Chapter 20: The Years After

One of things that runners who were underclassmen when they were on a state championship team is that your senior season is far different. Dave Haller and I found that out quickly as the end of the track season ended and our senior season began.

The atmosphere was different. I know I missed my teammates from the year before, but it was something that I just had to get over. The feelings from the year before and 1979 had some similarities. The most important thing in the group was that we wanted to repeat. We knew that it would be tough to accomplish that. Maine East, who was sixth the year before basically had all of their top seven back and would be the top ranked team in the state heading into that year. We were ranked fifth. Again, we started the season as underdogs, but we had been there before.

We deserved that ranking. Dave and I were the only two runners back that had run in the state meet. There was no internet back then, so you could not do research on other teams. Our conference rivals knew we had a strong group behind Dave and I waiting for the chance to step up.

It was a weird summer. Mr. Newton would be away from it for half the summer. He was named an assistant coach for the United States National team that would compete at the Pan-American Games in Puerto Rico. Dave was at band camp at the University of Illinois for almost a month. I knew he was running there but it was not the same. I found that out the year before. Every day at 5 PM, Mr. Newton would call me and ask how things were going.

There was one instance where I did not want to talk to him. While he was gone, Mr. Newton still wanted us to run in front of the school. On one of those days, we were on the breaking point where we just needed to get away from that 440-yard trail around the front of the school.

The top 12 runners headed south on Spring Road to the Prairie Path. We had a good fartlek workout where we had some great pickups on that path. I loved running on the Prairie Path. The surface was soft gravel. It was forgiving on the legs. It also allowed us to run at a good pace instead of running around and around the front of the school.

As we heading to the path, we saw a car pass us heading north. I recognized the license plate number. It was Mrs. Newton. I did not know if the old coach had her on a search for us. Nevertheless, thoughts were going through my head. I knew Mr. Newton would be calling me at 5 PM. I knew I would have to talk to him. I knew I had to face the music.

I even told my mom not to answer the phone around 5 PM. There was no caller-id. There was no such thing back then as an answering machine.

Like clockwork, the phone rang precisely at 5PM.

Please stop ringing. Please no one pick up the phone. Those thoughts rang through my head.

MIKE --- Telephone!

Thanks, Mom for picking up the phone.

I was hoping it was one of my teammates. No luck there.

“Michael, this is Mr. Newton.”

There was a pause for a second. I was hoping we were disconnected. No luck.

“Mrs. Newton saw you running down Spring Road. What the h--- is going on?”

He went on for another 30 seconds explaining what I was thinking. I was told to stay in front of the school. I finally was able to explain what my thoughts were. It was a well thought out explanation. I had six hours to pick out the correct words. I told him how well we ran that day and about how each of us thought it was our best workout during the summer.

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. “That is great Newms!”

Phew.

We went on to talk for a few more minutes before he had to hang up.

It was different than my junior year. This bond between myself and my coach was strengthening. I was a follower in 1978. Now I was expected to lead this team.

Mr. Newton did not have assistant coaches while I attended school at York. That summer I was leading the team expecting me to have us ready by the time he returned. There was pressure. I did not want to let him down. I did not want to let myself down. Story of my life.

When we started the season, there were only four seniors on the team. There was Doug Horn who missed all of the junior season due to an injury. He was in fantastic shape entering the season. Mike Custer, who challenged for the top seven at times in 1978, was in the same position entering the fall of 1979.

Our junior group of Rich Seyferlich, Rick Tauber, Al Taira, and Tony Yang were not known at the beginning of the year, but by the end of that season the state knew who they were. The sophomore group with my brother Dan, Mark Jerger, Dale Madsen, and Rex Armstrong pushed the juniors and pushed us to greater things that season. They were the nucleus of York teams that started a five-year state title winning streak in 1980.

My racing season started slow. I had run 1571 miles from June 1 to September 1. I got carried away, I know. My legs were heavy the first few races but by the middle of the month I was running in the front.

