My gratitude list

As though compelled to follow our own instructions from the previous post, our Thanksgiving 2020 was … different! We spent the afternoon at the home of good friends in Pleasant Valley for a tailgate-style Thanksgiving feast outside – food under the tent, lawn chairs in the front yard, dual fire pits going. The weather cooperated – it was pleasantly mild and we stayed for several hours of socially distanced socializing. Definitely neat, especially because of and for 2020. And here’s part two of my “follow your own instructions” post, a short gratitude list for Thanksgiving 2020:

 --Entire family together under one roof, healthy. For a few days, anyway.

 --As crappy as the semester was, we were still able to “practice” for a decent amount of it. Still able to do what we love and love what we do, albeit in a very different and very stilted way. It will make us appreciate “normal” that much more when it returns.

 --The loyalty of our alums, who have made an effort to stay connected with text, call, Zoom. Means a lot. We are all Forever Foxes. Special shout-out to my loyal blog follower Marty McGowan, who never fails to inspire me with his passion for our program.

 

--Flannel shirts. I have grown into a new appreciation of them, wearing them every day. Even have lined, outer-layer flannel shirts for cold-weather outdoor use (we have 3 dogs that need walking now, you know). Putting my phone in the left chest pocket and on speaker mode, I can walk around hands-free and talk and get stuff done, while the dogs also “get stuff done.” Neat.

 --My morning jogging buddies. We didn’t run together for the first 4-6 weeks of the pandemic but I’m glad we were able to resume our tradition since that time – for a distance, from a distance. Specifically, we have expanded our repertoire of “Netherwood” runs out on rural, hilly roads in Pleasant Valley and Clinton, and that has improved all our fitness levels, not to mention our friendships. I’m sure they are sick of hearing me whine, but because they are good and loyal friends, they listen. Also neat.

 --Seen circulating on Facebook and email and New York Times: “Zoom Thanksgiving beats an ICU Christmas.” Because of its pervasiveness, it has already become cliché but still works.

 --The incredible loyalty and longevity of Running Red Foxes coaches. Since early 1991, when Phil Kelly and I started this journey, we have shown Pittsburgh Steelers’ style stability at the helm: Phil had an incredible run of success that ended with his retirement in 2008; Chuck Williams started as an athlete in the fall of 1995 and never left, having been a coach in some capacity after his graduation and now the co-pilot at the helm for the past dozen years, devoting a large portion of his entire adult life to all things Running Red Foxes; Terry Horton has been here for the past dozen or so years, stubbornly refusing to retire (greatly appreciated!) and continuing to show great passion for a sport he has been involved with for about as long as I’ve been alive; and 38 years after arriving at Marist as a scared and skinny freshman in August 1982, I’m still here.

Making sense of Thanksgiving 2020

The holidays are going to look and feel different this year. Oooof. After the first dozen or so times I heard this, even a thick-headed dumbass track coach like me got it. Do we need to keep HEARING this? Or talking about the “new normal” already? Double oooof! In talking with two loyal alums (via Zoom, of course) last night, they posited that Christmastime would pose more of a pandemic threat than Thanksgiving. I get what they said and they could in fact be accurate in that assessment, but I think Thanksgiving may be more pervasively problematic. Here’s my point: Pretty much everyone celebrates Thanksgiving, and travel centered around this holiday might be more widespread than any other. And since this is the holiday staring us in the face right now, let’s talk about it.

There is so much chatter and information out there about Covid-19, but I’d like to think there is one thing we can all agree upon: Indoor gatherings, in enclosed spaces, for longer than brief visits, without masks, crowded together, sharing food and drink and talking and laughing and hugging and kissing – phew, that’s quite a potent concoction for the spread of a highly infectious virus. Most years, that previous run-on sentence would be a good way of describing the risks – relatively minor that they are – of colds and flu spreading during holidays like Thanksgiving (my childhood memory is filled with grown Italian men snorting and sneezing violently into a handkerchief and then neatly folding it and putting it back into their pockets for future use… disgusting!) As we hopefully all know by now, Covid-19 is not the cold and it is not the flu. Same concept, far more serious consequences. The anti-mask folks often crow and whine about being told to wear face coverings: “Don’t tell me what to do, how to live my life, etc.” When officials wag their collective fingers at us and implore us to forego our usual, big Thanksgiving gatherings, that anti-mask credo rings in many of our heads. “Come on, man, we gotta live, family time is sacred, enough of this crap.” I get it. I get it. We all get it.

And yet? We gotta be careful, people. Is it worth it? Is it worth gathering in large groups inside -- eating together, talking, laughing, hugging and kissing -- not knowing for sure where everyone has been, who they’ve been exposed to? We’ve also had to “embrace the suck” for the past 8.5 months. What’s another day, another few months? The year 2020 has been different in so many ways; isn’t it fitting that Thanksgiving, the holidays, should be different too? Shouldn’t we be big boys and girls and adjust and adapt? Maybe we can embrace the differences, create new solutions (no, not “new normals” because this cannot and will not be the norm long-term!) and look back and say, “yeah, that sucked, but wasn’t it fun and interesting and different in 2020 when we ______ (fill in the blank).”

So many “didn’ts” this year. We didn’t have an outdoor track season; graduations of all sorts; road races; preseason; cross country season; a fully functioning fall semester; other than on a screen, I haven’t seen family members in New Jersey pretty much for the balance of 2020, probably a similar story rings true for many of you reading this. In many ways, it all has sucked. But here we are, at Thanksgiving 2020. A time to reflect on gratitude. Not easy, this year. Sometimes the “not easy” is more gratifying, more worthwhile, in the long run (think: marathon training and racing). So, as you gather (or maybe not gather), at a smaller table with fewer people around you, try swimming upstream and, instead of ruminating upon the many didn’ts of 2020, try making a gratitude list. Might be a lot more difficult, when you’d probably much rather be gathering for holiday cheer and maybe even doing a Turkey Trot road race. But anyway. Try it. Even in 2020, my hope, desire and prayer is that you – we all -- can do that, and the list is longer than you had thought it would be. Happy Thanksgiving.

Who's counting?

Thanks to Conor and Lisa for their comments on last week’s post about the possibility of a winter XC season. It’s very rare to get comments, other than the occasional bots that are not actually human, on this blog. To hear from two very loyal Forever Foxes with very interesting and relevant questions was awesome. Their questions were complicated and I’m not sure I can fully answer them. But I’ll try. First of all, as I have stated here repeatedly as well in that aforementioned post, our “sport” is actually 6 sports. This is an often overlooked metric that bears repeating over and over and over. Back when I was a part-time head coach lobbying to become full-time (which happened, in large part, to the lobbying efforts of the 2000s era alums, and I’ll never forget that), I made the point that as “Director of Track/Cross Country,” I was overseeing more than 25 percent of the entire athletic department’s teams. Do the numbers. We have 23 D1 programs and 6 of them are “us” … pretty difficult to justify having more than 25 percent of your athletic program run by part-time coaches.

