Inspired by his own mentors, Sandwich’s Brian Long inspires runners and multilingual students

Brian Long had strong mentors growing up in his cross country coach and Spanish teacher.

He’s taken their inspiration and run with it.

The Sugar Grove native is in his second school year at Sandwich as a cross country and track coach. Long also is one of three multilingual teachers in the district, helping students acclimate to the English language.

Born and raised in Sugar Grove, Long started running in high school at Kaneland under Chad Clarey. He went on to run collegiately at North Central for Al Carius, like Clarey, a huge name in the running community.

“Seeing the amount of time and effort you put in and the rewards that you get from the efforts that you put in is definitely contagious,” Long said. “I wanted to give back and build my own program, in hopes that I could influence other kids. It could be the top runner, or a kid doing it for recreational purposes. It’s how much they can improve if they put in the time and effort.”

Long went back and forth on his career path. He knew he would be doing something in sports, was an Exercise and Science major at North Central and worked for Athletico for several years.

But he also had an awesome Spanish teacher in high school, Elaine Nelson, who got Long to tap into the whole language piece, the linguistics and cultural aspect.

While in college, Long had the opportunity to study abroad and lived for a semester in Costa Rica.

“Through that immersion of being there – if you don’t sink or swim, you’re not able to survive, being forced to use the language, I was like I can do this," Long said. “I ran with it.”

He got his master’s degree in teaching, worked in the Yorkville district as a multilingual middle school teacher and later was at Downers Grove as the bilingual coordinator.

Now he’s doing the same thing close to his home in Hinckley alongside his wife, who made the jump to Sandwich from the Oswego school district as a multilingual teacher.

Long splits his school day between the middle school and high school, serving close to 40 of the 110 multilingual students in the district from kindergarten through high school. Most of the students have no problem understanding English but require support in understanding the academic language.

“A lot of my support comes through going into various classrooms and supporting students in that classroom, working with the teacher to come up with various strategies and ways of instructing that lesson,” Long said, “making it more comprehensible for the student that may have a difficult time comprehending the language, for them to grasp the concept being taught.”

A lot of the kids in the program at Sandwich have moved from another country, such as Mexico or Germany. Students are tested once a year, and if they don’t score or meet a standard, they remain in the program until they do.

“I am open and honest with my students. We talk about goals a lot, where you see yourself in five years,” Long said. “It’s important that we focus on the now but also what we can do to set themselves up for a successful future. We’re open and honest about college opportunities, what trades they’re interested in, what we can do to make them more successful.”

Long is also helping build a successful running program at Sandwich. The track program is at about 40 boys and 40 girls right now, of which 22 or so make up the distance group that Long coaches.

During the offseason, Long works to build relationships, to make for an engaging and welcoming environment without making it super intense, a program that is fun to be a part of while setting standards for what the program wants to be.

When the season starts, Long hones in on what the expectation is for every day in practice, and the purpose of what they are trying to accomplish.

“You are teaching them the art of running. It’s not just ‘Go out there and run,’” he said. “We are teaching them about pace, what are goals during the run, what is your body feeling like during the workout, what recovery looks like, what their heart rate should be, educating them about eating right, getting them to understand and buy in. I think once they start to buy in, they see their growth.”

Long does so while remaining active himself as a runner, and doing workouts with his athletes. He ran the Chicago Marathon in 2023 and did the Boston Marathon in April this year, a bucket list item for the 38-year-old father of three.

“You get the feeling of what they feel,” Long said. “It is something that builds rapport. All of my coaches ran with me. There is more meaning to it.”

It’s a full day of school, but Long has found his pace.

“The best way to describe it is organized chaos, but you get really good at it,” he said. “At the beginning, it was intimidating; the first time I had a position that was split between schools was at Sandwich. Once you get into the groove and education of what students look like, it gets easier. But sometimes it is hard to separate.”