We ran against Maine East three times during the 1979 season. The first time was during one of the Tuesday night summer races during the summer in Glen Ellyn. It was the first race since Mr. Newton had returned from Puerto Rico. We knew they were good from running against them the year before. They put their top five runners in before we had a runner in the chute. After the race, Mr. Newton told us, “Well men, at least tomorrow is not the state meet.”

It was a different story the next time we met in the middle of the year at the Peoria Invitational. Our expectations were not that high heading into the meet. We were coming off a convincing win at the DuPage County Meet where there were six top-20 state ranked teams. We beat our conference rivals Glenbard West 36-108 putting five runners in the top 14. We then ran a dual meet against Downers Grove North the Thursday before Peoria winning 15-50.

It was an emotional race. During the awards ceremony at the County Meet, some of their runners were commented how they were going to beat us at East End. We heard them and thought “Be careful what you wish for”. We put the first seven runners in on a good, ranked state team.

Our legs were tired heading to Maine East. Again, we never rested before a big meet during the season, but I was wishing that we had.

Our team had confidence that kind of washed out how our legs were feeling. After our county meet (our coming out meet), we were moved to second in the state rankings behind Maine East. It was a great race placing our scorers in the top 11 to win 34-63 ahead of Maine East. Dave was third, I was fourth, Seyferlich (7^th), Horn (9^th), and Tauber (11^th) rounded out the top five. There was a 16 second split on the top five with all of us under 15-minutes.

It was an impressive performance. We knew this was not November and we would have to face Maine East again.

That state meet was one of the closest in the history of that meet. We knew going in that Maine East would be tough. We were winning convincingly during the state series, but so were they. They put their 5 runners in the top 27. We had four all-state runners with David 7^th, Doug 17^th, Rich 18^th, and me 22^nd. Rick Tauber was our fifth runner again finishing 46^th. The race was so close that we did not know if we had won or not when we left Detweiller Park.

As we sat in the lobby of the hotel wearing our tuxes waiting to head to the high school, Gary Goss came into the lobby. He told us Maine East had won 63 to 65 ahead of us. No one else knew that. My head slumped down not knowing what to think. I don’t think I realized what quiet was while I sat there with my teammates. That silence was broken when Mr. Newton told us to get in the cars.

There were other teammates that met us outside of the gym. They could tell by our posture that the outcome was not what we wanted. We so respected that Maine East team. After they got the state title trophy, we went to them and shook their hands. We ran great on that day. They just ran a little better.

You can’t always get to the top of the mountain.

That race was a hard way to learn that lesson, but it just happened that way. The team race was so close. Only two points separated us. There has been a couple of state meets that came down to one point. When it came down to team times, Maine East’s team time of 73:52 was just one second ahead of our 73:53. A year ago, David was looking through some of the state results. He noticed that our point total of 65 points is the lowest second-place total in state meet history (in the modern era).

The difference after the awards of emotions was different than 1978. We were in a group not knowing what to do next after we congratulated Maine East. One of the parents that was with us, Frank Hoffman, approached. “Here are your team medals.”

I took the medal and put it on. I did not want to look at it. It was hard to accept what had happened earlier in the day.

I covered my face and I cried. People tried to console me. They couldn’t. My emotions came out in just one burst of tears.

It was not supposed to end this way. I wear my heart on my sleeve sometimes too much and it was showing again.

Every once in a while, I pull out a container and look at that medal. I think of what we accomplished and how proud I was to be a part of that group.

In 2016 on a Thursday before the state meet, and before the celebration that we would have for Mr. Newton, I was in his hotel room. The night before, he was in the emergency room with some health complications. He was supposed to talk to the team but did not have the energy to. Yet, he wanted to see me.

He wanted to know about the state meet on Saturday even though he physically could not be there. We talked about that, we talked about life, and we talked about the past. “That team in 79 was special,” he told me. I was shocked. We had never talked about that day. But somehow, I knew how he felt about that meet every time he talked. He loved that team. He loved every team that he coached.

