Coach In It For the Long Haul

In January of last year, Frank Haggerty ’68 stepped down from his position as director of the Harvard Track and Field team, a job he had held for the previous 24 years.

It didn’t take long to usher in the new, though, and only ten days later, Jason Saretsky, an associate head track coach at Iona College, was named as Haggerty’s replacement.

Having graduated from Columbia in 1999, Saretsky brought youthful vigor to the program as well as some middle-distance and distance expertise. In his last four years at Iona, he helped coach the cross-country team to a top-ten finish at NCAA Division I nationals, and the track team he served as associate head for coached focused on distances 800 meters and up because of limited scholarships and coaching staff.

While his background is defined by his experience in distance running—he was a two-time All-Ivy League middle-distance runner—he does not believe that his affects his overall coaching methodology.

“One of the most important things to me is having assistant coaches that I can really trust and lean on,” Saretsky explained. “I want each assistant coach to have ownership over their event group.”

Indeed, coaching such a diverse group of talent such as what makes up a cross-country or track and field team requires much more than the expertise of one person. While Saretsky and assistant distance coach Ricardo Santos focus on the middle and long distance runners, other assistant coaches are able to specialize and focus on individuals with other talents.

Take field events coach Paul Turner, for example. His Harvard athletes have earned All-America honors 12 times and set 24 Harvard school records—specialization in its finest form.

“I know strengths, I know my weaknesses,” said Saretsky.

Santos is also a young distance coach whose previous job was coaching at Iona, and his job as Harvard Track’s new recruiting head has lured in a talented batch of recruits. Sean Barrett, a senior distance runner and captain of the men’s team, believes that the young coaching talent paired with recruiting expertise could bring Harvard up the ranks in NCAA distance running—perhaps up near the levels Saretsky and Santos saw at Iona.

“Coach Saretsky and the new, younger coaching staff are leading the program in a really promising direction,” Barrett said. “The coaching staff talks about…Harvard being one of the top programs in the country in a few years.”

Of course, changing the director and head coach of the track and field program does not come without making serious adjustments. While Saretsky was not completely familiar with the coaching style of his predecessors, he admitted that he believed their methods were significantly different.

“The previous coach… really did a phenomenal job with individual talent,” said Saretsky. “But we’re trying to have a more comprehensive—across the board—competitive team environment.”

How has Saretsky asserted his apparently different coaching method?

“What we’ve tried to do is create a greater sense of community and team dynamic,” he said. “We have a lot more accountability. Everyone’s required to be at practice six days a week.”

Barrett agreed that Coach Saretsky’s methods have brought a change in the team atmosphere.

“[There is] a little more responsibility for members on the team—making them accountable for what they do or don’t do in terms of showing up to practice and how they race,” he said.

Although more practices and more accountability may not sound appealing to the average athlete, Barrett notes that Coach Saretsky is actually quite flexible as a coach, once one has adjusted to the greater commitment.

“[Coach Saretsky] is a little more hands-on in terms of knowing what exactly everyone is doing, all the time, and developing individual plans for different athletes.” Barrett said. “I’m a little different. I respond to different kinds of training than other people on the team. It took him a little while, but he adjusted to my unique needs, which is the sign of a good coach.”

Saretsky does not only have a talent for individualizing his coaching talent, but he has also been putting his degree in exercise physiology form Columbia to good use.

“I introduced a ropes stretching program that seems to reduce injuries,” Saretsky said.

Along with the new stretch program, Saretsky also petitioned for his long-distance runners to be able to run on soft ground outside campus limits, which has also reduced the number of injuries the team has experienced.

Maybe after a couple years, Saretsky will bring his NCAA top-ten magic to Cambridge, but until then, it’s all team-building and accountability for the Harvard Crimson.