Stephen D. Williams

McGonagle ends coaching career
   It’s been a great run, but Kevin McGonagle said it’s time to cross the finish line. McGonagle, Van Wert High School’s boys cross country coach the past 24 years, earlier announced his plans to retire after this season.
    ”I’ve put my heart and soul into coaching, but it’s also been a lot of pressure, too, no matter if you win or lose,” he said. “I’d like to smell a different rose now.”
McGonagle said hanging up his coach’s sweatshirt will allow him to put more time into his TV production classes at VWHS. “We’re getting a new school in a couple of years and I’d like to be involved in how the TV production area is developed,” he said.
    McGonagle added that leaving coaching will also give him more time to teach communications classes at Wright State University’s Lake Campus, as well as have more family time. “(Wife) Linda and I would like to do some traveling – that’s something we haven’t done much over the last 24 years,” he said. “We won’t know what it’s like to have the month of August free.”
    That doesn’t mean he won’t miss coaching cross country, though. ”There’s a lot of things I’m going to miss: the fellowship mostly and working with kids,” McGonagle said. “That’s pretty special.”
    In his nearly quarter-century of coaching Cougar runners, McGonagle has turned a “minor” sport into a major success. Along the way, he has accumulated so many trophies and plaques that they festoon every nook and cranny of his TV production classroom – and that’s just a fraction of the hardware. McGonagle’s cross country success includes an amazing 86 percent winning percentage, 10 Western Buckeye League titles, eight district championships (seven times district runners-up), 18 regional competitions and five trips to state. The team just missed going to state again this year, finishing fourth (three teams qualify) at the Division II regional meet at Tiffin this past weekend. Van Wert’s top runner this year, Craig Leon, did make the state meet cut on an individual basis, finishing fourth in a time of 16:41. He’ll be competing this Saturday at Scioto Downs in Columbus.
    In the WBL, Van Wert and Defiance have put together a two-decades-long arch-rivalry that has placed one or the other team at the top of the league nearly every year. “When we don’t win, Defiance usually does,” McGonagle said.
    In fact, the lowest the Cougars have finished in the WBL during the last 24 years is fourth. Once. “There are several WBL teams that would love to have our record,” McGonagle said, adding with quiet pride that some of those teams have never beaten Van Wert in the past quarter-century.
    McGonagle said the highlight of his career was the 1988 team’s second-place finish in the Division II state cross country meet. McGonagle says he fondly remembers that team – which included Trevor Bebout, Randy Grandstaff, Mike Forwerk, John Forwerk, Eric Eikenbary, Scott Kraner and Joe Gardner.
    The Cougar boy runners have won just about every cross-country meet of any stature in the state, including Tiffin, Greenville, Ottawa-Glandorf, Celina, Milton Union, Fayette Invitational, Oregon Clay Invitational, Ohio Caverns Invitational, Columbus Grove, Coldwater Lions Invitational, Archbold, Perrysburg, Bucyrus, Winford Invitational, Galion Invitational, Indian Lake and Fort Loramie (click here for McGonagle's all-time list of top runners).
    They’ve dominated the Van Wert County meet, which McGonagle, his wife Linda, Julie Bagley White, Jill Bolton and Larry and Carol Taylor started in 1980. “That first meet the six of us ran the whole show for 25 teams,” McGonagle remembers. “It was so cold that year, that we were doing stats by hand wearing coats and gloves.”
He contrasted the early meets with today’s county meets, where 45 teams compete, up to 20 people work and stats are done on computer.
    McGonagle said there are several reasons why the Van Wert boys cross country team is successful. One is the level of competition the Cougars run against. “Every year, we try to compete against teams all over the state as far away as we can drive,” McGonagle said. “We’re looking for the as tough competition as possible and we’re not afraid to get beat.”
    McGonagle added that Van Wert’s tough schedule is one reason the team is state-ranked nearly every year. “Coaches around the state know the team and know the level of competition we face,” he noted.
    Another reason for the Cougars’ success can be summed up in three words: cross country camp. McGonagle was one of the first coaches to take his team to a camp each year – something that nearly every team does now. Since 1979 – McGonagle’s second year as coach – the Van Wert boys cross country team has gone to Hocking County for a week, to run the hills and woods of the area.
“When we first went down to Hocking nobody did cross country camp; now nearly everybody does it,” McGonagle said.
    And most of them go to the same place Van Wert does, McGonagle added, noting that it’s getting a lot more crowded down there. “Now that Wayne Trace, Lincolnview, Crestview and other schools head down to Hocking, they’ve crowded us out a little,” he said a bit ruefully.
    McGonagle said he’ll miss camp and the personal relationships that develop there with his runners and their families. “I really will miss knowing something about their lives – their hardships and triumphs – outside the classroom. That’s what makes running special: the fellowship.”
    He also said the fact that the Van Wert has an active running club --the Road Runners -- has also contributed to the school teams' success.
But McGonagle attributes most of Van Wert’s cross country success to realistic goal setting and focusing on attaining those goals. "That's really the key to our program: Setting goals and meeting them." It’s also another thing he’ll miss. “I’ve really enjoyed working with the kids on goal setting – it’s something we really work hard on -- as well as finishing what they set out to do,” he noted.
    Typically soft-spoken and self-effacing, McGonagle gives most of the credit for his teams’ successes to the kids themselves. “Runners are usually good students, are easily motivated and have lots of parental support,” he said. “Those are all important to success. If there is anything I do it’s get into their heads and find out what motivates them.”
    He added that Van Wert has been lucky to have great coaching at the middle school level as well. “Larry Taylor has been coaching as long as I have,” McGonagle said. “His kids always win and they expect to win. My job is to keep the kids improving when they come to me and find a couple of new kids who have never done cross country and turn them into runners.”
    Some of those runners are now coaches. In fact, the Van Wert cross country programs have spawned a number of coaches, including Jeff Bagley at Crestview, Eric Himburg and Nikki Vallone in Columbus, Jason Freewalt at Lima Shawnee, Jason Maus, a coaching assistant at Ohio Northern University and Doug Scheidt in Pennsylvania.
    In fact, McGonagle said Matt Langdon, Lincolnview’s cross country coach, is a third-generation link to the Van Wert program. Langdon’s coach at Crestview was Bagley, who was coached by McGonagle at Van Wert.
    After 24 years, though, McGonagle -- the Elida High School graduate who still runs for fitness himself -- says he now wants to enjoy watching from the sidelines.