University of Massachusets Athletics
A-10 Summer Spotlight: Ken O'Brien Feature
August 19, 2009 | Men's Track & Field
Aug. 19, 2009
By Josh Katzowitz for www.atlantic10.org
The two are the longest-tenured coaches in the Atlantic 10, and they've been the mainstays of their programs for the last half-century. Kevin Quinn - the Director of the cross country/track & field program at Saint Joseph's - and Ken O'Brien, who coaches the men's cross country/track & field squads at Massachusetts, have faced some of the same challenges. They've seen the same changes. They've both tasted sweet success.
So, perhaps it makes sense that whenever admirers talk about the two in separate conversations, they invariably say the same thing. It's almost eerie in fact.
An example: how much do they care about the schools at which they work?
"We all bleed crimson, but I think he bleeds crimson and gray," says Mike Glavin, who ran for Quinn at St. Joe's and oversees the Hawks men's cross country/track & field programs. "People see him so much as a part of Saint Joseph's University. There's not much he wouldn't do to make it a better experience for the athletes he's responsible for. He's part coach, part teacher, part dad, part confidant. Somehow he finds time for all those things."
Julie LaFreniere, the women's cross country/track & field coach at UMass, your witness.
"Ken just loves this university," she says. "He loves athletics, and he's obviously a very competitive person too. His dedication to the student-athlete and to UMass, it just shines through. You could say he bleeds maroon and white. He's dedicated his whole life to UMass. He's a fantastic coach. He teaches his athletes to be leaders, and he's a great example for his athletes to emulate."
The two coaches have spent most of their lives at their respective universities, and they've both seen the changes that have occurred since they began their tenures. Perhaps the biggest change was when female athletes finally were given clearance to compete in cross country and track and field.
Quinn, who will enter his 44th season as head coach at St. Joe's, became the school's first women's coach in 1985, and to him, it was an exciting opportunity to be part of something new. It certainly didn't help ease his workload, though.
While coaching the Hawks for much of his early career, Quinn maintained a full-time job as a teacher at a local high school. Add that to the men's and women's teams along with trying to be a full-time husband and father - not to mention an Associate Athletic Director at SJU for many years - and Quinn started looking to decrease his burden a bit. By 1992, he hired Glavin to coach the men, and he maintained his spot as the women's coach and the overall director of the programs.
The next year, Quinn led the Hawks to the Atlantic 10 title.
"The stars lined up, the planets aligned and we had a terrific core of kids," Quinn says. "It just lined up. They were great kids. They saw it coming, and they knew they were going to win. It was unbelievable."
O'Brien - entering his 42nd season as the Minutemen's head coach after two years as an assistant at UMass - had a rougher start when he helped jumpstart the women's program at UMass. LaFreniere, who was on that first squad, remembers O'Brien posting the mile splits he expected the team to run during an early practice. The women looked at each other in amazement.
"It was so new back then," LaFreniere says. "He had his workload doubled. I'm sure it was a lot of work for him. He'd post what we were going to do on the board and we'd read it and start laughing: `Five repeat miles at a five-minute pace.' We're all like, `Have you even run five minutes for one mile?' to each other. We had to help him adapt to what our times were."
It's also no coincidence that former athletes who worked under the tutelage of Quinn and O'Brien stuck around and went into coaching themselves at their respective alma maters.
"Kevin is as good as you can get," said St. Joe's director of athletics Don DiJulia. "He's about enhancing the student experience so that all can learn and grow as individuals and as athletes. His legacy will be about putting the needs of students first."
Says LaFreniere: "There is nothing else that Ken O'Brien would have wanted to do with his life. He is living his dream. When you love to work with student-athletes, when you love your sport, it sets the bar high." It's more than the love of their student-athletes, though. They've both coached teams that became quite successful.
UMass proved it last year by winning the A-10 men's cross country title, the 19th Conference title under O'Brien's leadership. The Hawks women, meanwhile, won that 1993 A-10 title (the first conference championship for a women's sport at St. Joe's), and Quinn led the men's team to a pair of Big Five titles and earned the 2000 A-10 Coach of the Year award.
Both have earned the respect of nearly everybody around them.
"Ken has been an institution at UMass when it comes to track and field. He has given so much time and effort to the university and the student athletes," says Massachusetts director of athletics John McCutcheon. "Ken coaches with great passion and cares deeply about UMass." Says Glavin: "Kevin has worn so many hats, but he always finds time for everybody who needs it. His eye is not on stars and stardom. It's on development and on progress. He gets excited about the girl who ran 5:40 in high school and now runs 5:18, even if she never scores in the Atlantic 10."
The coaches, though they don't face off against each other anymore, are connected by the bond of coaching for so many years. They're bound by the fondness they hold for their schools. They're bound by the generous compliments their friends continue to throw their way.
More than four decades after they began their separate journeys into coaching, they're bound together by the love of those around them.