Pull Back the Plaid Curtain on Head Men’s and Women’s Cross Country Coach Tim Connelly

Get to know head men’s and women’s head cross country coach Tim Connelly in this addition of "Pull Back the Plaid Curtain!"

1. What drew you to being a coach – why the path to intercollegiate athletics?

Growing up, I always knew I wanted to be a teacher and a coach. I had always planned to teach and coach basketball in high school until I had the opportunity to run in college at Notre Dame, when I changed my goals to coaching collegiate track and cross country. In graduate school I had the chance to coach as a GA at Notre Dame, and after another GA position at Syracuse, I was fortunate enough to attain a full-time college coaching position. Like a lot of college jobs, I was in the right place and knew the right people. That was more than thirty years ago. Along the way I found out this was something I was fairly good at and when I had the choice to keep coaching or move on to something else, I chose to stay in coaching. There is nothing more rewarding than helping kids achieve things they previously didn’t realize they were capable of doing.

2. What is your favorite memory during your time at Carnegie Mellon?

In my five years here at Carnegie Mellon, I have been fortunate to be able to work with some talented and committed student-athletes. Our men’s teams have won a number of University Athletic Association (UAA) Championships both in cross country and in track and field, and both our men’s and women’s cross country teams have had success in qualifying for the NCAA Championships with great races at the regional championships. But, probably my favorite memories are when kids have that breakout race and suddenly realize just how good they really are. Two that come to mind are Josh Kalapos winning the 5,000 meters at the 2019 UAA Indoor Championships and Kate Reilly winning the mile at February’s UAA Indoor Championships. In both cases they competed with great confidence and ran their best race ever when it was needed by their team. They dominated, frankly shocked, very strong competitive fields. Again, the best part of coaching is helping kids, sometimes convincing kids, to do something they didn’t know they could do.

3. Who has been the most influential person in your career?

Joe Piane was my college coach at Notre Dame, gave me my first coaching position, and ultimately was my boss for twenty-six years. We did a lot of good things together, and our teams had much success over those years. Joe retired after forty years at Notre Dame and was recently inducted into the USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame.

The other huge influence on my coaching career was originally a competitor, someone I competed and recruited against often, who became a close friend and mentor. Ron Helmer coached at Georgetown for many years, and is currently the head track and field and cross country coach at Indiana University. Both Georgetown and IU were big rivals of ours at Notre Dame and nothing was more rewarding than beating those teams because they were so good. Yet, Ron has always been someone to turn to for advice and motivation and I have worked his annual summer running camp for the past 27 years. I have probably learned more about coaching at that camp than at every clinic I have attended or book I have read. Ron is in his 70s and has dealt with a very serious health condition for a number of years, yet continues to develop great athletes and teams and shows no signs of slowing down. In February, his men’s team won the Big 10 and he was named B10 Coach of the Year. A really inspirational guy.

4. What was sports like while you were growing up – how do you think it’s changed?

I grew up in the 60s and 70s, so we live in a much different world today than when I was a kid. While there wasn’t nearly as much sports on TV back then, (hard to believe there was no such thing as cable TV nor the internet), we watched and listened to everything we could. One of our favorites was ABC’s Wide World of Sports that was on every Saturday. My father and grandfather were big Pirates and Steelers fans, so we became fans as well. My dad would take us to high school football games almost every weekend in the fall. More importantly we played sports all the time, year round. Baseball, football, basketball, tennis, street hockey, there were always games going on. We had little league baseball when we were younger, but other organized sports didn’t start until around fifth grade when our Catholic grade school had football and basketball teams. There were no “travel teams” that my own kids grew up with, and no specialization or private coaches. Even in high school kids regularly played multiple sports. I think that kids today often miss out on the fun and opportunity to play multiple sports because there is so much emphasis on specialization, even at younger ages.

5. What is the most memorable athletic event you have witnessed / been a part of outside of Carnegie Mellon Athletics?

As a coach, my most memorable athletic event was the 2004 NCAA Cross Country Championships, where my Notre Dame women’s team placed fourth. We had a very good team all season, but our top runner, Molly Huddle, who has become a multiple time Olympian and American record holder at 5k and 10k, broke her foot a week prior to the regional meet. At that point qualifying for the NCAA meet, let alone placing high, was very much in doubt. Fortunately, the rest of the team really stepped up and ran very well at the regional meet to qualify for NCAAs. Molly was determined to run at the NCAA meet, she was a great teammate and felt she owed it to her teammates to at least try. After much debate (to be honest I was very much against letting her run), getting approval from our doctors who said she couldn’t do further damage and assurance from her parents that they wanted her to run, we decided to let Molly run the NCAA meet. After not running for more than three weeks, Molly placed in the top 40 (far from her other three top 10 finishes, yet good enough to be a huge boost for our team). Three of her teammates, inspired by Molly’s effort, placed in front of her to earn All-American honors, which Molly missed by one place. But, watching those kids on the podium (they recognize and give trophies to the top four teams), and knowing the effort and sacrifice it took for them to achieve what they did on that day, was the best feeling a coach can have.

6. What is one thing that no one knows about you?

I am fairly private and tend to keep to myself, so I suspect that there are a lot of things that people don’t know about me, other than my wife and immediate family. But, the newest “secret” that I have is that my daughter, Ali, who is a teacher and high school soccer coach and is married to a college basketball coach, is expecting a baby in October. We are looking forward to being grandparents.

For other department member responses, visit Pull Back the Plaid Curtain.