But I digress. Conor asked if our three-season athletes “count” three times … and again, I’m not sure I know the answer. I think it’s yes and no. Yes, in that each roster is distinct and the total of each roster is counted as such. No, in that when we give a final head count of overall athletes and male athletes vs. female athletes, for the purposes of equity, I don’t think a distance runner who does all three seasons “counts” as three distinct athletes. By the way, words matter: “Equity” and “Title IX” are close cousins but they are not the same. Please don’t ask me the distinction – I’m not smart enough to parse it. But they are different. Title IX is federal legislation and thus mandated accordingly. Equity is something that each individual school strives for, but without specific guidelines, in terms of the proportion of male and female athletes. There. I think I just did it. If a compliance person is reading this, they probably just cringed at this crude explanation.

Let’s keep going on this. Clemson University just cut its men’s programs – all three, XC, indoor and outdoor. Travesty. Atrocious. Make up any other adjective or adverb. It sucks. All of it sucks. Lisa’s point about the numbers is spot on. Football is a big driver of equity and Title IX decisions, because it is an all-male sport with a huge roster. Conor’s point about Lisa – a legit two-sport athlete in rowing and track – is quite interesting, actually. In that case, maybe she DID count as two athletes! I honestly don’t know. I can ask Liz Donohue, our outstanding long-time Senior Women’s Administrator and Compliance Officer, about this. Here’s the thing: These schools that are cutting sports – men’s track is a popular and easy target – in many cases are using the Covid crisis as cover to pay for the sins of poor budgeting or gross overspending in the big-ticket sports – football, men’s basketball. In most cases, quite frankly, it’s bullshit, and it’s young student-athletes’ lives that suffer. Some schools (Brown, William and Mary) have walked back their original decisions. In almost all cases, though, the damage is done and cannot be reversed. Cut is cut. And that sucks.

It’s about the money. It’s always about the money. But oftentimes, cutting our sport doesn’t actually “save” universities a lot of money. In our case, with men’s XC and track, we are relatively low budget in every way – scholarship allocation, operating expenses, etc. Anyone reading this that has any close association to the program knows this well and probably lived it for 4-5 years. We survived, we will survive. We are most definitely a loss leader, but so is pretty much every other college athletic team! However, if you look at the amount of income our athletes provide for the college in terms of what they pay to attend? Based on that metric, we are making the school a lot of money. Grab the back of an envelope and do the math. Between our three sports, we currently have about 45 men (again, Conor, that’s not double-counting the 27 guys on the XC roster who also do both tracks). Let’s say, after you deduct merit scholarships (academic, athletic) and need-based aid (from financial aid), each student is paying roughly half of the sticker price to attend Marist ($30,000). With a little bit of research, we would probably find that to be an enormous under-estimate – we dole out very little athletic aid (for men), our financial aid “gaps” almost all students (not meeting full need) and our academic scholarship allocation is proportionally much smaller than our competitors (we are the most competitive school, admission-wise, in the MAAC). Bottom line: Our guys and their families are likely paying a lot more than $30k a year, on average. But let’s just continue to scribble on the envelope. Based on this? Here’s the total: $1.35 million. Again, the total is probably a lot higher than that. Now, subtract salaries for coaches, athletic scholarships and operating budget costs – trust me, if this were a car accident, the “dents” in these areas would barely cover the deductible – and “we” are making a lot of revenue for the college. This is a long-winded way of saying that, while there is always grave concern of program cuts making their way to schools like us, the bottom line is literally the bottom line. For a tuition- and enrollment-driven school like ours, cutting sports is almost always bad business. At least, that’s what I tell myself when I wake up in the middle of the night sweating out news of another program in another conference getting cut.

Phew. A lot here to digest. I hope this makes a little sense and answers some questions while raising some others. Thanks again for the comments. Keep them coming.

Upstate Classic

It sort of felt like normal. There was a group of runners, Marist students, wearing red and white, lugging backpacks, getting ready to try to run fast. It wasn’t a championship cross country meet, as it should be this time of year. It was a road race, a rare, in-person, on-ground road race put on by the fine folks at Albany Running Exchange, called the Upstate Classic. It featured a 5km, half marathon and full marathon. Start and finish at the fairgrounds in Altamont, a cool little village in the foothills west of Albany. The course was scenic and rolling and mostly through Guilderland – it even passed Guilderland High School, home of several top Running Red Foxes past and present. Coach Chuck was driving his car around, cheering the top ladies in the race. He told me afterwards how good it felt to be coaching again, doing what he loves while encouraging athletes who were finally able to do what they love as well. The race was staged with Covid protocols, including staggered start times. ARE knows how to put on quality running events, and this one was no different. Perhaps, it was their most important race to date. They were able to provide runners – even a small segment of our team – with a sense of normalcy and a sense of joy, even for a few moments during these troubling times. Thank you to ARE for doing just that. We sure as heck needed it. Here are results from our Running Red Foxes on Sunday. 

Half marathon: Gianna Tedeschi, 1:19:15 (first overall); Ali Bartolotta, 1:21:05 (second overall); Talia Cutrone, 1:27:57 (seventh overall); Jenna Robinson (Marist alum), 1:34:01 (14^th overall); 5km: Brendan Dearie, 15:34 (second overall), Aidan Pech, 16:01 (third overall), Jon Kittredge, 16:18 (fourth overall), James Moehringer, 16:35 (eighth overall), Ian Wiesinger, 16:37 (ninth overall), Chris Courts, 17:41 (15^th overall); Boushra Belkhir, 19:01 (third overall); Marathon: Some Old Guy, 4:19:11

Say less

A few loyal blog followers have urged me to write more posts. Say more! I’m getting the opposite message from a small but significant segment of my team. Say less! Apparently, I’m long-winded. Apparently, I talk a lot. Apparently, I repeat myself. Apparently, my team meetings (back when I used to be able to DO such things) become long, rambling soliloquies and endless filibusters. I just completed a book called “The little book of talent: 52 tips for improving your skills,” by Daniel Coyle. Tip #42 = Six ways to be a better teacher or coach, with this second bullet point in the chapter: Avoid giving long speeches – instead, deliver vivid chunks of information: The question is not what big, important message you can deliver. The question is, what vivid, concise message can you deliver. I brought this up to a group of athletes and they jumped right on this, doubling down on this concept and essentially saying that I needed to take this sub-tip to heart. Cut down on the words. Get to the point. Stop talking in circles. Some want me to write more; some want me to talk less. Be Better? I’ll try to do both!

