Coaches Corner
Paul Vandersteen
Neuqua Valley High School (IL)
By: Mark Rowe (Boys C.C. Coach, Owensboro High School)
Coach Paul Vanderstenhas been the boy’s cross-country coach at Neuqua Valley High School in Illinois since the school opened in 1997. In the thirteen years that have followed, he has guided Neuqua Valley to not only State Championships on two occasions, but the Nike Cross Nationals title in 2007. In addition, he helped shape one of the finest runners in Illinois history, Chris Derrick, who won the 2007 Illinois State Championship and also the National Cross Nationals individual title.
KYTrackXC.com caught up with Coach Vandersteen recently to share insight on the transformation that has taken place at Neuqua Valley.
What is your present position? How long have you been at your school? Where else have you coached at?
Science Department Chair and Head Men’s Cross Country coach at Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, Illinois. 13 years. Waubonsie Valley High School – men’s track and field; Pekin Community High School – assistant women’s track and field; Peoria Notre Dame High School – assistant cross country and head women’s track and field coach.
Did you run competitively in high school or college?
My Dad started me running when I was 9. I ran competitively in Junior Olympic meets until I reached high school. I was even fortunate enough to win a national JO title in cross country when I was 14. I ran for Marshall Goss at Bloomington South High School in Bloomington, Indiana before moving to Sterling, Illinois my junior year. I ran at Northern Illinois University my freshman year until they cut the program. I then transferred to The University of Iowa where I competed until injury and allergy issues sidelined me.
Tell me about your State Championships in both cross-country and track. How many have you won in each? How many runners have you had win individual State Championships?
We have won the State title in cross country in 2007 and 2009. We were third in 2010 and fourth in 2003 and 2008. This spring is the only time I have coached track and field at Neuqua Valley. I am only coaching for one year until our head coach, Mike Kennedy, returns from a sabbatical in Washington, D.C. Our track and field teams have placed 2nd and 3rd the last two years. Chris Derrick is the only individual state champion I have coached.
What has been your most memorable team championship in cross-country and why?
2007 will probably always be the most memorable. It was the first time we had a team that was a State title contender and our #2 guy, Jimmy Riddle, was running a race for the first time in 6 weeks due to a stress fracture. He ended up staggering into the finish after being in the top 20 most of the race. Even though he was our 6th man that day, we were still able to win the title based on a strong performance from the other guys.
Neuqua Valley burst on the scene nationally, to a lot of folks, when the team won the NXN National Championship in 2007 and Chris Derrick won individually. What people did not see was the hard work over the years to get to that point. Talk a little about the journey you have been on through the years to get NV, as a program, to the point it is at now.
What many people do not know outside of Illinois is that we are a very young high school. We opened in the fall of 1997 and so we had to start from scratch. The first summer of our training program had 9 participants. One summer day, I had one guy show up. We now have over 200 runners in our summer program, grades 6-12. We definitely took our lumps the first four years. NV opened with just freshmen and sophomores, so it was not until 2001 that we qualified as a team for the State meet.
Regardless of whether they won the State or National title or not, do you have an all-time favorite NV team?
My all-time favorite team was probably 2009. The reason was they fully embraced the team concept. They did all the little things that we asked and they surprised a lot of people as a result. This team had commitment, not just from our top 10 guys, but from everyone. I credit that whole senior class for reaching out to our underclassmen and teaching them what we were all about.
You had the opportunity to coach one of the better runners in Illinois cross-country history in Chris Derrick. What was his progression like throughout his time at Neuqua Valley? Is there one specific workout or race, maybe one that most folks wouldn’t necessarily know about, that really defined Chris’ legacy at Neuqua Valley?
Chris started out as an average runner. He ran 18:24 for 3 miles his freshman year but he was young for his grade and had not matured yet. He was a student of the sport and was very consistent in his training. By the time he was a sophomore, he had improved to run 15:06 for three miles and he just kept getting better. It is hard to pick one moment that defined his legacy but when he competed at the Culver Invitational in Culver, Indiana it definitely turned some heads. He and Mike Fout (LaPorte, IN.) smashed the course record, with both of them breaking 15:00 (5k) for the first time on that course. People in Illinois first took real notice when he ran 13:57 for a legitimate 3 mile course at our conference meet. The race finished on a track and a large clock displayed the time. As Chris entered the track, he glanced over at the clock and you could see his determination to break the 14:00 barrier. This was the first time I knew we had a special team too. We had other guys run 14:37, 14:39, 14:58, and 15:14 and we still did not have our #2 man who was out with a stress fracture.
What’s a typical Neuqua Valley practice consist of in cross-country? Say I was a transfer and were to show up mid-season and ask to join the team---what would I be getting myself into?
We start practice with the whole team together and then organized chaos ensues. We do an active warm-up in two different groups – underclassmen and upperclassmen. We then break off into smaller groups – a freshman group, a sophomore group, and a jr/sr group. The workout would depend on the day but we rarely do intervals in their true sense (race effort with rest time matching that effort).
Who are some of your mentors in the sport of cross-country and track? Who have you learned the most from?
I have learned from so many it is impossible to name them all. My father, Ray Vandersteen, was my first mentor and probably the person I learned the most from. He taught me the mental side of the sport more than anything. Marshall Goss taught me that higher mileage was ok and Mike Sullivan at Peoria Notre Dame introduced me to aerobic-based training. I have watched and try and model the best – especially Joe Newton from York High School and Al Carius at North Central College.
Illinois is definitely one of the toughest cross-country states in America? In your opinion, what factors contribute to that competitiveness?
I attribute it to a rich history of excellence and coaches who are willing to learn from one another. A lot of credit goes to Joe Newton. He has shared his success even though he knows others may someday use it ‘against him’. He gets it. He understands that we are a community and whatever we can share with one another will only make our sport better.