Coach Carlson led girls cross-country/track teams to success
• The following is part of an ongoing series of articles in celebration of Libertyville High School's 100th anniversary.
Harry Carlson is a longtime Libertyville High School applied technology teacher and very successful girls cross-country and track head coach. He is a 1967 Rockford East High School grad, where he played football and ran track as a sprinter and middle distance runner.
After graduating from Northern Illinois University with an industry and technology degree, Carlson worked several years as an industrial and manufacturing engineer. He began his applied technology teaching career when he came to LHS in the fall of 1976.
Carlson didn't begin his coaching career until the spring of 1980 when he joined Gary Hodgson's boys track and field program as the distance coach. He also joined Bill Dortch's boys cross-country program in the fall of 1980 as the assistant coach.
Carlson's first head coaching position came in the fall of 1985 when he was asked to lead the girls cross-country program. He stayed in this position up until his teaching retirement after the 2009 school year, for a total of 24 years.
In Carlson's fifth year at the helm, the LHS girls cross-country program rose to state elite status. They took their first trip to the state tournament in 1989. They earned their first state tournament trophy in 1990 when they placed second, also taking fourth in 1991, third in 1992, and fifth in 1993.
They won 14 conference titles during Carlson's 24 years, winning nine regional titles. Six of his teams reached the state tournament. His final cross-country head coaching record was 164-27.
When asked what was behind the rise of his teams to state elite status, Carlson traced it back to the mid-1980s when he and Bill Dortch began a summer cross-country camp for boys and girls. The girls that were behind the high state finishes were products of that summer camp.
Another contributing factor according to Carlson was the closeness of the girls and boys programs. Cross-country is the one sport where the boys and girls compete and train very closely. During the early 1990s, both the boys and girls had many great runners and were very supportive of each other.
Carlson came over from the boys track program to the girls track program for the 1987 season. He stayed in the girls track program until 2009, head coach from 1987 to 1991 and 2000 to 2009, a total of 14 years.
Carlson was named the Illinois Girls Cross Country Coach of the Year in 1990. He was inducted into the Lake County High School Sports Hall of Fame in 2016.
After retiring from LHS, Carlson splits his time between Lake County and Cocoa Beach, Florida, spending a lot of time with his family, which includes four granddaughters. He can still be found subbing at LHS from time to time.