Doing the Lindy

As a kid, I used to imitate his extreme overhand pitching motion. This is what we did, back in the day, back in the early- and mid-1970s of my youth. We’d meet at a baseball field, play pickup games and pretend to be the players we saw on TV. When I batted, I was Roy White. Always Roy White, the steady, consistent outfielder for the New York Yankees. When I pitched, I was Lindy McDaniel, a player few had heard of and a guy who through no fault on his own always played on mediocre teams – including the Yankees, during their dark days of the late 1960s to early 1970s when they weren’t all that good. McDaniel had a good, long Major League Baseball career, as I learned in his obituary earlier this week in the New York Times. He died of Covid-related illness at age 84. Whenever I play catch with my son James in the yard, every once in a while, to this day, I’ll throw a fastball with my left arm extended fully straight up in the air, and I’ll think of Lindy McDaniel, long forgotten and now gone. I guess it’s no surprise and probably a recurring theme as you get older that the sort-of famous people that were part of your life growing up start disappearing from the planet.

Square peg, round hole

The NCAA recently announced a Division I cross country championship for next March – specifically, March 15, 2021, in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Yes, that’s right, folks. Cross country in the winter. We (MAAC coaches) had a Zoom call on Thursday morning to discuss the possibilities. There may be a MAAC Cross Country Championship in either late February or early March; details are still being hammered out, not the least of which – where can we run without having to deal with a lot of snow and mud and muck? Winners and top finishers will qualify for the NCAA Championship; there will be no “regionals” as we know it. At least, not in early 2021. You can look up the details of the qualifications, quite frankly I’m too lazy and confused to do it right now. Here’s the thing! I applaud college athletics for thinking creatively to work on restoring the possibility of seasons of competition in all sports. Fall sports to the winter and spring, peacefully coexisting with the spring sports. Shoehorn the winter sports in there somewhere, especially basketball! It’s great; when and if they tell us that we can board a bus to compete, I don’t care if it’s a cross country course under 6 inches of snow, a warm indoor track (neat, but unlikely) or eventually an outdoor track (I’ll be bitterly disappointed if that doesn’t happen). If we can play track, we’ll play track. Tell us when, where and how.

However! Here’s the unique problem with our sport: It’s not a single sport. Duh. We all know that it’s really 6 sports umbrelled into one, which administrators conveniently call “track.” In reality? We’re a fall sport (cross country), a winter sport (indoor track) and a spring sport (outdoor track). Times 2 (men and women). Trying to “move” fall sports to the spring – at least in our world – becomes a square peg into a round hole problem. Soccer, volleyball, even football in the spring? Sure! Book the field, the gym, and away we go! Cross country in the spring? Uh. Wait. We kinda already have a SEASON there now, don’t we? The trend – at least in these parts – seems to be that indoor track will mostly be a non-starter, so let’s plow forward with a late winter XC season. Again, tell me where and when, and we’ll order the biggest meat-hook spikes we can find and have at it. Racing is racing, and it’s been a long-ass time since our athletes could represent Marist in a collegiate race. Stay tuned. A winter XC season may happen, at least that’s what everyone I talk to seems to think. A truncated indoor track season is unlikely, but you never know, there may be a few random meets here and there. Personally? For months now, the only thing I’ve been banking on is an outdoor track season in the spring of 2021 – as I said, if that doesn’t happen, we’ll all be pretty pissed off and depressed at a completely lost 2020-2021 athletic calendar year (hey, it could happen, but I don’t want to think about it). A 2021 outdoor season? It may not be “normal” as we know it but I’d like to think it’s likely. But again, something is better than nothing. Even if it’s cross country in the wintertime. Stay tuned.

Rolek runs around Manhattan

As a follow-up to a recent post about Marist Running Alum Mike Rolek’s charity run around Manhattan? He did it! On one of those glorious late fall days (of which we’ve had many!), Rolek covered 32.5 miles (a bit more than 50km) and had a grand time doing it, for a very good cause. But rather than continuing with my description, here’s what Rolek emailed me earlier this week:

Overall, it went great.  Most important number:  We raised more than $10,000 for The Scholarship Fund for Inner-City Children.  Unreal.  All of the money raised will go directly to low-income families to allow children, who otherwise would not get the opportunity, to attend high-quality private and parochial elementary schools, high schools and colleges.  It doesn’t get any better than that. As for the run… it ended up being a little over 32.5 miles (4:11 running time - 7:43 pace and 4:50 total time - 8:55 pace which includes all breaks). Just an epic day. Started on West Side Highway right by Christopher Street Path and ran counter-clockwise. First 9 went very smooth. Probably felt the best through Harlem between 9-18. Hit the Top of Manhattan at 220th Street in high spirits. A lot of hills in Inwood Park (around Columbia athletic fields) around miles 20-22. Started to get tough at 23 by GWB. Rough patch between 27-29. And then charged home. An absolute perfect day weather-wise, 60s and sunny and no wind.  In terms of fueling - Gu right before start and then at 5, 10, 15, 19, 22, 27, 29.5. Water and Gatorade throughout. Flat Coke at 27.  I was lucky to have my high school teammate, and one of my best friends, Brian Trembley, run the first 15 miles with me.  He then hopped on a citibike and biked till mile 23ish (GWB) when the chain came off the bike - he ran the last 10 miles. What a savage. Overall, it was an unbelievable experience.  

Puppy love

There are so many Covid clichés out there, new habits formed during this troubled year of 2020, amplified with social media flexing and/or well-meaning articles in the fancy New York Times. That’s all swell. For a schmoe like me, observing from the comfort of my closet office upstairs, “new habits” are really just old habits with new names. Let’s start with the most obvious one in our sport and that is …

Virtual races!: Specifically, the ones in which you set a long-term, specific mileage total to hit over the course of several weeks and months. It’s great for accountability and a sense of accomplishment. Back in the day, we used to call these things our “training logs.” Now, we have Strava (which I have grown to like). And in 2020, the explosion of virtual races like the ones I have described (and yes, that I have participated in), in which we pay an outside agency to allow us the opportunity to log our mileage and see how we compare versus others. Am I being cynical and glib? Yes. I am.

