Wellesley High School has named Colin Corkery as head coach of its boys cross country team, which consistently has been among the fastest in the state in recent years. The team won the state title in 2016.
Corkery, a retired middle school teacher, enters his fourth season with the Raiders. He has been an assistant to Tim Broe, the Olympic runner who has led the program since 2015, and helped to build a culture of hard work and fun in cross country and track. Broe will now put his full focus on training professional athletes.
The big question for Corkery, whose own athletic credentials include college running and a post-college national title in the 4×800, is whether the high school cross country season will even happen this fall in light of the pandemic and how Wellesley High handles its reopening.
The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association has pushed the start of the fall season out to Sept. 14 at the earliest. All sorts of speculation has floated around about what cross country could look like this fall if competition takes place. Corkery likes for runners to get physical off the line, whether in cross country or track, though that might be harder to do in the new normal.
In the meantime, returning runners have been training. As Corkery says, “long distance runners don’t get fit in a week.”
He’s relying on captains Eddie Trenk, Chris Harding and Drew Donahue to lead the team. “They’ve all been running for years with the program, are dedicated and are putting in the hard work,” he says.
Cassie Short, who coached the girls’ team with Broe last year, returns to lead that always strong crew.
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