was there, but I did not dare to look behind. Focus on the finish line, stupid, and not the action behind me.

My time was 14:04. Willie was two seconds back. As we walked through the chute, we looked back. There was a long green line. Henry was at 14:12. Freegs 14:14. Heds 14:17. Rags 14:18. Wags 14:19. A 15-second split on seven.

Walsh was three seconds behind. It was a 15-50 perfect score over a good team.

There was no question of who our top seven was at this point. Mark Lisy was our eighth man and he was 12 seconds behind Wags. All of the work that we did at the start of June was coming to fruition. The pack of all those guys was narrowed to seven. We were not the chosen ones. Every spot in that top seven was earned.

We would have our last Saturday workout at East End Park. There is nothing prettier than the sun rising on that dew-drenched park on a Saturday morning in October. The cars and trucks zooming by on the adjacent 290 extension kind of ruin that ambiance. That segment workout would mark the last time that the seniors would be there for a workout. Four years of thinking of how you started out at that park and how you ended up.

This year would be a little different. The conference meet would be at our park next Saturday. We had moved up to No. 3 in Timely Times with only Fremd and Maine East, the teams that beat us at Peoria, ahead of us.

Ratings did not matter. We knew our conference meet would be tough. That was the main focus. We were on the verge of getting where we wanted to go. In our minds we knew that. That thought never passed our lips. It was an understanding that each of us had. We were just a pack of hungry runners waiting in the brush waiting for our next victim. The runners in the West Suburban Conference would be next.