Over the past three years, Coach Tuohy has coached the Indian Hills cross country and track teams, welcoming new and experienced runners and training them to be the best they can be. Both teams have won many titles in the past three years, and the cross country team ranked in the top 10 North Jersey teams for three years in a row. The programs’ success is not surprising, as Coach Tuohy has a legacy in track and cross country in New Jersey. When a coach has been in his runners’ shoes and knows the ins and outs of the sport, the teams will grow together and continue to improve, which is exactly what Coach Tuohy has done.
Coach Tuohy began his running career at Valley Middle School before starting his freshman season at Indian Hills in 2007. After running at Indian Hills, Coach Tuohy explains how the “first season of cross-country sold me on the sport. Indian Hills is the reason I am the way I am.” After graduating from Indian Hills in 2011, Coach Tuohy went on to run at Ramapo College in the New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) and at the Division III level in the NCAA Atlantic Region until 2015. With more competition in college, Coach Tuohy became the ECAC Division III champion in the mile and an NCAA qualifier in 2015.
His coaching career started soon after, when he began as a volunteer coach at Ramapo College but later found a position at Bergen Catholic High School. After coaching at Bergen Catholic, however, he returned to Indian Hills, where he has been named the Big North Conference Coach of the Year twice.
While coaching at Indian Hills, Tuohy helped and encouraged new runners to pursue running, which allowed them to enjoy the sport. Summer Myhren, a junior cross country and track runner, comments how “Coach Tuohy cares so much about the sport and his passion was passed on to everyone on the team, which makes us enjoy practice and being with the team so much more.” Coach Tuohy adds to this sentiment by exclaiming how he “love[s] coaching here and working with these athletes. If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t have the success we have.”
A lifelong dream for Coach Tuohy was to coach cross country and track at a college level, and this is exactly what happened a couple of months ago when Montclair State University reached out and offered him the position of head coach for their cross-country and track teams. Of course, it was an offer he couldn’t pass up, but accepting this position came with heartbreak as well. After coaching the Indian Hills track and cross-country teams for so long, parting from the group and school where his passion for running stemmed from is bittersweet. When Coach Tuohy was asked about his reaction to the job offer from Montclair State, he said, “I was really excited when I was offered the job. It’s been my dream to coach at the collegiate level. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. It also broke my heart. I had a difficult time imagining giving up what I had at Indian Hills. The kids I work with mean everything to me. This was the easiest and hardest decision I’ve ever had to make.”
Many runners have built a strong bond with Coach Tuohy over the years that will be hard to let go. Coach Tuohy has helped many athletes overcome injuries, taught people new ways to train, and most importantly, has taught athletes that running isn’t always about winning, but rather about having fun and trying your best. Cross country and track aren’t just team sports; they are individual sports as well. In running sports, the team itself is just as important as one person.
Although Coach Tuohy has to leave behind a big part of his coaching career, coaching at Montclair will bring new experiences and new things to look forward to. Coaching at the college level means recruiting athletes and competing at the NCAA level. Not only will the NCAA bring more competition, but it will also allow Coach Tuohy to help runners achieve big things in ways that he was previously unable to. Coach Tuohy recalls the disappointment of earning “ninth at the NCAA Championships when I was in college, just 0.05 seconds out of eighth, which is the last spot for All-American.” But this experience only encourages him to help his runners achieve more. “I’d like to help some of my athletes get what I couldn’t,” he says.
Coach Tuohy has shown Indian Hills the potential the team has and can achieve with enough hard work and dedication. Not only has he helped runners on the track, but he has reignited people’s passion for running.