Men not shaving because they’re working at home or otherwise Don’t Care about their personal appearance: This is my favorite. Are you kidding me? Anyone who has known me for even a short length of time knows my “shaving habits” consist of … not much. I don’t need a lot of prompting to grow a hideous beard. My shockingly white goatee right now is approaching 8 months' growth, with a relatively easy target of 1 year not too far behind, especially with the cold weather eventually settling in. Frosty face frozen beards, here I come!

Dressing down because you don’t have to look presentable at work: Like I need a reason to wear flannel shirts and flannel-lined pants every day? Puh-leeeeze. Now, this sort of grunge look is once again a “trend?” Ha! For your next trick, perhaps you can tell me that TUBE SOCKS will come back in vogue!

Adopting adorable pets, thus rescuing them from otherwise bad outcomes: Been there, done that. We have two dogs – Sammie and Mikey (who I like to call Michael, because, well, why not?) – who were acquired through pet rescue agencies. They are part of the family. For a while, several months ago, there may have been several days where I would have had more extensive conversations with them than with Actual Humans. They create a symphony of barking whenever, well, pretty much anyone or anything approaches the house. Sammie is high strung and has a difficult time relaxing, but she is a happy girl and a joy to have. Michael is smelly and fat and likes nothing more than to lay around looking grumpy. My kinda guy! Both of them naturally take up residence on the couch most days and in our bed most nights. We have a happy animal house (including Rickey the turtle and an unnamed goldfish, won by Natalie at some carnival, that simply refuses to perish). Who needs more than this? We do, of course! The chatter for a third dog seemed like a joke at first. But then, in what seemed like an overnight, rapid transition, the chatter grew into a loud chorus and I was completely blindsided -- outnumbered 2 to 1, which felt like 200 to 1. The two (wife Heidi, youngest son James) were persistent and wouldn’t take no for an answer; the one, me, the dissenting chief justice, represents the opinion that matters the least. It began looking like Three Dog Night was gonna be more than an old rock band in our house.

And so? Welcome Ellie to our already chaotic household. Ellie is a tiny puppy, allegedly a “beagle mix.” Anything “mix” is adoption agency code for “we don’t know what the heck she is, but she sure is cute, isn’t she?” Why, yes, she is! Alert readers may ask? Why Ellie! Immature Athletes On Our Men’s Team immediately jumped to the following conclusion: “Coach Pete named her after (junior distance runner) Ellie Davis! Har-har-har.” Uh. No. While we are extremely proud of the great strides Ellie Davis has made in her training and racing – especially during these pandemic months! – this dog was named in honor of Eleanor Roosevelt, arguably the greatest First Lady in history and inarguably the former residence of the nearest National Park to our house (Val-Kill, less than a half-mile from our Hyde Park home). Ellie enters a loving home inhabited by two dogs who have grown quite accustomed to running the show around these parts. This has led to some Tense Canine Moments – not to mention pee and poop and chewed-and nibbled upon shoelaces, homework (the dog ate my homework!), pant legs and even a long, scruffy beard. Life with a puppy! So cliché in 2020, huh?

The eyes of a tired nation

The New York Times story started with these words: “As the eyes of a tired nation remained transfixed on the results of the presidential election, the United States set a daily record for new cases for the third straight day …” As a career journalist and sometimes journalism professor, I continue to marvel at the outstanding reporting and writing of this newspaper, which some call “failing” but others rely upon for information. Oh sure, their editorial page skews as left as Clayton Kershaw and Andy Pettitte and the great Whitey Ford, no doubt about that. But for basic information and solid writing in the other sections, it’s as good as it gets.

But this is not another tired post about journalism, and it’s certainly not going to morph into a political post – we’ve got enough of THAT already. This a post about the “eyes of a tired nation” and to a narrower perspective, “the eyes of a tired campus.” Man, oh man, this election is so indicative of 2020, isn’t it? High anxiety, uncertainty over when it will end, lack of a roadmap, etc. Meanwhile, in case no one's been paying attention? The Covid-19 pandemic is raging as strong as it has since it started, setting grim records every damn day. The novelty has worn off but the harsh reality marches on. The late fall weather here is currently beautiful, but the cold and the dark are coming – literally and figuratively. Are we ready? Doesn’t matter … we kinda have to be, don’t we?

Here at Marist, I believe we have handled the pandemic crisis pretty well. Maybe we’ve skewed toward overreacting at times, and that has led to frustration in many areas – athletics especially. But now, sad to report, the virus has taken a pretty solid grip on our campus. We’re always looking for correlation and causation – who can we blame? Off-campus parties, fraternities, laziness toward mask wearing, not keeping enough distance, etc. Not this time. This time, it’s simply a nasty virus doing its dastardly job in the petri-dish setting of a college campus. We can’t point the finger at one group, one team, one dorm, one off-campus house. The fact that we have made it this far – early November – until an outbreak (yeah, everyone’s afraid to use that word, but I will here) occurred is pretty remarkable. But that is of little solace now as we are paused once again, with waves of uncertainty remaining over the final 2.5 weeks of the in-person fall 2020 semester, not to mention the early months of 2021. During the spring and summer, the logical brain said trying to do in-person college academics and athletics during a pandemic was foolhardy at best. At all times, the emotional brain said we HAD to try, and I’m glad we did. Now where do we go? Same old shit – space out with physical distancing, wear a damn mask, wash your hands. As a dumbass track coach with the sole skill of being a fast typist, I’d like to add a few more helpful, non-scientific tips:

--Get outside, even when the weather sucks. Fresh air is a great salve in these times.

--Stay connected, and not just through social media. Send a text, make a phone call, shoot an email, schedule a Zoom call. Especially to someone from whom you haven’t heard in a while.

--Remind yourself and others about things you can be grateful for, difficult to do now but vital nonetheless.

--Listen. There’s a lot of noise out there. Sift through it and hear the messages that matter.

Like this: A text from an old friend, a dude who checks this blog every day and who reached out to me out of the blue and urged me to write more, to post more, to help him through these crazy times. Duuude: I'm no Tony Robbins, I'm just the dumbass over here in the flannel shirt! But anyway? This post is for you. I’ll try to do more, based on your urging. And in following my own advice, I’ll end with this: I’m grateful for your friendship and loyalty through the years, and I forever remember our long-ago hard runs from campus, always pushing up that little hill on Delafield Street, you always leaving me in the dust when we returned to campus. Long may we run, Murph. Thank you.

