February 3, 2024 | By Lisa Scagliotti

Veteran Harwood coach John Kerrigan announced his retirement in several steps this week.

First, to Superintendent Mike Leichliter, who shared the news at Wednesday night’s Harwood Unified Union School District’s School Board meeting. The next day, he shared a news release version of his resignation letter with the local news media recapping an epic 45-year run of coaching his “Kerrigan’s Army” cross country teams, Nordic skiing and track and field. This piece is edited from his announcement.

*Donning a Highlander kilt, John Kerrigan delivers the commencement address in 2015 upon his retirement from teaching at Harwood. Photo by Gordon Miller*

Kerrigan, 71, lives on a South Duxbury hill above the school that’s been a second home for almost five decades. He began his Harwood career in 1977 as a science teacher, becoming boys and girls cross country coach two years later. Since then, his teams won 47 state championship titles – 27 were cross country – and 32 runner-up honors, accounting for 79 of the banners that hang in Harwood Union High School’s Corliss Griffith Gymnasium.

In 2015, he retired from teaching and coaching Nordic skiing; in 2018, he retired from coaching Track and Field. He led the Cross Country program through the 2023 fall season.

Looking back, Kerrigan says he believes he helped change the sports culture at Harwood. “When I arrived in 1977, team sports were all the rage. In 1976, the year before my arrival, both Field Hockey and Boys’ Soccer won state titles,” Kerrigan recalled. “The Principal at the time, Don Jamieson, gave the entire student body the following Monday off to celebrate the dual victories. While Harwood’s team sports have had some recent success, Harwood is now known regionally and nationally as a high school endurance sports power.”

Coaching his passion

As a Track and Field coach, Kerrigan retired with 15 state titles to his teams’ credit, hundreds of individual state champions and dozens of All Americans.

*John Kerrigan on a Nordic course. Photo by Gordon Miller*

Likewise, Nordic teams he coached brought home five state championship titles and one former Harwood star Nordic skier, Caitlin Compton Gregg, has credited Kerrigan as her inspiration for going on to ski to seven national championships and ski for the U.S. Olympic team in Vancouver in 2010.

Cross Country, however, has been Kerrigan’s and Harwood’s most successful team sport with 27 state titles.

“Cross Country running and coaching have been my greatest passion. As an athlete, the focus on running helped me get through some life-altering events: the death of my father at age 13 and the diagnosis of life-threatening muscle sarcoma at age 15,” Kerrigan said. “Running Cross Country helped me to develop the drive and grit to get over difficult times in my life. As a coach, it gave me great pride to see my athletes develop the same passion and grit that helped shape my character. I have coached many champions, but my greatest joy was in helping those that are less naturally talented develop into competitive xc runners and wonderful human beings.”

*John Kerrigan with graduating student-athletes in the class of 2017. Photo courtesy J. Kerrigan*

Harwood’s XC program over the years has been not just successful but popular. At one time, the school listed a roster of more than 70 runners – what Kerrigan figured was one in every nine students in the school. He credits Harwood alum and former runner and hockey player Trey Kiendl for coining the phrase, “Kerrigan’s Army,” memorialized on shirts and signs for years.

Kerrigan looks back on both team and many individual successes among the student-athletes he’s coached. In the past 45 years Harwood XC teams and individuals have had great success: 27 Vermont Division II titles including 11 of the past 14 years.

Sixteen Harwood runners under Kerrigan’s tenure won individual D-II champion honors, three of whom went on to win All-American status including Eric Morse, also a national mountain running champion. Morse and Harwood alum Bruce Hyde are also in the Vermont running record books for having broken the 4-minute mile. Hyde in 2000 led the boys team which was nationally ranked and invited as a top 25 team to compete in the exclusive Great American Race.

Harwood runners also claimed the Gatorade High School Academic All- American XC runners award three times: Ava Thurston twice and Sam Nishi.

In 2021, the Harwood Girls Cross Country team finished fifth at the New England XC Championships.

