Newsome announces retirement as West Forsyth cross-country and indoor and outdoor track-and-field coach, will become head coach at Salem College 

Published 7:44 pm Tuesday, January 14, 2025

One of the pillars of West Forsyth coaching has decided he’s hanging up his running shoes later next week.

Nathan Newsome, the longtime cross-country, and indoor and outdoor track-and-field coach for the Titans, has announced that he’s retiring as coach at the school, as well as being an art teacher there.

Newsome, 53, however, isn’t giving up on cross-country and track-and-field. He’s retiring to become the head coach and director of cross-country and track-and-field at Salem College, which is an all-women’s college in Winston-Salem.

“You know, I’ve been on the look out for a year or two,” Newsome said. “You know, just trying to figure out, you know, what I want to do because I like my job, but there’s a phase or a season for everything. And I started thinking well, ‘What else could I do? What excites me?’

“I had always thought it would be awesome to coach college but wasn’t sure if that would be a viable possibility.”

Newsome told Principal Ayonna Sutton-Chaplin of West Forsyth and Athletic Director Mike Pennington of West Forsyth of his decision to retire from West Forsyth just before Christmas break started.

“I was surprised, but it’s just a great opportunity for him,” Pennington said. “You can’t pass it up.”

Pennington is used to this as an athletic director at a successful athletic high school.

“You understand why they’re all leaving. They’re all leaving for a better job opportunity or family. And Nate’s very much in that same boat. He’s had a great career at West Forsyth, and we’re going to miss him, but we understand why he’s leaving.”

With the indoor track-and-field season still in full swing, and with spring track and field starting next month, Pennington has announced that Sean Joyce, who has been with Newsome for the past two years and is a former assistant football coach at West Forsyth, has been named as the interim coach through at least the end of the spring track-and-field season.

“Sean’s a West Forsyth guy. He’s been a head football coach,” Pennington said. “And Sean’s been in the program in track now, I think this is his second year. So, he’s familiar with the program and he’s coached track before. He’s coached track at West, so it’s in very able hands.”

Newsome’s last time coaching at West Forsyth will be next Tuesday at the Central Piedmont 4-A indoor track-and-field championships at JDL Fast Track. Newsome’s last official day at West Forsyth is Friday, Jan. 24, and he officially starts at Salem College on Jan. 27.

“Solace,” he said. “I just didn’t know how the story would end…But I felt that I wasn’t done coaching. I felt like I wanted to do something else. I felt like I wanted to do that, but I just knew an assistant-coaching job somewhere would not financially be what I needed.

Everything worked perfectly for Newsome.

“This full-time job opportunity affords me enough of a financial boost to allow me do it,” he said.

Just before Christmas break in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School System, Newsome did a Google search of college jobs that might be open.

“Almost immediately I get a pop-up that says, ‘Salem College director of cross-country and track and field, and athletic administration,'” Newsome said. “It’s a full-time, 10-month job, And I went, ‘Boom. Oh, man.’ And I thought that would be perfect. I wouldn’t have to move. They are a private school, so it doesn’t interfere with my state retirement. And it’s a girls-only school. It’s kind of a different kind of a fit.”

After seeing the position available Newsome did some research.

“It says they want somebody that has a masters degree, and they want somebody, check, and you’re going to be in charge of all the practices, blah, blah, blah. And I went, ‘Check, check, check.’ You know, no problem.

“And it says, ‘four to five years of college coaching experience.”

Newsome hasn’t coached at the college level, but he has coached at the high-school level for 30 years. He emailed the athletic director.  at Salem College, Michael Williams, who was just named to that position last August. He also saw the Salem athletics website and noticed there were no cross-country or track-and-field results since 2019, which Newsome assumed was because of COVID-19.

“So, I shot the AD an email, and said, ‘Hey, man, you know, I introduced myself, kind of spilled my guts, told him my life story, and said, ‘Man, I’m really interested in this job. It sounds like a perfect fit. I’d really love it.’ I said, ‘One of my concerns is I don’t have four- to five years of college-coaching experience, but I have, you know, I’ve got over 25 years of track-and-field coaching experience at the high school level. And for what it’s worth, my teams are good. You know, I’ve been successful so to speak.'”

Not expecting to hear anything back, Newsome received an email just a few minutes later from Williams. requesting that Newsome send him his resume. Williams responded and set up a Zoom interview and later had a meeting in person.

“(Williams) said we want to get our cross-country team back up and going, and we also want to add track-and-field,” Newsome said. ‘”We’ve never had track-and-field.’ And I said, ‘We can do that. You know, I’m excited about the challenge.'”