Fast halves, near and far

After months and months of scant results posts, here’s the third one in three days! We got a text from Marist Running Alum Spencer Johnson, now tearing it up with the San Diego Track Club, on Saturday reporting that he ran a big PR at the Las Vegas Gold Invitational Half Marathon, sixth place in 1:07:31. A great effort at a unique venue, as you can see. Spencer reported that the desert air was dry and the course had ups and downs that can be detected by his mile splits, which are here via Strava: 5:07, 5:02, 5:18, 5:02, 5:05, 5:14, 5:08, 5:13, 5:13, 5:02, 5:06, 5:10, 4:52.

Back here in Poughkeepsie on Sunday morning, sophomore Ramsey Little ran a half marathon (time trial) of his own. He drove his car out to near New Paltz (Eltings Corners, to be exact) so he could run a linear, west-to-east 13.1 miles. His roommate, Dan Czop, cycled next to him to provide splits updates to me and the team and to provide encouragement. Ramsey noted Spencer’s time from Saturday and it motivated him to get moving at a fast pace He finished in a very strong 1:08:08 (5:11ish pace), with intermediate splits of 33:00 (10km) and 52:30 (10 miles). These are the mile splits that he sent me from his watch: 5:18, 5:23, 5:16, 5:18, 5:08, 5:13, 5:11, 5:05, 5:05, 5:11, 5:09, 5:11, 5:05.

And last weekend, freshman John Ignacz set the table with his own half marathon time trial, in which he blasted out a solid 1:12:43. Here are his splits from his Strava post: 5:39, 5:50, 5:39, 5:45, 5:42, 5:33, 5:30, 5:21, 5:38, 5:21, 5:25, 5:25, 5:28.

All good stuff. But before we get too excited … it IS 2020 and we just got an email saying all athletic department activity would be PAUSED on Monday due to several Covid positive cases connected to freshmen dorms, with the McCann Center being converted into a massive surveillance testing center. We’ll keep trying to outrun this virus …  

Virtual 5km: Fun in the sun

A bright and chilly midday at the Hudson Valley Rail Trail for the MAAC XC Virtual 5km, Marist men’s XC style. Most of the team showed up to cheer on and support our 7 finishers. A few of the milers from yesterday took the wheel out of the trunk of my car and accurately measured 5,000 meters, so the seven men didn’t have to rely on GPS statistics, which generally vary from person to person. West to east they ran, hard, with a 7-for-7 record of personal-best times (in fairness, several of these guys had never run 5km). Another great day after several months of not-so-great days. Fun in the sun. Here are the results, in time order:

Dominic Mastromatteo (sophomore) 15:15

John Ignacz (freshman) 15:21

Patrick Kutch (junior) 15:30

Jon Kittredge (sophomore) 15:45

Jack Parsons (freshman) 15:54

Aidan Pech (sophomore) 15:56

Christian Locker (freshman) 16:20

Rail trail in the snow

In the most unusual fall of 2020, our athletes have been doing their best to focus, train hard and stay motivated. It’s not easy. Without the compass of a season – or seasons, really, as we await the fate of upcoming months while nervously watching Covid-19 case numbers creep up and beyond record numbers nationwide – it makes it challenging to train with a level of coherence. There are workouts, long runs, weekly mileage goals and other metrics to chase. It’s still not easy. Clamoring for time trials and intrasquad scrimmages started over the summer and continued into the fall. Intrasquad scrimmages were out of the question – too many bodies in the same place, as we have been relegated to training in smaller “pods” each day. We waited until there was a level of coherence and consistency in training before entertaining time trials. Finally, as things started to coalesce a bit, time trial plans started falling into place for a few weeks ago. But then they became unhinged when the college went on a weeklong pause to stem the tide of a small Covid outbreak. Poof, there goes the time trials, and the coherence of a team in training.

The weather this fall has been glorious. Cool nights, warm days, incredible foliage. But the calendar is relentless and the mid-Hudson Valley is not San Diego, and so late October started looking and feeling like late October around here this past week. Still, as we restarted and regrouped, the time trials plan moved forward, with Friday, October 30, as the date circled on our calendar – a group of guys wanting to blast out a hard mile, another group of guys signed up for the virtual MAAC 5km. But the long-range forecast showed a big, fat snowflake several days in advance of Friday. Should we move the time trial back again? One training pod – the group that had locked in on the 1-mile distance for a time trial – was emphatic: No. We’re running it, weather be damned. And so yesterday morning, in the snow as the heavy wet flakes blunted those beautiful fall colors, the guys piled into their cars and made the short drive up the hill to the Morgan Lake trailhead of the Dutchess Rail Trail. I had marked out the linear 1-mile course last week with pink flags, which were now sagging under the weight of the snow. I picked a section where there were no road crossings. It was cold, damp, miserable and the big fat leaves were wet and slippery on the paved trail. Some guys donned their high school singlets. Some guys wore racing flats. And away they went, sprinting their hearts out down the snowy rail trail. Sophomore Brendan Dearie overtook classmate Paul Sandford in the final 200 meters for the victory. The times and places didn’t matter, don’t matter. On this morning, we were all winners because we felt like a team again.

Time trial weekend continues later this morning, as guys from a few other training pods will do the virtual 5km on the Hudson Valley Rail Trail over in Highland. It won’t be snowing, but it’ll be pretty darn cold – as I type this, it’s a brisk 25 degrees outside. By the time the guys do the 5km, it’ll be closer to midday (classes are in session on Saturdays during Fall 2020, so we cannot go any earlier than our normal weekday 11 a.m. practice time). The guys who time trialed the mile will be out there cheering on their teammates, just as the 5km guys were out there yesterday shivering in the wet snow. We were supposed to be up in suburban Albany today for the actual MAAC XC Championships (not the virtual one, the actual, real one). A brisk, sunny morning, with the Colonie Crossings ground hardened by the Friday snow. Cross country in the Northeast at its best. In 2020, at least in our conference, a chilly rail trail will have to do this weekend.

Rolek to run perimeter of Manhattan for charity (neat!)

One of our favorite Forever Foxes, Mike Rolek (Class of 2008), asked me to post the following information about a charity run around Manhattan in early November. It’s a pretty cool loop and an even better cause. For those old-timers and/or lovers of ultra running history, the great Ted Corbitt used to run the perimeter of Manhattan as a training run quite frequently. Rolek is following in Ted’s famous footsteps. Highly neat. Here’s the information Mike asked me to pass along to the Marist Running blog family, along with the link to the donation page:

On Sunday, November 8, 2020, I'm running the perimeter of Manhattan to raise money for The Scholarship Fund for Inner-City Children ("SFIC"), in connection with SFIC's "A Run for Education."  SFIC, a non-profit organization founded in 1983 by Archbishop Emeritus Peter L. Gerety, is based out of Newark, NJ and gives low-income children living in Bergen, Essex, Hudson and Union counties the opportunity to attend high-quality private and parochial elementary schools, high schools and colleges.   Since its inception, the Fund has impacted the lives of thousands of inner-city families, providing approximately 57,000 students with over $47,000,000 in partial-tuition scholarships.     

