Sachem Coach Profiles: Pete McNeill

As a high school coach while his son Pete was hitting his first strides in middle school, Robert McNeill was no stranger to creative solutions. Pete remembered how his father and , Sachem's first soccer coach, got permission from a local landowner to use a field off Hans Boulevard.

"They measured what they thought was 400 meters," he said. "They drove a car around and around, and that was Sachem's first track."

The lure of the sport was difficult to deny for Pete. As a kid, in similar makeshift fashion, he would simulate field events in his back yard with his brother, setting up mattresses in lieu of high jump mats and throwing large rocks that simulated shot puts. 

Whether on roads, trails or through the record books, Pete found and left his own path - parallel in parts to his father's perhaps, but no simple following of the footsteps. While he too is a runner and a teacher who seamlessly blends both passions as a coach (Robert, who died several years ago, was the district's first running coach before overseeing St. Anthony's program), Pete's own abilities and experiences grant him a different perspective.

Almost invariably, a sense of humility colors Pete's recollections - perhaps his father's most profound legacy. Robert had the medals to prove his prowess, but Pete remembered him just as much for his reluctance to bask in his former glories. When he first saw the medals, they had been relegated to a storage box. He was fascinated, but Robert did his best to downplay the discovery.

"I asked, 'What are all these Penn Relay medals?' 'A silver medal in the Penn Really?' I didn't know really until I was doing well enough to understand."

In time, Pete would answer the call of long-distance running loud and clear with his own performances, preferring as his father did to leave any boasting to the scoresheets. In 1984, triathlon legend Mark Montgomery had arrived in New York to compete in two races, including a biathlon on Long Island. Although Montgomery was favored to win, Pete - who also placed 38th in the national cross-country championship that year - would stage an unwitting upset.

"It was one of those funny things you didn't plan on," he said. "Here's this professional from California who they brought in, and I beat him by over a minute. It was almost uncomfortable. None of the organizers seemed happy about it."

While his competitive running career didn't take off until after college, many miles of experiences were logged in the meanwhile. During a state cross country meet in high school, slippery conditions made it a particularly frustrating episode. 

"I fell down three times in that race," he said. "I have a vivid memory of being frustrated by a combination of not being prepared and still recovering from a broken toe. When you fall down in cross country, 20 guys pass you in the five seconds it takes to get up."

Always a strategist, Pete's running smarts developed quickly. Before graduating Sachem in 1973, Pete had already distinguished himself as a formidable athlete. He was Sachem's first county Class A champion in cross country, and its first League I champion in the winter of his junior year, as well as an inductee into Sachem's Athletic Hall of Fame in 2003.

In his search for a category to distinguish himself, Pete gravitated to the longer events - he favored the one- and two-mile runs. Though he lacked jumping ability and speed, endurance became his trademark. His motto: The longer the race, the better. One of the prouder moments of his high school career, in sharp contrast to the drubbing he took at the state cross-country meet, was a clutch performance during that title-winning winter season of his junior year.

"That was when winter track was still winter track," he said wryly. "All our meets were outdoors. There was probably a steady 30 miles-per-hour wind, the temperature was probably 20 degrees, and I won a completely tactical race. I ran the mile fresh, my competition had already competed in one event. I ran behind the top guys, let them break through the wind. I caught them by surprise and I managed to hold on to win."

At Rutgers University, Pete's career went dormant for the first two years due to injuries. Junior and senior year were rebuilding years for him, getting back into shape. That same motivation carried through to his post-college career track. After some substitute teaching work, he took a job at a running store in Huntington. Following his stint there, he was hired at the now-defunct Eagle Hill School, a private institution in the same town that is now the site of a catering hall near the harbor.

Originally hired there to teach science and social studies, it was there that Pete first began coaching - he oversaw soccer, baseball and basketball programs as well as a mini-triathlon team. In his third year, he was named the school's athletic director. 

Also about this time, Pete once again began making the rounds competitively. The
year 1981 in particular proved to be a thrilling tear: he ran a best-time race in the Boston marathon (2:17:15, a longtime goal had been to break 2:20:00) and won both the Long Island Marathon and the Corporate Challenge, a three-and-a-half-mile race. His win notwithstanding, Caroline Kennedy received the bulk of the coverage in the Corporate Challenge - something he recalls with more humor than horror.

"That was when I put in my best training," he said of those years. 

These competitions also afforded Pete the chance to travel extensively. Joined by a runner from California, he went to Finland for a week to compete in the Helsinki marathon. A film crew, gathering footage for a travelogue promoting Finnish tourism, followed them.

"We were superstars for a week," he said of the occasionally unnerving experience, being wined and dined around the Baltic nation as the cameras frequently drew crowds wherever they went. The performance at the marathon wasn't quite what he'd hoped for, but in the end, the adventure more than made up for it.

"At the end of the week we were exhausted, then we were asked to be competitive," he said, laughing.

All the while, Pete never abandoned coaching. Deciding to go back to public school, he heard from Sachem's then-athletic director Tom Sabatelle about an open post for a girls coach back home. In 1989, Pete returned.

His running pedigree well in place, he accumulated posts relatively quickly as he had done at Eagle Hill. He took over the winter track program his second year back, and the cross country program in the third year. Also, current North head coach Alex Young and Pete first began working together.

Having worked previously as a boys coach, Pete said coaching girls teams proved easier in certain ways, owing to the well-rounded approach many of his athletes had - and still do have. His primary career as an educator - he teaches adaptive physical education at East - underscores much of that appreciation, and is immediately evident in his own coaching style.

"They were involved in different things, sports was just one thing they do. These are generalities, but with boys many times, sports was the main thing they did. The girls tended to take more of the things they did seriously, so that took some adjustments from me."

This spring season, Pete cedes a significant part of his duties to assistant coach Dan Schaub, who works closely with the hurdlers. Wife and co-coach Kathy McNeill, a retired BOCES teacher whom Pete met in his competition days, oversees the racewalkers. Other co-coaches include Joe Coffey, who focuses on long jump and triple jump; James Barracca at the high jump; and the newest staff addition, rookie coach Ashley Ortiz.

Given the successes of East's running programs under Pete's guidance, the decision to alter his coaching responsibilities was certainly not a simple one. Heading up a team loaded with state-caliber talent that includes top state runner Rachel Paul (herself destined for Sachem's Hall of Fame and one of the best all-time runners in the district's history), Pete was the most deserving choice to win the Suffolk County Coaches Award for girls teams this year.

Magnanimously, Pete prefers that his co-coaches and athletes share equally in the bounty.

"There are certain things I don't pay a heck of a lot of attention to," he admitted. "When coaches retire, they might have a record of such and such. I won the award this year, but I didn't win it. Our staff won it and our kids won it with their performances. Did I have a part in it? Of course, but they made us look good."

For some time competition has taken a back seat to coaching, even as his role now changes subtly. Like his well-rounded athletes, he finds time to balance his responsibilities with hobbies like hiking, swimming, and even less outdoorsy stuff such as playing guitar and singing. He's still as committed to running as he was in those formative days, now entering a new lap of his journey after coming full circle back at Sachem.

"I'm still having fun out there, I enjoy a race every now and then," he said. "It's just been hard to fit it in around the coaching. But I'm always happy to get in the workouts."