After 21 years as the head of Tufts' Men's cross country and track programs, Coach Connie Putnam unexpectedly retired in early August. He went out on top as his Jumbos qualified for Nationals six of the past seven years in cross country, placing sixth in 2004 - a historial best.
Tufts won its first ever NESCAC cross country championship in 2003 and repeated last year, adding a New England title.
Putnam will be succeeded by his assistant of three years, Ethan Barron, who gained the interim positions of head coach of the cross country team and associate head coach of the track team. Barron graduated in 2001 from Middlebury, where he was a captain, an Academic All-American, and All-American in track. He spent a year as an assistant volunteer coach at Middlebury and coached high school for a year before coming to Tufts in 2002, where he has worked primarily with the track team while earning his master's degree in educational studies.
Tufts alumnus Rod Hemingway, who was an All-American under Putnam in the mid-1990s and served as an assistant to the women's team for one year after graduation, will assist Barron.
"It's good to have some continuity," senior co-captain Matt Lacey said. "Ethan and Rod both know the ins and outs of the program, the way Connie did stuff, and everyone's on the same page."
Barron said he doesn't plan to make any major adjustments to Putnam's training system.
"If it's not broke, don't fix it," Barron said. "The team is perennially one of the best in the nation. We're just tweaking things to hopefully turn a sixth place at Nationals into a [top-four] podium finish at Nationals."
Indeed, the program Putnam built is one to boast about, even though the former coach was never one to boast. On the same day that Tufts finally broke through and won NESCAC's for the first time two years ago, Putnam was also named the NESCAC Coach of the Year.
But he deflected all attention aimed at him.
"The award doesn't matter to me at all," he told The Daily in 2003. "It really doesn't matter. What matters is what the kids accomplish; that's what it's about. All the hard work it took for them to finally break through and beat Williams; that's what I'm proud of. The top five, everyone else who ran, all the other guys who have worked hard all season and cheered on Saturday, even the guys who design the Web site to help recruit. It's everyone's win."
It was everyone's win, but it was Putnam's too, and he couldn't deny his satisfaction.
"We've been so close to Williams so many times and finished second so many times, even with great teams," he said at the time. "I've had some sad rides home [from NESCAC's]. This was a pretty satisfying ride home."
Putnam's system was predicated on rounding into peak form late in the season, something the squad plans to continue to do.
"That was always a goal, but Connie is so competitive that it was hard for him not to want us to win every race," Lacey said.
For the first time since retiring, Putnam addressed the team this past weekend at the annual alumni race at the Grafton course into which the coach poured his own sweat and hard work to maintain.
"He got pretty emotional," Lacey said. "He explained that this was something he needed to do and that it had nothing to do with us and that he would be this program's number one fan."
"At first we were all shocked when he left," former captain Peter Bromka said. "But we realized that he's worked so hard for 21 years that he's earned the right to do this and obviously if he's leaving now, it's the right time for him."
In the end, the lively ear-pierced veteran coach who was a virtual quote machine for Daily reporters declined to return phone calls. But others spoke instead.
"Truthfully, we won't know the full effect of him being gone until later, in the middle of the season," senior co-captain Matt Fortin said. "[That's] when the coach can make the most difference because it's when you start getting more competitive. Connie was great at giving you game day tips on how to run your race."
"Connie is by far the most dedicated coach that I ever worked with," Barron added. "Anyone who has a two-hour commute every morning has to be dedicated to what they do. I learned a lot about dedication and loyalty from him, and I'll always have a great deal of respect for him."
Bromka reflected on everything the coach meant to Tufts cross country.
"Connie was the program; he made the program. When he came here it was a joke. He built it up and he went out on the top."