My Run is a little over 30 miles.  My original goal was to raise a little over $3,000 - we surpassed that in less than a week.  The Goal is now $5,000.  Currently, I've raised over $3,500.  If you don't mind, could you post this on the blog along with a link to my donation page (below).  It's a fantastic cause that is actually creating positive change in this world.  

https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/the-run-around-manhattan-for-the-scholarship-fund-for-inner-city-children/michaelrolek

Early voting

The lines were long. And longer. And longer than that.

Among the many, many unique aspects that we’ll remember about 2020, early voting on Saturday with my daughter Natalie is one of them. And like a lot of things in 2020, it had some unusual twists and turns. Start here: My daughter, a freshman at Siena College in suburban Albany, registered to vote this summer and made it very clear to us that she wanted to come back home to vote early – as soon as possible -- in this election. She has been up at Siena for more than two months now and has not been home once since her arrival in Loudonville. We’ve been up there (especially me) for several short visits – it’s an easy drive from our house – to provide her with additional snacks for her dorm room, clothes, things she forgot, a new cell phone after her screen shattered, and any other excuse we could find to make the trip up there. We miss her. What’s another couple round-trips on another fall weekend?

So anyway, Saturday, October 24, was the first day of early voting. It worked well with all of our schedules. Natalie had swim practice (she’s on the Siena team) in the morning. My youngest son James and I piled into my cluttered Subaru for the relatively short drive (1 hour, 20 minutes) up to Loudonville. We picked her up, went to a local Salvation Army thrift store so she could shop for clothes for a Halloween outfit, and then started the trip south to the nearest polling place in Dutchess County – Rhinebeck town hall. Of course, there were multiple Stewart’s shops stops along the way on the roundtrip (coffee, gas, snacks, bathroom, etc.). When we got to Rhinebeck, the line along the quaint village streets was long, snaking into another neighborhood. James was grumpy. He didn’t want to wait; can’t blame him too much. So, we decided to drive home to Hyde Park, drop him off, and seek a polling place in Poughkeepsie. Little did we know that Rhinebeck “long” was nothing at all!

We dropped James off, Natalie had an emotional reunion with the beloved dogs, and then we drove into the City of Poughkeepsie, to the board of elections on Cannon Street. Lines snaked through the city as far as the eye could see. Screw THAT. Let’s go to Boardman Road, Town of Poughkeepsie, and check out that polling place. Same deal. Long lines as far as you could imagine, cars parked in all manner of disarray on the grass, and the side of Boardman Road. Screw it, we’re waiting, there are no more options. Now Natalie was grumpy. The afternoon was getting chilly. Folks coming out of the library polling place (what a beautiful public library! Only a nerd like me can get excited about such a place, a relatively new addition to the Poughkeepsie Public Library District!) mentioned that their wait was four hours. Holy hanging chad, it was 3:45 p.m. A four-hour wait approaches my bedtime (not quite, but close). I mentioned to Natalie that maybe we should try Rhinebeck again on Sunday, on the way back to Siena. She bristled. She had homework on Sunday; she needed to get back on Sunday for a Zoom call. She wanted to vote now. Good for her. She could have bailed, and at one point she was questioning if it was worth it. But the kid wanted to vote for the first time. She turned 18 in July. This was important to her. And so, we hunkered down in the parking lot line. To wait to vote. Again, this was important to her, it mattered to her; and so, it mattered to me too.

Clearly, it was important to a shit-ton more people than her too. Wow. Because I’m a numbers geek, I walked around that beautiful new library and counted how many folks were in front of us. Not including those already in the building? I counted 262 humans. Wowsers. Eventually, her mood got better. She’s a generally good-natured kid. She put on her XL Siena swimming and diving sweatshirt to stay warm. I fetched some gloves from the car, as well as a notebook and some flash cards for her to study for an upcoming bio exam. An extra layer of flannel for me and a winter hat. It really wasn’t that cold (low-50s) but when you are standing outside for three hours as darkness approaches, it gets chilly. Yes. It took us about three hours before we finally got into that beautiful new library (did I mention what a great library it is!) to cast our ballots. I’ve been voting for close to 40 years. I’ve never missed a general election (I can’t vote in primaries, because I’m not registered with a political party, I’m an “NOP” in election official vernacular). This felt special, this felt meaningful. And like so much else in 2020, this is something – a day in the life – that we’ll never forget. Natalie voted and seemed happy to do it. I voted and I’m definitely happy that future long lines will not include me. We all should rest assured that our democracy, flawed, and perhaps reeling as it is, seems to be alive and well. Rock the vote, people, no matter how long it takes. That’s what we did.

Pandemic Papers: An interview with Mike Nehr (Class of 2002)

This interview has been on my mind for many weeks now, ever since the great Mike Nehr (from the beloved Class of 2002) sent me his answers via email. Loyal followers of the blog have most certainly noted the sporadic nature of posts. The Pandemic Papers series perhaps has faded into memory. But the pandemic has not. In fact, it’s humming along quite briskly. We might all be tired of this pandemic (“pandemic fatigue,” it’s called) but it’s not tired of us. Being weary of it and wanting it to go away does not make it go away. Hope is not a strategy. Include any other 2020 cliché here right now, but this latest ‘surge’ or whatever you want to call it is frightening the bejesus out of me. Call me a nervous nelly. I hope I’m overreacting, as usual.

So yeah. Now it’s high time to get this interview up on the blog. So much can be said of Mikey Nehr and he did a great job of summarizing it here in this long and wonderful interview. I won’t rehash it here too much but I will tell you this: I am thankful every day for the loyalty of our Forever Foxes. Each of you is a part of the fabric of this program over the past three decades. Mike Nehr has taken loyalty a step beyond that. Nearly 20 years after his graduation, Mikey stays connected to our program in a special way. He still comes to meets (you know … when we actually HAVE them). He has connected with newer generations of Foxes. They know him, he knows them. Over the years when he has come to the meets, he has gotten to know our current team members and parents, especially the ones that live near him on his native Long Island. As our oldest son Joey wraps up his time as an undergraduate student at Stony Brook, it was comforting to know that Mikey was a short drive away in Hauppauge, if he ever needed him. Joey is a fiercely independent kid and would never ask for help, but I always knew that I could text Mikey (or the Townsends or the Valentinos or many others) and they would be there for him.

