Chapter 1: The road to the summer of ‘78

It was 40 years ago that I began my junior year at York High School in Elmhurst. It seems like it was just yesterday and here I am 56 years old now. It was a memorable year for me. I earned the opportunity to run in the top seven on the varsity for the York Cross Country team. Along with six other student-athletes, we spent a full year with the quest of running for a state cross country championship.

It was a season where we learned so much about each other. We learned that individual goals did not matter. We learned to become better teammates and better human beings. This group of boys from a suburban Chicago athletic grew to become men from all the challenges that received from Coach Joe Newton.

In the next couple of months, you will read what I and my teammates went through. I’ll try to keep it in real time, so to speak. For example, if it is the week of the conference meets, I will be writing about the week that I ran conference in 1978. The schedule does not change much (Thank you IHSA). You will see that the struggles and the successes that we went through are similar to what you will all go through this year with the exception that we were still in the dark ages. Phones still had wires connecting the receiver to the phone, there was no caller ID and you had to use a rotary phone, stopwatches were not digital, and there were only eight channels that we could watch on the television.

No internet. No social media. I wish in some ways that I was back in that era.

When the summer began in 1978, there were 15 runners that were in the top group vying to be in the York top seven by the end of October. Cross Country runners at York were the top dogs each fall. Other schools had football as the thing to watch. In Elmhurst, it was Cross Country even though the Football team thought they were the best thing since sliced bread. They were 1-8 my junior year. You figure it out. Rodney Dangerfield always said, “I get no respect”. There were times that we felt that way.

The year before in 1977, York had finished second in the state meet behind an unbelievable Deerfield team that some still consider one of the best teams ever produced in this state. Our second-place finish was unbelievable as well.

The varsity team had lost to Glenbard West three times during the year and got our lunch handed to us by Fremd at the Peoria Invitational. There were so many up and downs that fall. It was a blessing. Even though it was a blessing, York had been without a state championship since 1973. I know, I know. There are some schools that would think it was great to just win one or even make the trip to Peoria for a run at Detweiller in November. Every York senior class had experienced the euphoria of a team winning the state championship since York won their first in 1962. It was that winning culture that Joe Newton had developed since he took over in 1960.

As our team entered into the summer of 1978, the seniors knew this was their last chance to win and that showed in every workout that we ran. The expectations were there because, well, we were York. But people were down playing this team because we supposedly did not have the talent coming back that the other schools had. We did not have the internet back then, so we could not really compare teams like we do now. You had the state meet results and the Timely Times top lists. Timely Times was TFX back then. Except that you had to wait until Tuesday afternoon for it to come in your mailbox.

We knew what people were saying. We knew in our hearts what we had to do. Sometimes the heart will get you to perform the impossible. The thing was we did not think it was impossible. We knew it would be hard work. We did not realize it would be that hard.

There were three runners on that 1978 team that had state meet experience. The leader of the team was Phil Williams. Willie was a quiet leader that would lead by example. He had finished 63^rd at state the year before and had a good track season running 4:25 for the mile. He was an honor student that would end up attending Duke. Willie’s nickname between us was Killer because his sarcastic wit had a killer twinge to it. I’ll get to that in some of the future chapters. Phil is now a doctor and has a son that ran at Fremd High School in Palatine. I got to see him at some meets and have wanted to come up to him and say “Hey Doctor Killer” … somehow that would not sound right.

Our number one returnee was Tim Krull who had finished 48th. His nickname was Crazy Horse. I had known Tim since junior high school. He was a free spirit and philosophy sometimes did not mix with Mr. Newton’s. Maybe not sometimes. People outside of the program thought his nickname was because of how he acted. Well in some ways it was. He was a free spirit. Some of it was from this t-shirt that he seemed to wear every day during the summer that had Crazy Horse written on it. He would jump over tables during workouts. One race he ran with one shoe on. There was a race where had to stay with a runner during the race because he did not know where the finish was.

Horse was talented. To make the top seven as a sophomore then, you had to be talented. He had a great two seasons before this year. We did not know it at the time, but his running career was pretty much over at that point. His knee and Achilles tendon were shot up with cortisone countless times as well as having bone spurs and shin splints. I loved running with him. More importantly, he was a great teammate.

