For the 19th year, the Crestwood High School track and field program hosted its annual invitational to honor legendary and respected coach Don Faix, who died in 2001 after an illustrious career with the Red Devils.
Faix is a member of both the Ohio Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Halls of Fame, as well as the Crestwood High School Hall of Fame.Faix‘s career began at Lakewood St. Edward, where he not only began the school’s track and field program in the mid-1950’s, but also personally built the team’s hurdles out of scrap wood.
Faix also coached at Cleveland St. Joseph, then began the track program at Bedford Chanel before taking over at Crestwood in 1975. He started the third program of his career when he began girls track at Crestwood.
During his career, he was named the Portage County League Coach of the Year 14 times, and he won 19 total league championships, with 14 of those coming with the Red Devils. He also coached two regional-championship teams, five district titles and totaled 427 career victories.
I have seen some outstanding high school and college coaches in my life and coach Faix was the absolute greatest at drawing out the best in all the athletes that ran, jumped, or threw for him. His booming voice can still be heard in my memory and I never kicked, changed gears, or took off as fast in my four years at Kent State as I did when I heard him hiller my name in high school. I never wanted to disappoint him and he was the only coach that told us how much he loved us… usually after a shouting session when we didn’t perform to his expectations. Lol!
What a blessing to have him as a coach! And I am very thankful as well to have had the privilege to run with such outstanding runners like Ricky, Danny, Joey, and Kevin. We all were better athletes because of coach Faix!