{"id":7533,"date":"2025-04-01T04:06:56","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T04:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/?p=7533"},"modified":"2025-04-01T04:06:56","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T04:06:56","slug":"boys-track-and-field-family-comes-first-for-princetons-dan-foes-shaw-local","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/?p=7533","title":{"rendered":"Boys Track and Field: Family comes first for Princeton\u2019s Dan Foes – Shaw Local"},"content":{"rendered":"


Dan Foes (right), pictured with his son, Grant, in 2021, is retiring after 19 seasons as the head track coach at Princeton High School. He was an assistant for five years before that. <\/span>(Kevin Hieronymus)
In 2021, Dan Foes stepped down as assistant football coach at Princeton High School <\/a>to follow his son Grant\u2019s next step playing football at Indiana Wesleyan University.
Foes is making the same decision to follow his daughter Morgan\u2019s 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.
\u201cLeaving to follow Grant was certainly the right decision, and I know it certainly will be to follow her, also,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m super excited to see her development at the next level, and it\u2019s going to be a lot of fun with that.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019ll always follow the track and field at Princeton High School, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d
Even still, Foes got a little choked up telling the kids at the awards banquet.
\u201cI wasn\u2019t expecting that honestly. I probably practiced that in my mind a thousand times, but it\u2019s a lot different when you\u2019re looking at the kids in the eyes,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s 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.
\u201cI\u2019ll always follow the track and field at Princeton High School, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d
It\u2019s 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 (\u201da great mentor,\u201d Foes said), the Tigers have had at least one state qualifier every season over a 24-year stretch.
\u201cThat\u2019s what it was all about, seeing what we can get to state,\u201d Foes said. \u201cWe put a lot of names on the [state qualifiers] board outside the cafeteria over the years. And I\u2019m very, very proud of our program and everything that we\u2019ve done. It\u2019s always neat to see it for the kids who are up there.\u201d
Foes\u2019 Tigers won two sectional championships, the first in 2011 in 1A and most recently in 2021 in 2A.
\u201cWe\u2019ve been fortunate where we\u2019ve won some team championships and we\u2019ve had a lot of success,\u201d he said. \u201cIf 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\u2019t sure we were going to be able to compete for it.\u201d
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.
\u201cWe 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,\u201d he said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d
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.
Copyright \u00a9 2023 Shaw Local News Network
Copyright \u00a9 2023 Shaw Local News Network<\/p>\n

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Dan Foes (right), pictured with his son, Grant, in 2021, is retiring after 19 seasons as the head track coach at Princeton High School. He was an assistant for five years before that. (Kevin Hieronymus)In 2021, Dan Foes stepped down as assistant football coach at Princeton High School to follow his son Grant\u2019s next step playing football at Indiana Wesleyan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t