The 1978 and 1979 teams were a change in direction in the York Cross-Country program in some ways. My first two years in the program was not the best team culture. I said that in an interview before the state meet in 1979 that by some of the alumni it was not received well. In the past few years, some of that group apologized to me. It was not necessary, but I understood.

I learned from those two years. I respected some of the runners from that group. It taught me what I wanted from our team when I was a senior. We never looked down on the underclassmen as we had been. The four seniors in 1979 (Henry, Newms, Honk, and Cus) were on the same page when it came to that.

A few years ago, a freshman on that 79 team Mark Wacholtz told me:
“You know I was on three state championship teams. But my freshman season in 1979 was my favorite.”

Sometimes you don’t have to win to accomplish so many great things. I am sure that those years and change of culture affected what happened after we left going from 7 state championships up to 28 state titles.

With family and job obligations, it was tough at times to get back to watch a meet or catch up with the old coach. In 1988, he asked me to help Stan Reddel who would coach the team while Mr. Newton was part of the Olympic Coaching Staff of the Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. I went to state meet with the team as part of the “Entourage” until 1999. Myself, my dad, Jim Dunham, Jim Cosgrove, Jeff O’Rourke, and Vito Papura surrounded Mr. Newton making things a little easier on that state meet weekend.

There was one time were that was not the case. The parents in that period of time had limos for the runners to get them to the hotel and then to the high school for the awards. The entourage got back to the hotel and were looking for Mr. Newton. He was not there. He was still at the park talking to reporters. He did make it back to the hotel. Yes, we did hear about that.

The things that I remember the most from that time period was meeting up for a piece of pie at a restaurant close to the hotel after the kids were put to sleep. It is those interactions that stay with you forever. The story telling that went on in that group and other of his friends that would join us was memorable. I swore on an oath that I would not repeat those. All I know is we would be crying from laughter of some of the stories that were told. It was a 24-hour restaurant and I think the latest that we stayed there was until close to 1AM.

I ran and attended North Central College from 1980 to 1984 where I received degrees in Journalism and Political Science. I was also part of two national championship teams while running for Al Carius, Jim Nichols, and Ken Popejoy. I was told when I graduated from York that I would not find another team culture like I had in high school. They were wrong. To attend North Central College was one of the best decisions that I ever made. What made that decision even better was all of the friendships and bonds that were developed during that time in Naperville. Those bonds can never be erased.

When I was exiled in Cleveland (sorry Ohio folks, not the same for me as Chicago was), for close to 10 years, it was tough to miss the activity of the group. When I went through my divorce and decided to switch from management to covering cross-country and track and field for DyeStat, Mr. Newton was always there to offer support. He did that for all of his boys.

When I moved back to Chicago, I surprised him at a practice. “What the hell are you doing here #1,” he asked me. (Three brothers: One, Two, Three). He was happy that I was back. There were a number of times where he asked me to go down with the team on the bus to state. I never could because of my job. I always had to tell him how would it look if an editor from a website stepped off your bus? He understood.

Once a York runner, always a York runner. You were part of that group for life. We were always free to call him or pop in at his school office. I don’t know if there was a time that I visited him where the phone was not ringing wanting to talk to him. There were Saturday nights after cross country meets where I was working on results, writing a recap, and the phone would ring.

“Are you busy tonight? Can we talk about the meets today?” he would ask.

“Not busy Mr. Newton,” always was my reply. And we would talk for hours it seemed.

It is a bond that never dies. In 2016 the night after the state meet and the day before the Joe Newton Celebration, that 1978 team met up in a restaurant in Elmhurst.

It was like we had never left each other. The stories that were told on that night brought us back to yesteryear. I was sitting next to Freegs. Heds asked him “Do you remember that warmup we did that one practice?”

Freegs looked at me and playfully started to strangle me. Yes, he had not forgotten that. It was like we had never been a part of each other. That was 38 years away from each other. It is those bonds that are created during a championship season that will never disappear.

It just works that way.

40 years ago. We dreamed something impossible and made it a reality.

Dreams do come true. That is something that we discovered in our youth.