Cruel September takes two legends of Illinois running community

In the space of three days, the Illinois track and field and cross country community was first shocked then saddened by the deaths of two hugely influential men.

Mike Newman, 63, a York High School graduate who was a media fixture for years covering Illinois boys and girls high school track and cross country, died suddenly last Sunday morning, his brother, Daniel Newman, announced on social media.

Two days later, on Tuesday morning, the legendary retired North Central College track and cross country coach Al Carius died at 83 after a long bout with cancer. Newman was one of thousands of athletes Carius coached in a 54-year career.

Run for fun and personal bests

From the moment he beamed that wide smile, any time spent with Al Carius left you feeling better than before.

Positivity personified, he’d have you willing to run through a wall even if you weren’t one of the 663 All-Americans he coached at North Central College.

“Run for fun and personal bests” was not merely his catchy slogan or the title of the book the Naperville resident published in 2021.

It was a declaration that success was a happy byproduct of positive reinforcement, camaraderie with and support of teammates, quality training, challenges accepted and personal growth, in and out of sport.

“Sure, we wanted to win, we always wanted to perform well, make no mistake about it,” said Jim Macnider, the hall of fame Harper College track and cross country coach who ran at North Central early in Carius’ tenure, which ran 1966-2020.

His younger brother, John Macnider, ran on the first of Carius’ 19 Division III men’s cross country national champions in 1975. They also finished second 16 times.

“At the end of the day, whether we won or not I never saw Al change his demeanor,” Jim Macnider said. “He was always looking for positives in whatever happened, and then we would figure out how to make it better the next time out. That was his gift.”

One of his gifts.

“He treated everyone as family,” said Frank Gramarosso, who retired in 2022 after 39 years alongside Carius, involved with 13 national cross country championships and 12 indoor or outdoor men’s track titles, five as head coach after Carius stuck with the distance group.

“What a blessing for him to invite me to stand alongside him and continue to build what he started in cross country,” said Gramarosso, like Carius a member of the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association, Illinois Track & Cross Country Coaches Association, and North Central College halls of fame.

Carius was named “coach of the century” in 2000 by his national peers. Along with North Central’s fantastic Al B. Carius Track named in his honor, the USTFCCCA established the Al Carius Program of the Year in 2008, recognizing the best overall Division III men’s running program. Carius won his own award four times.

“He would say his secret to success is surrounding himself, I guess, with people with the same mindset,” Gramarosso said.

Over the decades family and mindset intertwined and then spread statewide, nationwide. Gramarosso estimated that up to 250 of Carius’ former athletes went on to coach in high school or college.

“He was your friend, he was your dad, he was your coach, he was your adviser, he was your social worker, he was your psychologist,” Batavia boys track and football coach Dennis Piron said in a 2008 Daily Herald story about Carius’ former runners who became coaches.

His door was always open. He always returned calls.

“He made everyone feel a part of his life,” Gramarosso said, “and that’s the hard part, is everyone felt like he was their second father.”

A celebration of Carius’ life will be held at 1 p.m. Sept. 21 at North Central’s Merner Field House, followed by a video presented by the school, addresses by college President Abiodun Goke-Pariola and Pastor Don Borling (“Al’s spiritual coach,” Gramarosso said), and then a lap on the Cardinals’ outdoor track.

A father of five with his wife, Pam, last Friday Al Carius willed himself to attend the North Central College Invitational at St. James Farm in Wheaton to watch grandson Jackson Carius, a Cardinals freshman from Kentucky, run his first college cross country meet.

Word got out, and alums such as Macnider flocked to see their mentor one last time.

“I got to talk to him for awhile, we had a good conversation,” Macnider said. “I kind of knew there might not be another time, and it kind of came to fruition. I was pretty lucky to have that opportunity.”

Mr. Newman

Waubonsie Valley boys cross country and track coach Kevin Rafferty, another of Carius’ former runners, also was at St. James Farm that day.

“Al was told, and kind of let us all know and reveled in the fact that he surpassed what all the doctors were telling him. Mike, we were unaware,” Rafferty said.

Like Rafferty, Mike Newman ran for Carius at North Central College, Class of 1983. His death Sept. 7 quickly made the social media rounds statewide after his brother announced it.

Newman himself made the rounds statewide, in service to high school girls and boys runners he delighted in interviewing in his work with DyeStat, RunnerSpace, and the site he founded, Illinois Cross Country Track and Field, or ilxctf.com.

“Mike just loved putting kids first,” Rafferty said. “He loved being the first to write about the underdog, the kid no one had heard about.”

Maybe that’s because he lived the lessons of arguably two members of his sport’s coaching Mount Rushmore in Illinois — Carius and the late Joe Newton of York, where Newman graduated in 1979 after running on the boys 1978 state cross country championship team.

Like nearly all of Newton’s athletes, Newman called him “Mr. Newton.” Perhaps not coincidentally, the runners Newman interviewed called him “Mr. Newman.”

He was a month away from joining the North Central College Athletics Hall of Fame as part of its 1981 and 1982 cross country national championship teams, Rafferty said.

“I’m heartbroken that Mike is missing that night with his teammates that he would have just loved sitting around, talking shop,” Rafferty said.

Rarely did Newman sit around. A longtime stats fan, the state’s media expert on track and cross country set a torrid pace, attending multiple meets in a day, videotaping athletes, uploading times and distances, previewing and reviewing classes and conferences and meets, even serving upon request as meet announcer.

“This is a guy who (first) did that as a hobby, that at the end of his life was getting paid by a company to keep track of times and statistics, and that company got hired to do that officially for the state of Illinois. I mean, if that’s not living your dream I don’t know what is,” Rafferty said.

Newman’s favorite place, he once stated on Facebook, was Detweiller Park, site of the state cross country meets. He was also immensely proud of his adult children, Matthew and Meghan. In August he announced she’d taken a job as a federal court clerk.

“He’s just a wonderful, wonderful human being. I’m crushed that … he’s not going to continue to see her grow and be a cheerleader for her as he was for so many other kids,” Rafferty said.

“He’s really going to be missed, and I’m going to miss a guy that just liked being a runner who became one of my closest friends.”

doberhelman@dailyherald.com