The following week, Newsome went to Salem College and met with Williams and some of the other coaches in other sports, as well as the athletics trainer.

“I had been to Old Salem. I’d never been to Salem College,” Newsome said. “So, seeing the school, and I had not seen it. So, it was a whirlwind because I’m trying to talk and make an impression on these folks because, you know, when you really want something you don’t need to be sold on it really hard.”

After the tour of Salem College, he met with Williams again for another two hours. Williams, after saying he had interviews set up with other candidates through Christmas Eve, changed his mind and called Newsome just before the weekend before Christmas to give him the good news.

Newsome said he will also help with intramural sports, ticketing and concessions on game days, sports-marketing and media, as well as business operations and business development. There was a year where Newsome worked at a bank, so dealing with finances was nothing new to him.

“I wasn’t trying to dodge the question, but I’m like, ‘Man, I can do all that stuff. I know how to do all of that.'” Newsome said. “I said, but, ‘For what it’s worth, when the role does get humming, I said, ‘Our seasons are continuous. We go cross-country, we have indoor track, then we have outdoor track.’

“‘And I said, ‘I don’t know if the other sports have year-round competition.’ I said, ‘Maybe a role that gives me maybe a little bit more flexibility, you know, time-wise or whatever.'”

One of the first things Newsome will have to do at Salem College is recruit female athletes to compete on the cross-country and track-and-field teams there. He also won’t be teaching anymore.

“I like the idea of being able to really kind of focus on coaching,” he said. “I like the idea that they’re, that they’re kind of starting over. You know, I like that challenge.”

According to Newsome, the job was offered the next day. However, before accepting the position, he wanted to discuss it with his youngest daughter, Hope, who is a junior on the girls cross-country and indoor and outdoor track-and-field teams at West Forsyth. She was fine with the change.

He later told boys and girls teams at West Forsyth about his decision to retire from West Forsyth last week.

“Just an opportunity presented itself that was, seemed like a promotion,” Nathan Newsome said. “The opportunity to go coach in college, 100 percent was I’ve coached and helped thousands of kids and I think I’ve done everything I can do at West. So, I was ready to move on.”

As Pennington stated, he knows the program is in good hands with Joyce, who is also a PE teacher at West Forsyth.

“We made it work,” Pennington said. “The kids will be fine. They’re in with Sean and the assistants that are currently on staff. The kids will be fine. You know, Nate will be very difficult to replace, but they’ll do a very good job. I have do doubt.”

Because cross-country and indoor and outdoor track-and-field is basically year-round, Newsome’s announcement comes just before the end of the indoor season and right before the outdoor season.

“It’ll be an adjustment, but it’ll be a very smooth adjustment because of Sean Joyce and his experience, and then because of the assistants already on staff, Pennington said. “It’s not like it’s a college job where you’ve got a whole new staff coming in. It’ll be an adjustment.

“You know, Nate’s been a pillar of West Forsyth track now for almost 30 years.'”

Newsome, who graduated from West Forsyth in 1989, is in his second stint of coaching at West Forsyth. He came back in 2006 to be girls cross-country and indoor and outdoor track-and-field coach at West Forsyth, alongside Jeff Thompson, who was the boys coach. He coached with Thompson until Thompson retired and moved to Maryland in 2019.

At that point, Newsome was named the boys and girls head coach at West Forsyth, the position he’s held for the past six years

“That was part of the comfort with going to Salem, being a girls,” Newsome said. “I’ve coached nothing but girls forever. And having three daughters (Mackenzie, Blair, Hope, as well as a son, Brock), it’s different. You know, boys and girls are different.”

West Forsyth has been in the same situation over the past couple years with replacing coaches, much for similar reasons as Newsome.

“It’s kind of the deja vu all over again,” Pennington said. “And that’s the first thing I thought when Nate told me that he was leaving because we can go down the list of this coach was a staple at West Forsyth.

All of Newsome’s children went, or still go in Hope’s case, to West Forsyth. Plus, his wife, Amy, still teaches there.

“I’ve spent most of my life there, since I was 14.” he said. “I was telling somebody the other day, but when you walk into a building — West is a lot of out or outdoor buildings — when you walk into a building that has glass doors, if it’s light outside and darker inside it looks like a mirror.

“And I had art in the 100 building, and I taught art in the 100 building, and my wife now teaches in the 100 building. I have seen mu reflection in the glass door of the 100 building since i was 14 years old. I’ve watched myself become an old man.”