How High Schools Maintain Perennial Success In Athletics

You’re the leading runner on the Hinsdale Cross Country team, and you’re all alone—not a teammate in sight—amidst dirt trails that crisscross like railroad tracks shooting off in every direction. But you’re not really all alone. 

In fact, you’re surrounded by a sea of green—the green singlets of your competitors, the astounding Dukes of York High School.  It’s not an unfamiliar feeling. 

In fact, it is all too familiar to almost every cross-country runner who faces off against the Dukes of York. Their superiority of numbers is breathtaking, their discipline of mind truly Spartan, and their margins of victory—simply amazing. 

For 50 consecutive years, the Dukes of York have unleashed a dominant army onto the cross-country battlefield, an army that leaves other teams quacking with fear. For those same 50 years, Coach Joe Newton has been the general driving that army to victory. 

York is but one example of a small and very special group of elite high schools that seem to have discovered the secret to building consistently successful high school athletic teams. 

Caramel High School in Indiana has a record streak of 23 consecutive state swimming championship titles in a row, in a state where every school competes in one single division.

Reading Memorial High School in Massachusetts had a dual meet track and field win streak that lasted 29 years. Long Beach Polytechnic High School in California has sent more players to the NFL than any other school in the country, and is nationally lauded year after year for its achievements in athletics. 

And Maryland’s Mount Hebron girl’s lacrosse team has won 15 state championships in the last 20 years. 

How do they do it? What is the secret to success for these dominant athletics programs? What allows an otherwise ordinary high school in Elmhurst, Illinois, to field the finest cross-country team in the nation year after year? 

Is it possible for other high schools to utilize the same formula that has succeeded at places like York and build their own dominant athletic teams?

A number of the dominant sports teams have come from private schools.  Blair Academy in New Jersey has won 28 consecutive national prep titles in wrestling. And as mentioned earlier, Mount Hebron’s girls lacrosse program has dominated its competition over the last 20 years, winning 15 state championships. 

But there are no secret ingredients to the successful recipe that these high schools have derived.  Private schools are able to recruit the top players in each sport, and can consequently manage winning in ways that public schools cannot. 

It is therefore easy to understand how they become dominant players. 

What I really want to comprehend is how a system which is not explicitly recruiting students is able to achieve the dominance that York and other high school sports dynasties have. 

It is not that these schools have stronger, more talented athletes than the rest.  It is not that they are drawing people to the school or district simply to participate in the sports programs. 

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