Like I said. I could go on and on and on. Know this. In the first several years after graduation, on Father’s Day, I would get calls, emails and texts from Mike Nehr and I’ve always remembered every one of them. Now that he is a father himself, with two beautiful young children and an awesome young family, I’m proud of the man he’s become and it was an honor to be his coach (and to still be his coach). Mikey, sorry it took so long for me to post this interview. I guess my “pandemic fatigue” has manifested itself in the blog. Better late than never. Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions so thoroughly.

How, when and why did you start running?  Did you play other sports growing up? 

I didn’t officially start running until I joined the cross country team in middle school. I knew nothing about the sport.  My 6^th grade physical education teacher asked me to be part of the team in 7^th grade and that’s how it all began. Growing up, I was always active.  I would spend hours every day playing sports with friends, riding bikes for hours, but I was never part of any organized programs.  Joining middle school cross country and track was an amazing experience.  I won my first medal during my 8^th grade track season when I ran the 3000-meter race at an invitation.  I didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew I could just keep running.  I also didn’t really know what I was doing during the awards ceremony, but it was as if I won a medal in the Olympics.

What was your high school running career like; highlights, best memories, etc.

Coach Pete once referred to me as some schmoe 10:15 two-miler in high school.  I was also kicked off the cross country team when I was in 9^th grade.  OK, I wasn’t your typical Marist recruit from high school.  I was mediocre or perhaps to some, you might just say I was slow.  You might be wondering why I was kicked off my team.  During my freshman year, I was the top runner with a great group of teammates, but we were not very competitive. Towards the end of my freshman season, I came down with a virus or something and I didn’t adequately train for about two weeks. I didn’t feel like I was ready for the county meet and I really didn’t want to let the team down with a poor performance. We were supposed to leave school early for the big race, however, I refused to go. My coach tried to get me to go, but I gave every reason in the book to not go and he kicked me off the team in front of my class.  Coach didn’t know what was going on through my head and how I couldn’t handle the pressure. As a result, I never ran for the rest of that school year.  We made amends by sophomore year and I resumed with my running journey. 

My somewhat official best times were:

5k sunken meadow—17:47ish

3200 meters---10:11

1600 meters---4:48

800 meters—maybe 2:16—don’t remember

I was, at best, a mediocre runner.

Refresh my memory with regard to the recruitment process—what other schools were you interested in and how did you ultimately choose Marist? 

I really had no idea where I would end up.  I think only one school really reached out to me and that was Molloy College.  Everything would have been paid for and financially, that seemed like the most logical decision.  However, I was encouraged to look at other schools. I reached out to Iona and they asked me about my state meet times. Unfortunately, I never qualified for a state meet. Villanova told me to call them back when I ran a minute faster. I almost went to Canisius College. I reached out to them, they expressed interest and I was almost sold on going there until I visited Marist College. Best decision of my life. I knew right away that Marist is where I wanted to be, if I could afford it of course. Coach Pete picked me up from the train station in what appeared to be somewhat of an old beat up jalopy of a car (maybe a Subaru station wagon/hatchback) with a plethora of bumper stickers (Editor’s note: This sounds about right … not much has changed in 20-plus years …). Coach Pete welcomed me and we were on our way to campus.  It felt like home as soon as we arrived and the picturesque campus was a dream come true.  Coach Pete left me in good hands with Joe Majkowski to tour the campus.  After talking to Pete and seeing the campus, I couldn’t wait to be a student athlete at Marist.

I’ll never forget your first few days at practice, coming in wearing an “Air Nehr” hat and with the swagger of a top recruit.  What are some of your first memories of your first days, weeks, and months at Marist?

I still have that hat.  It was a nickname that I got from running in high school and playing handball.  It just kind of stuck with me for a little while.  As much as I wanted to go away to college, it was hard for me at first.   I was a slow, shy freshman who tried to fit in.   Everyone was trying to find their role, I think mine just took a little longer.  I suppose at first, I hoped to have that confidence wearing that “Air Nehr” hat, but I guess I had to redefine myself.  I managed to run in the mid 28 min range at Van Cortlandt Park for 5 miles.  That time seemed ok.  The rest of that first semester didn’t go so well for me.  I went home many weekends and developed a really bad case of acne which was probably induced by stress.  The doctor put on me on some medication to treat it for the next four months.  One of the side effects was joint pain which made it difficult to train through even though I tried.  I ended up redshirting winter track. It was a challenging few months, but luckily I had some great teammates to pick me up.

You improved rapidly during your time at Marist eventually becoming a record-setting runner on the team.  To what do you attribute your great success?  Also what are some of your favorite memories and highlights of your four year career as a student athlete at Marist?

I attribute my success to Coach Pete and the team.  It wouldn’t be possible without them.  They truly were my family away from home.  Coach Pete writes blogs on many alumni and current athletes.  In his eyes, we all matter to him as we have played an integral part in Marist XC/Track history. I think someone needs to write an article, “Why does Coach Pete matter”? You took a chance on a kid who ran 10:11 for 3200 meters just as you take a chance on any athlete who walks through the doors of Marist. My first semester ended with me in the hospital for food poisoning and Coach Pete was there in the hospital to make sure I was ok. Pete actually visited me in the hospital a second time for food poisoning. I will never forget that and the countless things you have done for me. Coach worked full time at the Poughkeepsie Journal and coached part time at Marist, but we all know in reality, it was a full-time job.  On top of that you started a family while I was a freshman and you managed to find time for guys like me when I needed you the most. My father was never part of my life and Coach Pete was too young to be my dad, but he always looked after me like he would for any of his athletes. Again, my success starts with Pete and the team and I’m extremely thankful to you. 

After my redshirt winter track freshman season, I finally had the opportunity to run spring track and ran a respectable 16:00 minute 5k.  Putting in all those miles and with patience, my times continued to drop.  Sophomore year, I ran around 27 minutes for 5 miles at VCP and around 15:10 for 5k.  My best times would end up being 25:52 for 5 miles at VCP, 8:24 3k, 3:57 1500m, and 14:45 for 5k.

One of my favorite memories was our record setting day when we won the IC4A for XC in 2000.  Alumni Pat Driscoll spoke of this day in an earlier interview.  It was truly an amazing day.   Only 7 of us took part in the record scoring race, but every member of the team contributed to make that happen.   I have a little story that sets this up.  Be patient with it.  

