An interview with Coach Rich Stevens

When you talk about the long and proud history of Marist College men’s cross country, one of the first names that should come to mind is Rich Stevens. Stevens coached the team for a total of 12 years – eight years in the 1970s and four years in the late 1980s and into the fall of 1990, right before I started in the winter of 1991. Among the many interesting factoids of the Rich Stevens’ tenures: He coached Marist cross country when they were NAIA, NCAA Division 3, as they transitioned into NCAA Division 2 in the 1970s, and then finally as an NCAA Division 1 program in his second stint in the late 1980s/1990. My tenure as a runner at Marist was from 1982-1986 – during that in-between period in which Stevens was not coaching at Marist.

His eight-year stint in the 1970s was marked by great growth in the program, innovation and amazing success in cross country and track. He had NCAA national qualifiers. He had an undefeated season. The roster more than doubled under his watch, due to his meticulous and relentless recruiting of the best cross country runners in New York State. He augmented that recruiting by forming the Marist Cross Country Invitational, which at the time was among the biggest and most sought-after meets in the state. And yes, it was run entirely on campus! What a natural – and incredibly smart -- recruiting tool. He created the Marist Running Camp, attracting some of the biggest names in the sport at the time (old-timers will recognize them all). He created a Marist Cross Country Hall of Fame. He secured a trophy case in Donnelly Hall, where the team would sometimes do late-night practices around the natural “indoor track” hallway (fun fact: 11 laps to the mile). He had pre- and post-season booklets about the program. He kept meticulous records of workouts and races – sadly, many of which were lost forever in a house fire in Hyde Park. And amazingly, he did all this as a part-time coach, which teaching math at FDR High School in Hyde Park.

Rich Stevens did so much, it’s difficult to imagine how he had time to sleep and eat. He had popular radio shows on WKIP-AM in Poughkeepsie (I recall being a guest on his show on more than one occasion!). He was public address announcer for Marist College basketball games and later for New Jersey Nets basketball games (fun fact: he has been credited for nicknaming the late former NBA star Darryl Dawkins as “Chocolate Thunder” … although Wikipedia says it was Stevie Wonder … hmmm). All that announcing, and time behind various microphones, was one of the reasons for his hiatus in the early and mid-1980s, but he still remained connected with the program. Even though he was not my coach, I got to know him while a student at Marist, and then as a post-graduate, through his announcing of games and through his background in the sport. And when it was time to hand over the reins of the program, I met with Rich a few times to discuss the transition from one-season sport (just cross country) to all three seasons.

One word to describe Coach Stevens – especially during his retirement years in San Diego – would be “flamboyant.” His frequent posts on Facebook feature some outrageously colorful outfits. And when I say “retirement” in San Diego … don’t think that he’s just sipping pina coladas on the beach. Rich Stevens doesn’t sit still. He kept teaching math, finally retiring from THAT recently. And he wrote a book, about the benefits of eating a strictly organic-food diet. He even came back to his native mid-Hudson Valley several years ago to promote the book. So, for today’s Pandemic Papers, we take a trip back in time for a deep dive into the history of the program. And there is no one more steeped in the history of the program than Coach Rich Stevens.  

You did not attend Marist, so your background is a little bit different from most of these Pandemic Papers interviews. Tell us where you are from, where you went to high school and college, what your athletic background is (did you run cross country or track in high school or college?), what you majored in and how and where you got into teaching?

I grew up in Beacon, NY, graduating 4th in my class of 164 seniors in 1964. I then attended SUNYA (UAlbany), where I majored in math and minored in Psychology getting my BA in 1968 and went summers for five summers until I achieved an MA in Math Education in 1972 from SUNYA. I did an additional 30 graduate hours in education courses from College of St. Rose, Georgetown University and LIU (Long Island University. In Beacon, I was a coach of Babe Ruth baseball, youth basketball, and was the youngest Little League Director in the USA and was a summer playground supervisor for three years.

I started teaching Math at FDR High School in Hyde Park NY in 1968 and coached cross country and track for four years and then coached Marist College cross country for eight years including NAIA, NCAA Division 3, and NCAA Division 2. I also coached four years as Marist head track coach. I later coached four more years of Marist cross country in the late 1980s in NCAA Division 1.

