August 10-16, 2008
We are still accepting campers.
Congratulations to Coach Furst and the Warwick Valley athletes for setting a Girls National Distance Medley record as well as winning the 4 x 800 at Nike Outdoor Nationals.
A Preview of Dick Beardsley:
H a l l o f F a m e C o a c h J o e N e w t o n
T o A d d r e s s F i v e - S t a r C a m p e r s
It's onward and upward for Five-Star Cross Country Camp and Nike! Five-Star founder-director Steve Lurie and Ashley Clinton of US Sports Camps are proud to announce that renowned coach Joe Newton of York High School in Elmhurst, IL, will be the keynote speaker at this summer's camp.
Five-Star is also changing its site to Iroquois Springs Camp in Rock Hill, NY, a truly five-star facility. US Sports Camps, the leader in the camping business, organizes and administrates Nike's entire network of camps. Five-Star, a Nike Junior Running Camp, is in its 28th year
Newton is the only high school coach ever to serve on a United States Olympic staff, having done so in Seoul, South Korea, in 1988. His York teams have won 26 Illinois State cross country championships. He is an outstanding motivational speaker.
Iroquois Springs is conveniently located three minutes off of exit 110 of Route 17, east of Monticello. The camp features modern cabins and a dining room with knotty pine interiors and ceiling fans, many in-camp running trails and miles of almost never traveled road surrounding it, a small lake for boating and canoeing, a fieldhouse and much more. The facility is so extraordinary, it is sometimes rented out for weddings.
During the late 1970s and 1980 Lurie worked at several cross country camps. When looking back he remembers, “I saw a lot that I liked at each camp and believed I could combine all those things into one great camp.”
With the help of then college athletes Kevin Byrne of Georgetown and Jim O'Connell of Syracuse he did just that. A new camp was born, Beginning Trails Running Camp, which was first held in 1981 at Trails End Camp in Beach Lake, PA. In 1983 the camp changed its location to Camp Oquago in Andes, NY, and stayed there for eight years.
Those who were at the camp will remember it as a good camp. “We had everything going for us,” Lurie remembers, “except enrollment.” Lurie felt it was time to change things a bit.
Together with Ramsey (NJ) HS coach John Kirchhof, he decided to change both the name of the camp and its location. In 1991 it became Five-Star Cross Country Camp at Brookwood Camps in Glen Spey, NY.
With a lot of hard work thrown in the rest is history.
The lack of suitable available dates caused Five-Star to leave Brookwood Camps and its wonderful administration of Ken and Donna Fiedler and their son Scott. It was a wonderful 17-year relationship.
Five-Star is one of the oldest and best high school cross country camps. Five-Star has a unique blend of motivational and educational talks mixed with an activities program larger in scope than most camps. The Nike sponsorship brings extra appeal.
Five-Star campers have enjoyed success at the state and national level, but former high school and college coach Lurie sees so much more in camp. “I've always taken pride in trying to help everybody,” Lurie says. “We are very much of an equal opportunity camp, and we pay just as much attention to the young athlete new to the sport as we do to the championship-caliber one.”
The camp has been fortunate enough to have many outstanding speakers in the past. Some include former American mile record holder Steve Scott, multiple World Record holder Henry Rono, U.S. Olympian John Gregorek and his wife Christine, a many-times member of U.S. International teams, marathon great Dick Beardsley, author Joe Henderson, former Manhattan College coach Fred Dwyer, Georgetown coach Frank Gagliano, Villanova coach Uncle Marty Stern, Villanova assistant Jack Pyrah, Boston University coach Pete Schuder, Yale coach Mark Young, St. Joseph 's coach Mike Glavin, Syracuse coach Andy Jugan, Fordham coach Tom Dewey, Sacred Heart University coach Christian Morrison, and eventual Boston University and Duke women's coach Jan Ogilvie.
Beardsley, runner-up to Alberto Salazar in the famous "Duel in the Sun" 1982 Boston Marathon, will be returning to speak. He will be joined by Bryan Kovalsky, former distance running star at University of Pennsylvania and Iona College as well as being a former Five-Star camper and counselor.
The ever optimistic and positive-thinking Lurie says, "I expect 2008 to be our best year yet."
Come be part of that experience.
