Matt Migonis, Waterbury, is the new Harwood Union cross-country coach.
He is also the Harwood Union varsity hockey coach.
Migonis comes to the cross-country team with a background in running and professional coaching. He also ran cross country and played hockey in high school and ran cross country throughout his undergraduate work at St. Lawrence College.
While he has a double master’s degree in education, and he taught for a year, his real love is working with kids.
“Running has been part of my life for 35 years and with the encouragement of my wife, I have the chance to coach a high school team. I’m pretty excited about it,” he said.
His wife is a podiatrist, and his career choices were impacted by accommodating her medical school and later her residency. During that time, he ran an online professional coaching business for runners and triathletes -- something he could do wherever he found himself.
His coaching philosophy is about team building and making it fun for kids.
“Making it fun, that should be the number one thing. When I’m working with clients, they hire me to achieve a certain goal whether it’s a marathon or triathlon. Kids are all on the team for different reasons. They all have different goals and, in the end, we’re a team and we’re going to look out for each other, have fun and make that time on the team worth it and exciting,” he said.
“At the end of the year, I want the kids to think it’s been a lot of fun and feel like they’re glad they did that,” he added.
The team’s first meet is this weekend in Essex on Saturday, August 31. He is starting with seven girls on the varsity team, one freshman and one junior. On the boys’ side he has 16 boys including a lot of new runners, some talented freshmen and some who are new to the sport altogether.
