Hangin' with P-Diddy

A question that is often asked of me is this: Who was your favorite runner to coach through the years? While I do not have one definite answer, a name that often pops to mind prominently is Pat Driscoll.

He went by the nickname of P-Diddy, perhaps in deference to his highly questionable taste in music.

P-Diddy definitely would make my top-10 all-time favorite Running Red Foxes. He was tough and he always gave a 100-percent race effort. We clicked from the start, and he did some great things here at Marist during his four-year career that ended in 2002. I'll never forget that he was the clutch 5th man on our IC4A University XC Championship team.

We have remained close through the years and he has continued to come to our meets, long after his former teammates graduated. Now, he has an immediate connection to our team as freshman Matt Panebianco (M-Diddy?) was one of his former runners at TZ, where he does a great job coaching xc and track.

Whenever he has breaks from teaching and coaching, he tries to come up for a visit. He did so last Thursday afternoon, and he hung out with me and the team for the better part of the warm day. It was great to see him and I remain proud of all he has done and will do. He continues to train and race well on the roads -- not an easy task when you are teaching and coaching three high school seasons.

I'll probably see P-Diddy at Penn. And with any luck and hard work, we can get M-Diddy to break his old coach's college PRs. That would be pretty cool, but it will take some work!