When and where did you start coaching cross country and/or track? Again, did you have a background in the sport? If not, how did you evolve with your intricate knowledge and detail-oriented approach to the sport?

I was told the day I arrived at FDR that I was to coach cross country so I read some books and had my only losing season of cross country that opening year 1968. I got a LOT of my theory of best coaching practices from high school coach Joe Newton of “The Long Green Line” fame. Also, Arlington High School coach Bill Murphy was instrumental in my practice of pre- and post-season team booklets I produced.

When and how did you become coach at Marist? Did you interview for the job or just come into it?

Howard “Doc” Goldman, athletic director at Marist, offered me the job after I had coached his son on the track team.

Tell us what it was like your first year at Marist. What traditions did you start, implement? What was the program like when you inherited it? Who was the coach before you took over?

When I inherited the cross country and track teams, they were having a hard time just getting people to come out for the sports and my first job was to recruit locally in the area high schools and establish larger and better teams. The previous coach of both was Len Olsen, who was a great field coach for me and a great athlete himself in almost all the weight events.

Some of the things I introduced were the pre-and post-season booklets, the Marist cross country high school invitational, the distance running camp with Marty Liquori, which ran for eight years, The Marist cross country honor roll and Hall of Fame, the Marist cross country banquet to honor those athletes, and the night before the invitational we had a clinic where the high school teams would come for different sessions of learning.

What were some of your coaching career highlights in your first stint at Marist?

We won the cross country league that we were in one year and we placed fourth in the NCAA Division 2 regional championships and one of my runners, Ron Gadziala, qualified and ran in the NCAA Division 2 national championships, placing 42nd.

We had a long-standing team record for the top five runners combined time at Van Cortlandt Park which ran many years into the 1990s.

We were the first Marist team in any sport to have an undefeated season in both cross country and track in the 1970s

We entered many large invitationals and won many of them winning many trophies which we displayed in the Donnelly Hall XC display case.

Tell us about the cross country camp you created. Where did you get the idea for that and what “big names” in the sport did you attract to Poughkeepsie?

I brought up the idea of the cross country camp with Marty Liquori and he agreed to be a major part of it through all eight years we conducted it. We wanted to emphasize a lot of teaching and learning and drills to help the runners besides just running distance runs as other camps had done. We had each year more than 100 campers and our outstanding guests included Frank Shorter, Marty Liquori, Steve Liquori, Barry Brown, Tony Waldrup, Dave Wottle, Dick Buerkle, Don Paige, Tom Osler, and other top runners.

Tell us what it was like coaching cross country and track at Marist College in the 1970s. Obviously, there was no track. Where and how did you practice? What was the home course like?

We would practice at many nearby places like the Hudson River Psychiatric Center grounds, golf courses nearby, and Dutchess Community College and Vassar College tracks. Our home course was developed over the campus and we had many students watching our races.

You created the Marist high school invitational and were instrumental in its growth to one of the biggest high school meets in the state. Tell us how that came about.

I just thought that having a high school invitational would be a great way to introduce high school runners to our college and campus and would be a great recruiting tool. Our first year, we had 37 high school teams and later it devolved into an even bigger high school invitational in the state as we had more than 80 teams and some of the big teams from across the state would attend, like St. Anthony’s. I was able to recruit several runners from this invitational. One of the top runners that I recruited because they were in the invitational was Jerry Scholder of Nottingham High School.

Do you remember the first-ever indoor state championship for high school girls at the McCann Center track? If so, tell us about THAT!

I do remember they had that and Louise Tricard of John Jay High School was responsible for that, but that’s about all I remember.

You utilized Donnelly Hall for both practices (it is an oval building, 11 laps to the mile!) as well as the trophy case, which remained in existence for the track/xc teams well into the 1980s. Tell us about that.

We didn’t have any place to practice except using Donnelly Hall after 10 at night, but at least it did help and we would do that quite often. I figured the display case would be a good way of recruiting from on campus and even when we had the high school invitational and they attended the lectures we had the night before it was a good recruiting tool.

Describe the many other innovations you had with regard to the cross country and track programs. You did brochures and booklets, kept meticulous records. What motivated you to do all of that?

