The family photo

Run for fun and personal bests.

Not just a track coach's statement -- it's a way of life.

In 42 years at North Central College, men's track and field and cross country coach Al Carius has proclaimed this mantra to some 150 alumni who have gone into coaching at one level or another.

"RFFAPB" helped achieve or even surpass their goals as athletes. It continues to guide them as human beings. It filters down to those they coach today.

"Going to school at North Central, Al really fortified my coaching philosophy and my coaching style. I think that the same holds true for just about anybody that's gone through North Central College," said Wheaton North boys track coach Don Helberg.ȯˆ¿Ã‚ˆ½

"I think that's why there's so many coaches out there that went to North Central -- Al instilled that type of philosophy. Obviously, Al's had success with that philosophy, and so I think that's why so many people have made that part of them."

Carius produces the same lasting influence off the track.

"Al is a guy that has guided us in our development as better runners, better students, better moral beings, better employees, better husbands, better fathers," said Waubonsie Valley boys track assistant Kevin Rafferty.

The white cap with the red Cardinal is just one of many hats Carius has worn.

"He was your friend, he was your dad, he was your coach, he was your advisor, he was your social worker, he was your psychologist," said Batavia coach Dennis Piron.

Gathering for a picture at North Central's Merner Field House with several of his proteges, Carius stressed he wanted this story to be about them, not him.

Given his influence, that's impossible.

Carius, aided by his right-hand man of 26 years, Frank Gramarosso, has produced 421 All-Americans. His cross country teams have won 12 national championships and are the 33-time defending College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin champions.

Carius is in four halls of fame and is among a handful of people granted honorary alumnus status by North Central. In 1999 he was named Division III men's cross country coach of the century.

The mentor of mentors

Sending so many into the coaching ranks -- while bestowing life lessons that transcend athletic competition -- he is central to their story.

"I learned a lot in his class about the psychology of coaching," said Wheaton Warrenville South boys coach Ken Helberg, Don Helberg's older brother.

"I think you have to know the athletes that you're working with and do they need that extrinsic motivation or have they matured enough that it's just more intrinsic.

"Everybody likes to be recognized for a job well done."

Carius has produced two generations of new coaches, all spreading his gospel of positive reinforcement.

"Your experience was just so positive, now you get the chance to do the same things," Piron said.

St. Francis boys and girls coach Scott Nelson, a sprinter out of North Central's Class of '84, said, "You learn about everything, but you learn about life and how to build a team, and be a team."

Out of Morton, Ill., Carius went to the University of Illinois. Upon his 1964 graduation he had won two Big Ten cross country champions and three 2-mile titles.

After two years as an Illini graduate assistant he came to North Central College in Naperville, where he and his wife of 21 years, Pam, raised five children: Scott, Brent, Stephanie, Rick and Sam.

His philosophy didn't bubble up out of nowhere. Carius cites the late University of Chicago track coach Ted Haydon as a main mentor.

"He put the individual before the sport," Carius said.

He learned perspective from Haydon. En route to Mexico City's Olympic Stadium in 1968, Jim Ryun asked his distance coach to say a pre-race prayer. Haydon considered it, then declined.

"I'll save it for something that's really important," he said.

"He had a perspective: This is supposed to be fun," Carius said. "It serves for life lessons and puts a perspective on what you're doing. You pray for people in hospitals and nursing homes but not for an athletic performance."

Building a family

Rafferty saw that perspective in action. One day, after an abrupt end to a romantic relationship, he found himself at North Central for willing advice from his old coach.

"Once you pass through his life," Rafferty said, "you always have a place at his table."

"Obviously you learned a lot about coaching," Nelson said. "That's a given when you've got a hall of fame coach like that teaching you. But more important than that, we learned about how to apply things to life."

Haydon also helped shape Carius' personal best credo.

"He had guys on the University of Chicago track club that were Olympians ... and he had guys that just loved the sport," Carius said.

"He treated them all fairly and equally, and he honored them when they achieved something they had never achieved before."

Early in his 20-year coaching career, Ken Helberg followed Carius' painstaking practice of listing every athlete's performances on paper, with individual comments. Now what works for him is awarding athletes' personal records with pins in post-event meetings.

"Al definitely treats everybody as their own individual," Helberg said.

"The one thing that he had always stressed to us is that if you as an individual take care of your job, then the team will take care of its job."

Former North Central runner Guthrie Hood, later a junior high coach, did what he could. It wasn't much. Born with a club foot, Hood would never approach fast times in his distance races. Under Carius he had a place.

"He never won anything," Carius said, "but his spirit and his work ethic, his commitment, his team orientation, everything he brought to the program, was exactly what we wanted to have."

"Guthrie's not the first person like that," said St. Charles East assistant coach Pat Carney. "There have been any number of them."

A 1:53 quarter-miler out of Wheaton North's Class of '78, Carney had two good years at Wisconsin. Then, he said, "the fun element had left."

He did, too. After more than a year lapse he began competing again at North Central. The fun returned.

"(T)he thing I think almost all of us who are coaches or who have been coached by Al have come to understand is that in life it's not whether or not you win the big race, whether you make the most money," Carney said.

"It's did you develop yourself and become the best that you can be, because that's all you have in life. You have your word -- 'Did I do the best I can do?' That's the thing Al has imparted to me and everybody that I know."

"Everybody" may be an exaggeration. Slightly.

The family tree

In one breath Piron named 11 former Cardinals teammates who went into coaching. Naperville Central boys track coach Steve Wiesbrook said some meets are "like competing against family."

"You want to win but that's not really why you're doing it," Wiesbrook said. "You're competing against him because that's where the beauty lies, is in the competition."

Those strictly into results may discard Carius and his alumni as Yoda-like utopians -- were it not for the results.

Dan Iverson's Naperville North girls cross country team owns three state titles; Wheaton North's Ron Piro built a girls distance dynasty.

Ken Helberg's boys won 10 straight DuPage Valley championships and two state titles. Nelson's boys won nine straight Suburban Catholic Conference titles.

And on and on and on.

Carius denies it. These coaches won't:ȯˆ¿Ã‚ˆ½ It's his story.

"I'm very, very proud of what these young men have become in their lives," Carius said. "If we had any kind of influence, then that's the thing that gives me the greatest satisfaction."