By Dave Krider
MaxPreps.com
In his own words, Chuck Koeppen has built a “monster” as the cross country coach at Carmel (Ind.) High School since 1972. He has won an unprecedented 20 state championships in boys and girls cross country combined. Four times his boys and girls teams have finished No. 1 on the very same day. He also has coached one boys state track champion.
Nine other times, the Carmel boys cross country team has finished second in the state, while the girls have been second on seven occasions.
“He certainly is a legend around here,” says Don Jellison, who covered Carmel for the nearby Noblesville Ledger and later the Noblesville Daily Times. “He is really dedicated. He showed by example. It was always amazing to me how many kids he got out for cross country and track and field.”
Actually, he’s a legend throughout the entire country because he was named National Coach of the Year for cross country in 1982 and National Coach of the Year for track in 2000.
The 62-year-old Koeppen’s brilliant career will come to an end in a few short weeks, however, because he is retiring following the state tournament. He actually retired as a teacher in 2005 and gave up his track position following the 2008 season.
This is his last hurrah and everyone involved in the Carmel program wants to send him out in a blaze of glory. It’s certainly possible, because the Carmel boys and girls both are ranked No. 1 in the state and both won regional titles last Saturday. This year’s turnout includes a record 94 boys and 62 girls. Only seven count in the scoring.
“We want to win every year, but this year is especially significant,” says Carmel assistant coach Tito Downer, who was an outstanding track and cross country runner under Koeppen. “I think we’ve got a great shot to do it. He does not settle for less than your best. You could be No. 1 or No. 50 and as long as you are giving your best he is going to be happy with you.”
Koeppen grew up in basketball-crazy Valparaiso, Ind., and he often would shovel snow from his driveway so he could shoot baskets as a youngster. He played on school teams until being cut in ninth grade. At the same time he was impressing his teacher while running laps in gym and was encouraged to try cross country.
He still has a hunch that the varsity cross country coach (Ken Pifer) had encouraged basketball coach Virgil Sweet to cut him because his potential was so much greater as a distance runner. Nevertheless, he says with pride, “Everybody is looking for his niche when he’s young and I found mine.”
Did he ever! His family, though not athletic, encouraged him and his mother made sure that he got a nice, juicy steak for breakfast on the days of meets. None of his five siblings got that kind of preferential treatment.
His parents also let him off the hook when it came to his piano lessons. “I hurt my finger playing baseball,” Koeppen explained. “I kept the bandage on for six months so I wouldn’t have to play (the piano) anymore.”
On the two-mile cross country course, Koeppen broke the freshman record. He could not run varsity meets until he was a sophomore, but he stood out for three years at Valparaiso High School. The Vikings finished third, fifth and third at the state meet during his years. He was 33rd as a junior and 26th as a senior.
During his senior year, Koeppen was promised by his older brother that if he could beat classmate Earl Deal (a two-time state champion), he could drive his fancy Pontiac convertible for a week. He finally did achieve that rare feat and tasted the sweet spoils of victory for a week.
Koeppen’s best cross country time in high school was 9:39 on a flat course in Gary. His best mile time in track was 4:30.
He graduated in 1964 and headed for Ball State University as a walk-on. Unsure if he could do college work in the classroom or hold his own as a runner, he told himself, “I just want to have one more year of cross country.”
Though freshmen were ineligible for varsity sports, he set a freshman record, beat many of the varsity runners in practice and earned a partial scholarship. As a sophomore he set a school record of 20:04 for the four-mile cross country course. He also set a school record in track, running two miles in 9:39.8.
It was about this time that he decided to become a coach. His reasoning went like this: “If I become a teacher, I also could become a cross country coach.”
But disaster struck the summer before his junior year. On July 4, 1966 – his mother’s birthday – he was riding a motorcycle when a car turned in front of him and he suffered a broken back. “My mom came to the hospital with big old tears,” he described, “and said, ‘I told you never to buy that motorcycle!’ Believe it or not, I just purchased another one. I’m a little embarrassed to admit it. I’m just going to putter around.”
Koeppen continued to break records as a junior and senior, running indoors and outdoors throughout the year and even dominating in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. When he graduated in 1968 he held six distance records at Ball State. He now resides in the Indiana high school and Ball State halls of fame.
In the fall of 1968, Koeppen was hired as head cross country and track coach at Daleville, Ind. The following three years he had similar positions at nearby Selma Wapahani. His track team won the Delaware County meet in the spring of 1972 over Yorktown, which had won the previous 20 years. “That still is one of my greatest thrills,” he says with pride.
When the Carmel job opened in the summer of 1972, Koeppen’s first thought was, “Carmel, where’s that?” It was a school with around 1,000 students in grades 9-12. It had a brand new track, much better than the Wapahani track which actually went uphill and downhill in places. (Carmel now has 4,000 students and Koeppen has four assistant coaches.)