With not having a track, you had to think of any way possible to recruit runners and keep runners interested and get others from on campus to join the team so I just tried anything possible which wouldn’t cost too much money. The printed brochures were expensive but a big recruitment tool printed by an outside printing establishment.

How were able to balance the many things you did at Marist with your job as a math teacher in Hyde Park?

It wasn’t just teaching math, I was also doing radio on the weekends and in the 80s was the PA announcer for the Nets and was in the 70s and 80s the PA announcer for Marist basketball. I do not know how I did all that and I was essentially “married’’ to all those different jobs; but I loved them all and that’s what kept me going. But that’s also why I quit because each year I figured I had to do better and more and after a while I just didn’t see how I could spend more time and develop a better program.

You had a gap in your coaching career in the early- to mid-1980s. What did you do during this time (other than your full-time teaching job!)?

In the early 80s when I wasn’t coaching anymore at Marist, I was doing weekend announcing on WKIP and doing the PA for Marist basketball and doing the PA for the New Jersey Nets. I also was the PA announcer for the New York State public high school track and field championships each year both indoor and outdoor. I developed my PA announcing style from Jack O’Reilly, who I admired and was the PA announcer of the Penn Relays.

Tell us about your side career as a public address announcer, both at Marist College and with the New Jersey Nets? How did both of them come about?

Howard Goldman had me do the Marist PA when I first joined Marist as he heard me do the PA for Roosevelt High School basketball. During a preliminary high school game at Marist, I was approached after the game by Fred Weinhaus, who was the general manager of WPAT, the flagship station of the New Jersey Nets as his son was playing in the preliminary game which included Arlington High School and Ramapo High School of New Jersey. Fred thought I did a good job and asked if I wanted to do some more work. I figured he wanted me to do CYO games but he said the Nets were looking for a PA announcer. He got me to do a trial which was an actual Nets game so I wasn’t nervous because I figured well at least I can say I did one professional game and after that game and one more tryout game which was another actual pro game. The Nets hired me and I was the PA announcer the first seven years they played in the Meadowlands arena. Funny, but later on in the early 2000s, my scorekeeper when I did PA for Marist basketball games, Rick Zolzer, also became the Nets PA announcer.

Tell us about your second stint as Marist cross country coach in the late 1980s/early 1990s. What made you return to the job and how was it similar or different to your time as coach during the 1970s?

The job was quite different than the 70s as now it was Division 1 and we weren’t giving any scholarships and were competing against scholarship Division I teams so the success of the team was very minuscule. But they needed a coach and I missed coaching so I stepped in and they were mostly concerned about having the program continue because they needed so many sports to function as a Division 1 basketball team and they had had dwindling numbers of runners on the team just prior to my return.

You’ve been out in San Diego since you retired, but you have kept quite busy during your retirement years. Tell us some of your endeavors out there – still teaching? And talk about the book you wrote many years ago!

I finally have retired from teaching (although I could come back in the summer of 2021). I taught 51 total years of teaching high school and college math, which included now some 17 years of teaching college math at three different community colleges in the San Diego suburbs. Ten years ago, I wrote the book “The Easiest Diet in the World ... And It Works’’ and came out with the second edition of the book two years later. You can see a 2-minute video of me shot from my San Diego backyard and learn more about the book and diet on my free website www.theeasiestdiet.com

Have you stayed in touch with any of your former athletes at Marist as time has gone by?

I have stayed in touch with a few of the runners, and one of them, Dennis O’Doherty, actually visited me in San Diego a couple of years ago. It was great to relive the moments with him - he was a top-five runner each of the years he was with me in the 70s. I have talked with others via email and phone and Christmas cards.

What message can you send to your former athletes and what message would you like to impart on the “younger” generation of Marist cross country and track?

To my former athletes: thanks to you, I had some fantastic times and great memories and it was a pleasure to have worked with you; and if you’re ever coming to San Diego, let me know in advance and let’s get together for lunch and you can email me at: Mrstevens4u@aol.com To future generations of Marist cross country and track: you’ve got a fantastic coach in Coach Pete and you’ve eclipsed every record in the books and had a phenomenal record of achievements there at Marist, which I follow and am excited about and thankful!