Story:

Growing up, my mom worked at a local church and there was this priest who would visit every summer from the Philippines.  He was an extremely wise and soft-spoken man.  When I was about 10, my lymph nodes throughout my body were all very swollen and there was a great deal of concern. I visited two different doctors and both felt that I needed to see a specialist to do a biopsy with fear that there could be something there. Father Adolfo gave me a blessing at this time. He put his hand on my head and told me everything would be ok.  He proceeded to tell me a few other things.  He said that in the year 2000, a big event would happen in running and in 2001, that I would become famous. Shortly after that, I went to a third well known doctor at a top hospital and he looked at me and basically said that there was nothing wrong with me. All the swelling in my lymph nodes dissipated. I was good as new.  Fast forward to 2000. A few weeks before IC4As, we raced at Disney. It was the first time going there and I probably spent too much time enjoying myself at the park (Editor’s note: Not probably. Definitely. From that point forward, every year I have given the “Mike Nehr” speech … don’t tire yourself out before the race! … before and during the Disney trip).  I think I wore myself out and I raced poorly. I felt like I let the team down. We returned to Marist and my goal was redemption. Our first big workout after Disney at Spackenkill High School track, Coach had us run repeat 800s.  I told him I needed to prove to myself that I could still run.  During the first interval, I ended up running 1600 meters instead of 800 meters in around 4:23 or so and then finished the rest of the workout.  I now felt ready.  Father Adolfo said that a big event was going to happen and IC4As was the last race of the season. As a team, we dominated that race by winning and obliterated all types of records at that time. Father Adolfo said I would become famous.  I ended up doing well as I set some records of 8:24 in the 3k, 4:16 mile, 1000 meters in 2:29 and I think I was part of a DMR record of 10:16.  I wouldn’t say I became famous, but it did help me believe that great things could happen as long as I continued to stay driven throughout the process.  Through Coach Pete’s work, awesome teammates and desire to do well, you can make anything possible.

What was your major at Marist and how did it prepare you for your teaching career?

My last answer was long. Sorry. After going undecided my first year, I dual majored in Psychology/Special Education.  I completed my student teaching at Marlboro Elementary and Poughkeepsie High School which ultimately prepared me for what I do today.  My goal in life was to help others through education and still be involved in running.  I have been fortunate to be a teacher for the last 18 years and I spent some years coaching cross country and track while continuing my own running. 

You had a really strong post-collegiate running career—winning races and running fast times.  What are some of the biggest highlights from those years?

After Marist, I went to C.W. Post for Grad School.  I had one season of Winter Track eligibility to use.  I was teaching full time, going to grad school, training and competing during my first year out of Marist.  I ended up running the 5k in 14:31 which earned me a national provisional qualifying time for the NCAA Division II championship meet.    

I won the Long Island half in 2003 in 1:09.  In 2004, I entered to run the half marathon again, but you could decide midway if you wanted to do the full instead.  As I was standing on the starting line, a good friend suggested that I should just run the full.  Without much hesitation, I ran the full and won in 2:34. Another big race was The Great Cow Harbor 10k in which I placed 4^th.  This was really cool since they pay and fly the top 10 runners or so from around the country to be part of it.   I would go on to be part of the local running community participating in many running events.

What are some of your overall fondest memories at Marist -- on and off the track/XC courses? 

My four years at Marist provided an incredible learning experience.  There are so many great memories through the friendships gained, my teammates, coaches and time spent in the classroom.  Marist track was my family away from home.  Something that I never did until Marist was travel.  Most of our meets were in the Northeast but we had a few invitations that brought us to Notre Dame (amazing), various colleges in North Carolina, Disney World (first time ever there) and many other schools from upstate to all over the Northeast.     

I know you’ve had some knee issues since then that have curtailed your running.  Are you still running and if so, how much?  If not, what other exercise/sports are you doing?  

I limited my running to only a few times per week at about 2-4 miles per run.  Most summers I would also play beach volleyball which was not only bad for my knees but did a number on my back. Getting old takes a toll on the body.

Tell us about your teaching career -- where and what do you teach, how long have you been there, and tell us about your coaching career as well!

My first two years teaching was at a BOCES on Long Island.  For the past 16 years, it has been a pleasure teaching at Syosset Central School District.  I currently teach 6^th grade math and science at the middle school.  Early in my teaching, I coached the girls varsity XC/Track and a couple of years helping a good friend with the North Babylon Track Team. Throughout that time, there were multiple athletes named All County and one who became state champion in the 3200.

You’ve got a wonderful young family.  Tell us about your wife, kids, where you live, etc.  How has the pandemic affected your family and work life? 

We currently live in Hauppauge, NY which is basically in the middle of Long Island.  Julie and I recently celebrated 13 years of marriage.  We are blessed with two wonderful children.  Our 8-year-old daughter Sophia is usually busy with dance and gymnastics while our 5-year-old son Matthew is involved in deck/ice hockey and baseball. Both are very athletic as we spend hours outside riding bikes and doing other outdoor activities. The pandemic has been a game changer for everyone.  Coach Pete knows how much we like to do road trips during the summer.  Unfortunately, all of that has been cancelled except for some day trips. Most days, we just try to keep our kids busy.

As I ask everyone, what are some of your favorite memories of the final few months of your college years and what message can you impart on our recently graduated seniors?

I cherished every moment of Marist, especially those last few months whether it be on the track, the classroom or just hanging out with friends. I feel really bad for those Marist seniors who lost out on some of those culminating activities and a typical graduation ceremony. At the same, I congratulate you all for all that you have achieved and overcome. You are officially a “Forever Fox.” Your journey is going to be a challenge as we continue to navigate through these unprecedent times, but like most Marist Alumni, your time spent at Marist will greatly help you achieve the success you are looking for.  I wish you the best of luck. 

What does the short-term future hold in terms of the pandemic, going back to school, sports, all of it—in your opinion?

It was unfortunate to hear about the cancelling of many college sports, but ultimately, safety and well-being is top priority.   Sports help drive us, but this virus has clearly put those plans on the back burner.  I have my own concerns with my children going back to school. My children are expected to wear a mask most of the day, maintain little movement and stay socially distant from their friends. School is supposed to be a fun learning experience, but it looks like that will be on hold too.  I can only pray for our world to return to normal so we can enjoy and do the things we once did without worries.  Perhaps science will come to the rescue with a vaccine that will be safe for all.  Based on what I have read and seen, we might not return to a near normal status until next summer.  I will remain optimistic and hope for the best as I know we will get through this.

Anything else you’d like to add…

Thank you Coach Pete for including me in the Pandemic Papers.  It is an honor to be a Marist alum and to watch and hear about all the success of the program that you and Coach Chuck built. Marist XC/Track will eventually be back in action. I wish everyone the best and be well!