The cross country program, though, was basically non-existent. The Greyhounds never had qualified a team or runner beyond the first round of the state tournament. The sport mostly had served as a conditioner for basketball players. He drew “13 or 14” boys for his first team in the fall of 1972.
“I was serious and we trained hard,” Koeppen stressed. “If you have a cross country team, it’s like a family. It didn’t take long getting it going. We were fifth in the state in 1974 and won it in 1976. Once we won, I kind of felt like the pressure was off. I remembered how coach Pifer never could win the state championship. He was such a great person and mentor.”
Since then, Koeppen-coached teams have won nine more boys state titles. Girls cross country became a sport in 1981 and the Greyhounds finished a surprising No. 2 in the state during their very first year of competition. They won it all the next year and now they also have 10 state championships. In addition, Julie Ham and Katie Harrington have won individual state titles.
Coaching boys and girls teams in the same season “does take a great deal of time, but I love it,” Koeppen says. “I think it’s pretty easy as far as workouts. I just scale distances down a little for the girls.”
Explaining how he built his program, Koeppen said, “When you start winning, everybody jumps on the band wagon. It was so exciting that it was easy to win the kids over. It’s harder now because everybody expects to win. It we get second, we come back disappointed. We just kind of created a monster.”
It is a “monster” of many parts.
Koeppen immediately gave his runners pride and ownership in the program. In the early years they helped build part of the cross country course. And they maintain it constantly by keeping it neat and as free of debris as possible. They also bond each year at a week-long, pre-season camp where they run twice a day.
When Carmel built a fancy new football stadium, Koeppen immediately claimed the old locker room for his own. Every day the runners see motivational signs and pictures hung on the walls. Their coach puts stars on their lockers for top performances. There are charts for every time and every race in which a runner participates. The runners chart their miles in diaries.
“Tradition oozes at that place,” the veteran coach says proudly. “It’s like a museum.”
During the school year, runners can work out every week day. In the summer, Koeppen holds sessions at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. when a runner could amass around 50 miles per week. The total could reach 70 miles in weeks leading up to the start of the season.
“We don’t do mega miles,” he says. “It’s an age of specialization. If you want to be a great runner, they’re made in the off season. Cross country over the last 20 years has improved tremendously. Very few use it any more as a conditioner for basketball. People are serious. I’ve spoken at clinics. I’ve shared everything, but looking back I kind of wish I hadn’t,” he laughed.
Koeppen won’t admit to giving fiery pep talks, but he obviously does something right. “I always speak from the heart,” he says simply. “They understand my love and passion for the sport. They never want to let me down. I think that drives them.”
Despite awesome success in cross country, Koeppen still says his greatest thrill was winning the 2000 state track title. “People in the know always said we’d never win the track title,” he noted.
Making it really special, however, was his son, Charlie, winning the 3200-meter state championship, which clinched the team title. “You couldn’t have had more of a thrill than I had that night,” Koeppen said fondly. “It was such a special group of kids. They were very close and still are today. State championship teams form bonds that you can’t break.”
Charlie Koeppen grew up around running, but never really enjoyed it until he entered eighth grade. He lettered four years in track and cross country and said he felt no extra pressure being coached by his father. He described his father as “kind of old-school, hard-nosed, but an awesome coach. Everybody across the state respects him.”
Besides his son, Koeppen has coached four other state champions in track. Mark Rodholm won the 800- and 1600-meter titles, Todd Beyerlein won the high jump twice, Ron Grahn won the discus and Ryan Sarbinoff won the 200-meter dash. He also coached several relay champions.
Koeppen’s biggest disappointment goes back to cross country where his 1989 boys team finished second by five points to Indianapolis Ben Davis. Earlier that fall the Greyhounds had walloped Ben Davis with a near-perfect score, 19-62, in its own invitational. He admitted, “I was devastated. We had won (state titles) in 1987 and 1988 and I was getting used to it.”
What will he do when he retires? Well, he’ll spend more time with his three grand children and, of course, he will continue to exercise his favorite hobby – working in his yard. He has a landscaping license and does favors for friends once in awhile.
“He treats our cross country course with the same kind of affection that he does his home,” according to Tito Downer. “He puts double lines on the course and picks up big walnuts and acorns. He drives a little red truck and it’s low enough that he can open the door, reach out and pick up pieces of trash. One day he lost his balance and fell out of the truck. Thankfully, he was going at a slow speed and the truck stopped almost immediately.”
Apparently, coach Koeppen still is willing to “take one for the team.”
As he takes his final journey down memory lane, Koeppen admits, “I just wanted to coach. I was dreaming just to have a team win a conference championship. It’s been a great ride. The best part certainly has been the kids and a lot of great parents. I never would have thought in 100 years (that he would have such great success). I got that one in 1976 and that would have been fine.”
However, don’t judge him too harshly if he asks that “monster” to rear its giant head just one more time at the state finals in November.
