Customer Reviews

Coaching Cross Country Successfully (Coaching Successfully Series)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am a cross-country captain and wanted to educate myself on how to help my coach with our team. This book is a good, simple basis for those who are unexperienced with coaching cross country. I think it was a good help and gave me some basis but I learned much more about the school that this author coached than I needed to. This book is also a boasting of York school, who according to this book is state ranked and touches perfection. Having read this book twice, I still feel very unsure of what practises would be good for my team. Though it is a bit annoying, I recommend to someone who needs an idea, I also recommend buying another book with it, such as 'the competitive runner's handbook.'

Joe Newton is the GOLD STANDARD when it comes to coaching high school cross country. Year in and year out his teams challenge for state and national titles. This book is not as good as the "Long Green Line" but that is THE book on high school cross country. This book stands by itself as an excellent, practical guide for coach, fan and runner. It is broken into easy to read sections and full of interesting antedotes. Joe Newton gives solid insight into his highly successful progam.

While this is a revolutionary book for it's type (there are not many guides to coaching cross country) I think that there is an underlying flaw with coach Newton's philosophy. From what I read of Newton's workout chart, it seems that he over works his runners. While this does get quality results and fast runners, it is not working in the runners best interest. High schoolers who are worked too much get burnt out easily and are overlooked by college cross country coaches.

There are very few current books directly intended to function as how-to guides for high-school cross-country coaches. This title's durability has, I think, more to do with the lack of competition in this niche (and with the author's level of renown) than with its intrinsic merit.

Joe Newton's approach to program development is simple. Recruit, if you can, huge numbers of runners from the student body, train them at very high mileages and intensities, and let the cross-country gods sort them out. While this Darwinist approach may yield some good results at very large schools with three-season running continuity (XC-indoor track-outdoor track), at small schools without year-round running, Newton's methods (if taken at face value) are likely to be a formula for team-shattering injury rates and rapid demoralization.

As regards technical matters, Newton's outlook was antique even when the book was published a decade ago. He disdains consideration of biomechanics and running form and chuckles at the notion that it might matter how runners breathe. If you have 150+ runners in your program (as Newton's York High School does), well, sure, those that have naturally fine form will reveal themselves as contenders for your top 7. Those of us with only 150 (or even 250) boys or girls in the whole high school might not be so lucky.

Much of the book is taken up with anectodes about Newton's undeniably impressive record of success in a very competitive region. However, while this may be entertaining to those who have an attachment to York High School or an interest in the recent history of scholastic running in northern Illinois, it comes across largely as unnecessary chest-thumping to those outside these circles.

The most commendable feature I find in Newton's book is its strong emphasis on discipline, athlete responsibility, and clear communication of expectations from coach to runner. With regard to this area, Newton's old-school toughness represents a refreshing change from the kind of compromising and equivocating attitude evident in too many high-school coaching staffs.

Many fine and successful high school coaches put their training programs and general observations on their school and personal websites. For beginning (or more experienced) coaches looking for ideas on workouts or program development, such websites represent a resource far superior to Joe Newton's book.

Legendary coach Joe Newton inspires runners not only at York Community High School in Elmhurst IL, but many more across the state and nation. This is less of a technical book -- for that go to Daniels' Running Formula -- and more of an insight to a coach and a program. Definitely worth a read!

This book is an excellent motivator and gives all coaches hope that they can build a successful program when starting with virtually nothing. Coach Newton gets a lot out of his guys because they want to work hard and because of the tradition he has established. The book also includes a great training program for the cross-country season.

While coach Newton has done an amazing job of team-building and creating a winning tradition, he does so using workloads that may be counter-productive to an athlete's long-term development. He freely admits that his concern is how an athlete performs NOW, not later in the athlete's career.

Thank you to Joe Newton for putting together such a wonderful, cross-country ONLY book. Anyone with a passion for our sport, and a desire to make your personal coaching program better, would benefit from reading this book. Joe Newton is a true legend in high school cross-country and after reading his book you will know exactly why. Newton, seemingly, leaves no part of his successful "how-to" program out of the book.

I thought the book was very interesting. How it covered every angle of cross-country and how to coach it. It helped me as a runner to want to run more and help me look into the furture about coaching cross-country. As a runner I could understand evething about the book. It helped me reach my fullest potential my senior year by doing some of the workouts. Joe Newton is a real winner and pure geninus on coaching cross-country.

I have been to running camp for the past three years where Jow Newton has spoken. He is a great motivator, but I have been told that some of the stories he speaks about are not necessarily true, especially the one about the girl with no arms and no legs swimming across a pool. The book has some great motivational stuff in there and it is a good tool to use for coaching or individual running.