*Bringing home the hardware with fellow coach Eric Eley. Photo by Gordon Miller*

Accolades from many directions

His dedication to coaching did not go unnoticed outside of Harwood. Kerrigan was honored by the USA Track and Field and Cross Country Association as National Girls XC Coach of the year in 2015 and again in 2021. In 2019 he was inducted into the Run Vermont Hall of Fame.

*The 2015 joint resolution of the Vermont Legislature honoring John Kerrigan.* *Click to read*.

But the most meaningful accolade Kerrigan said he received did not come from the world of athletics. “The honor that moved me the most was recognition by the Vermont House of Representatives in 2015,” he recalled.

The resolution adopted by both chambers of the legislature salutes his exemplary career (It even mentions his signature bicycle that he rides to pace athletes during training.)

Acknowledging that Kerrigan overcame illness in his youth, it credits distance running for contributing to his “unique ability to empathize with young athletes.” It describes that “in the decades that followed, John Kerrigan placed a strong emphasis on athletic participants’ sportsmanship and execution,” and that he “considered every student on a team he coached to be important.”

Kerrigan also spent 38 years in the classroom and twice received Harwood’s Teacher of the Year honor in addition to twice being runner-up for Vermont Biology Teacher of the year. In 2010, Kerrigan received the Vermont Golden Apple Award for his work with Vermont special needs athletes.

*Kerrigan paces a pack of XC runners. File photo by Gordon Miller*

Building trails, a track and community

*Coaching runners at the finish on the Harwood XC course. Photo by Gordon Miller*

Kerrigan also played a leading role in organizing volunteers to expand a single nature trail on campus built by town historian Alice DeLong into a challenging 5K trail network and cross country course. “Having easy access to the outdoors provided an enriching experience for my science students,” Kerrigan recalled.

Likewise, a similar community effort in 1982 with Waterbury resident Russ Foregger built the Harwood track.

Kerrigan calls the inevitable decision to retire bittersweet. “Harwood has been a huge part of my life. I put my heart and soul and often my back into building the trails, the track, and helping to put Harwood on the New England map as a Cross Country powerhouse,” he said, noting the many relationships built with other coaches, students and their parents who he now counts as friends. “I have been invited to their birthday celebrations, weddings, and sadly attended some of their funerals,” he reflected.

*John Kerrigan, right, alongside longtime Track and Field Coach Taggert Haslam after the team’s 2011 state championship win. Haslam passed away in 2021. Photo by Kate Woodruff*

That sadness is tempered by new ventures Kerrigan says he will pursue as “there is no finish line” on the horizon yet. “But as one door is closing for me, another door is opening!” he writes. “Leaving Harwood will allow me to expand my role with the International Skyrunning Federation.”

In 2017, he and son Ryan Kerrigan brought the first U.S. group of seven Harwood athletes to Europe to compete in the 2017 World Youth Skyrunning Championships in Andorra in the Pyrenees mountains. The team placed fourth and runner Erin Magill finished second in a vertical kilometer race.

Since then, Kerrigan has been a part-time assistant coach to son Ryan as head coach. In 2023, Kerrigan added referee to his skyrunning credentials, a role he said brings new challenges. “I will be helping to create and mark the racecourses and monitor the runners over the rugged and steep terrain,” Kerrigan said. “I also hope to form new friendships with coaches, athletes and families that all share a love of running in the mountains.”

*John Kerrigan, left, with Mongolia's first-ever youth skyrunner, Natsagdori Luvansharav, at the Youth World Skyrunning Championships in Italy in early August 2023. Photo by Muhkhzul Mishig*

Skyrunning competitions this year may involve travels to Costa Rica, Mexico, Spain, Italy and Montenegro, Kerrigan said. “As an ISF coach and referee, my 40+ years of experience are both welcomed and valued by many in the international skyrunning community,” he said.

In his letter announcing his retirement decision, Kerrigan wishes the Harwood Cross Country program well. “The 2024 season should be one of the best Harwood XC has seen in a decade,” he predicts. “Many key individuals on both the boys’ and girls’ teams should be returning as well as some talented runners moving up from a very successful middle school program.”

He also sends a message to the athletes he’s coached: “Remember that life is a marathon in which you set goals and follow your heart. Live your ideal life. Learning and hard work never stops.”