After 35 years of coaching high school runners in Naperville, Illinois, Coach Paul Vandersteen now coaches adults and continues sharing one important mindset all runners should embrace.

(Feature photo by Noah Gabrys)

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Growing up with a father who was a runner, Paul Vandersteen began running at age 9. He enjoyed running before learning that the culture of other sports positions his sport as a punishment.

“When you frame running that way, kids don’t like it,” explains Coach Vandersteen, who saw this firsthand when he became a high school track and cross country coach. “It’s a shame that sometimes we spin it in a bad way with the other sports, and we don’t allow it to become something that everybody tries.”

But even for Coach Vandersteen’s athletes who signed up because they were told to, running usually grew on them after a few weeks. Through the sport, they learned lessons that would carry them through life, such as discipline, integrity, and pushing oneself toward personal bests.

After 35 years of coaching high school runners, including 25 years at Naperville’s Neuqua Valley High School, where he helped the cross country and track and field teams collect five state championship titles, Coach Vandersteen retired.

But he hasn’t stopped coaching.

Today, he works with adult runners at the Naperville Running Company Track Club and with Coach Steen Running. He also assists in coaching the North Central College men’s cross country team.

“The best advice I got from a friend was, ‘Don’t retire, reinvent,’” Coach Vandersteen explains. “That’s what I’m doing, just kind of reinventing and trying new things.”

Below, Coach Vandersteen shares the biggest lesson in running that he’s imparted on his athletes over the years and why having a coach or a mentor helps keep us in check.

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What led you to become a running coach?

Coach Paul Vandersteen: I would attribute that to my father. He was way ahead of his time. This is in the really early ’70s, during the running boom …. He just started running before it was a cool thing to do. He ran in high school, a little bit in college, and he felt the need to get a community club together. I started doing that with him and saw the value of cross country, track and field, and distance running in general, and how it brought people together. I felt compelled to take that on.

My parents were both teachers, too. In fact, I was born in the Peace Corps, so my parents were very much service-oriented. I think that just kind of transferred to me, growing up as their son.

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What have you most enjoyed about coaching?

Coach Paul Vandersteen: Definitely the relationships that I’ve built with all the athletes. I mean, I still connect with them. It’s fun in retirement, because I can set up lunch meetings with them or go out and drink a beer with them, or whatever the case may be. But I’ve always been a big believer in just developing those positive relationships and those friendships.

They’re your athlete when they’re in high school, but then, as they grow older, they become your friend. And those friends I treasure. It’s just been a real pleasure to develop that many friends in my life, because I’ve had some large teams and there are a lot of guys that come through the program. That is what I value the most.

Second thing would be the development of the athlete, in terms of watching them grow and being a part of that, both mentally and physically. There’s nothing to me that’s better than having that growth happen under your leadership and your mentorship, and I’ve just really enjoyed that.

Read Coach Vandersteen’s advice for coaches on Running Lifestyle’s Substack.
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What’s an important lesson you’ve been able to impart on your athletes?

Coach Paul Vandersteen: It doesn’t matter how talented you are. Our athlete on the team that was the 130th guy got as much attention as the number one guy, as long as they bought into our philosophy…of ‘run for fun and personal best.’

That really is a philosophy that I think is really, really important. Because in life, there’s always going to be somebody better than you. There’s always going to be somebody that can beat you in a particular race. But what matters is your own personal development.

In my third year coaching at Neuqua Valley, I had a shirt [that read] ‘You Versus You.’ I think when you use competition as the means by which to motivate yourself, that’s dangerous. The philosophy of developing yourself and then using the competition to help push you along is the way to go.

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Do you find that the risks of social media comparison detract from that mindset?

Coach Paul Vandersteen: I think the comparison game is dangerous, for sure, and that’s one of the reasons why I really respect somebody that doesn’t want to necessarily be on Strava. I have a couple runners that told me, ‘I just don’t want to be on there … It increases my anxiety. It makes me compare what I’m doing to what they’re doing.’ .… That can be not good for your mental health, depending on who you are and how you approach things.

I think that’s why somebody needs to be around a coach, or a mentor, or whatever, to remind you: It’s you versus you. It’s about your self-development …. You just have to go out there and do the best that you can do, and leave it at that.

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What can we learn from running that can be directly applied to life?

Coach Paul Vandersteen: Athletics teach you that hard work and discipline and having integrity all matter. That translates to what you do in your life. I’ve had so many athletes come back and tell me, ‘Hey, what I learned running cross country and track and field in Neuqua Valley is what I’m doing now.’

One of my former runners, his name’s John Schuster. He now goes by the stage name John Summit. He has a million followers on social media. He’s an EDM artist …. He plays in front of packed arenas. He travels all over the world.

He contacted me, like five, six months ago, and he said, ‘Hey, I just wanted to let you know that what I’m doing now is a lot of the discipline and the work ethic, etcetera, I learned by running cross country.’ I thought that was pretty cool.

Now, I’m helping him train for a half marathon that he’s going to do in September. He just turned 30 years old. I think he had a little bit of a point in his life where he felt, ‘Well, for my fans, I need to show them a healthier lifestyle than playing music till 4 a.m.,’ or whatever the case may be. So, he’s starting to run again, and I’m helping him in that journey.

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