Boys Track and Field: Family comes first for Princeton’s Dan Foes

In 2021, Dan Foes stepped down as assistant football coach at Princeton High School to follow his son Grant’s next step playing football at Indiana Wesleyan University.

Foes is making the same decision to follow his daughter Morgan’s career competing for the Illinois State University track and field team next year.

After 19 seasons as boys track and field head coach at Princeton, Foes is retiring.

“Leaving to follow Grant was certainly the right decision, and I know it certainly will be to follow her, also,” he said. “I’m super excited to see her development at the next level, and it’s going to be a lot of fun with that.”

“I’ll always follow the track and field at Princeton High School, that’s for sure.”

—  Dan Foes

Even still, Foes got a little choked up telling the kids at the awards banquet.

“I wasn’t expecting that honestly. I probably practiced that in my mind a thousand times, but it’s a lot different when you’re looking at the kids in the eyes,” he said. “It’s hard because I truly loved all those kids we had this year. I look forward to seeing how some of them develop next year. I am excited for [juniors] Cade [Odell] and Ian [Morris] to have success in their events. When they were freshmen, they were our only two freshmen, and I am very partial to them.

“I’ll always follow the track and field at Princeton High School, that’s for sure.”

It’s been a great run for Foes and Tiger track.

In his 19 years as head coach and the five years before serving as an assistant under Don Carlson (”a great mentor,” Foes said), the Tigers have had at least one state qualifier every season over a 24-year stretch.

“That’s what it was all about, seeing what we can get to state,” Foes said. “We put a lot of names on the [state qualifiers] board outside the cafeteria over the years. And I’m very, very proud of our program and everything that we’ve done. It’s always neat to see it for the kids who are up there.”

Foes’ Tigers won two sectional championships, the first in 2011 in 1A and most recently in 2021 in 2A.

“We’ve been fortunate where we’ve won some team championships and we’ve had a lot of success,” he said. “If you ask Grant Foes, [the 2021 team] was the greatest team ever. We were after a common goal that year. We had a lot of fun. That was a very memorable one winning a 2A sectional because when we got bumped up to 2A, I wasn’t sure we were going to be able to compete for it.”

The Tigers also won Three Rivers Conference championships in 2019 and 2021. Foes said the 2019 championship was most memorable because the Tigers won by only two points over Erie-Prophetstown.

“We knew we were always going to compete and put our best foot forward to try to do it. But you talk about a competitive and outstanding conference. We played the bridesmaid several times with that conference where we got second or maybe third,” he said. “We were always in the mix, but boy it was really tough to win with the likes of Newman, Morrison, Erie-Prophetstown and Bureau Valley. Really all the teams because everybody is kind of stealing from each other.”

Foes, a 1992 thrower for Western High School track, said he will miss the daily interactions with the kids at practice.

Assistant coach Rob Jensen also will step down from his position, leaving weights coach Curtis Odell the lone returner on the Princeton boys staff.