The other returnee was Pat McCarthy, who was the seventh man on the team at state. He was one of those runners that had a brother that had previously run on the team. His brother Bob was a two-time all-state runner that was a member of York’s last state championship team in 1973. Brother Mac is no longer with us. He was one of a kind.

Mike Wagner, who also had brothers that had run for Mr. Newton, was hungry to race. Most of his junior season was injury riddled. He wanted to make sure his senior season counted. Jim Hedman was hungry as well. He had run in the top seven most of the previous season. He was nosed out by “Brother Mac” in a three-mile time trial before regionals. Mac ran in the state series, Heds was an alternate.

There were five other seniors that wanted a chance to run in the top seven. Mark Lisy was the team’s eighth man the year before and the “Tin Man” was looking to get in the line-up. Mike Frega, Pete Schuyler, Steve Boyd, and Rob Ragusin were those typical York juniors that shined in the junior varsity just waiting for their chance to make the line-up.

“Freegs” would be the heart of our team. He wanted to win so bad that he wrote a letter to Mr. Newton devoting his senior year to that purpose after the state meet in 1977. He dedicated his next, year, his life to the team with the purpose of getting the state title back to York. He was short and always wore this green York hat that made him look like an elf. Freegs and Tin-Man would hang out together. They always reminded me of the two elves on the animated Christmas special “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.”

Then there were a couple of us juniors that were hoping to get into that top seven. My best friend in high school and still was David Haller. We had both dramatically improved during our sophomore season. When one of us was down, the other would pick each other up. We challenged each other in practice and in races.

I think the main thing between David and I was that we had the same work ethic and did not mind leaving our lunch out on the track. David’s nickname was 'Henry.'' It was actually Henry Kissinger that was shortened down to Henry. During one of the runs during our freshman year, there were a couple of the runners that started a fight during a run. Dave told them to stop. He even threatened to go to a house and ring a door bell. The kids stopped. That is how he got his name. He had a younger sister Kathy. Her nickname was "Henrietta." Yup. We were a cruel bunch.

For me, it was just an adventure getting to his point where I was in the position to challenge for the top seven. As long as I could remember, sports were in my veins and part of my DNA. When I was in third grade, I was a little slower than everyone else (not in the running sense) which concerned my parents. They decided to take me to a doctor to have me examined. The doctor told my parents afterwards that sports would never be a part of my life. For an eight-year old kid, I did not know what that meant. Do you mean I would not be able to compete or not be good?

I found it out the hard way as I was not the best baseball, basketball, or football. In eighth grade, I did find my niche when my math teacher Don Collins started a cross country club. He figured since York had a “good” team that the junior high should have a team. There were eight boys on the team. I was the sixth man. At least I was not eighth. But through all my failures in the other sports, I found that the perseverance that I had in life would suit me the best in running.

I almost did not come out for the team my freshman year. I did not run with the team during the summer. I thought that running for me was just a junior high thing. How could I compete with all of these high school guys. I am an introvert. I still am. I am not at my best in social situations. I did not go to the first day of practice. I was afraid. Mr. Newton sent someone to my home to bring me to the afternoon practice. I had met Mr. Newton when I was in junior high school. Here is this icon that was shorter than me, wearing sunglasses on days where it was needed. There was an aura about him. Even when I started to get to know him better, that aura would surround me.

I came to practice in the afternoon. He asked me where I was this morning. I did not have an answer for him. I think he could see hw I was scared. "Mr. Collins told me that you could be a good runner," he said to me. He took off his sunglasses and said, "If you work hard, you can get to the top of the mountain and be great." I shook my head yes. Then I went to run in front of the school. He wanted me to run just one lap. I ran four. There was this liberation within me.  It came from those words from my coach.

I stayed out for cross country at York from that point and felt that I belonged there. Mr. Newton was a tough coach, but he made everyone feel that they were a part of the team. My freshman year could be summed up by one word: “inconsistency.”

During the fall of my freshman year, I was the fourth man at the county meet. At our conference meet, I went out too fast and finished 83^rd in the freshman race. The same thing happened to me during the track season. I did run 10:23 early during the outdoor season but my times in the 2-mile were all over the place. I was just out there running. I guess I had not figured out the purpose of running and doing it the right way.