January 06, 2014

In Coach, They Trust: Ray Treacy ’82 sustains Friars’ prominence with a personal trust

Ray Treacy ’82 has coached two NCAA Championship teams and is the only coach in school history to have won a national varsity intercollegiate title.
Ray Treacy ’82 has coached two NCAA Championship teams and is the only coach in school history to have won a national varsity intercollegiate title.

By Charles C. Joyce

The most important number in Ray Treacy’s world is one.

It’s not because he led his Providence College women’s cross country team to the NCAA Championship in 2013 for the second time in 18 years.

It’s not that he was named the National Coach of the Year on both occasions.

Nor is it because dozens of his runners have claimed individual championships in NCAA, BIG EAST Conference, and other major meets in women’s and men’s cross country and track in his 29 years as head coach.

Rather, instead of dwelling on team and individual championships and the national prominence he’s brought his alma mater, Treacy ’82 has let the Friars’ reputation stand for itself and fashioned distinct, one-on-one relationships with his student- athletes. In Treacy’s world, each athlete matters and is No. 1, and each has a training plan and the necessary support to excel in competition and the classroom.

And they do.

“Ray is 100 percent committed to his student-athletes,” said Robert G. Driscoll, Jr., associate vice president for athletics and athletic director. “It’s not a job; it’s a life vocation for him. He’s what I call a ‘master coach,’ someone who comes along once in a great while.”

Treacy unquestionably is one of the finest coaches in PC’s storied athletics history, and in the opinion of Andy Ronan ’86, associate and assistant coach under Treacy from 1994-2000, he’s “right up there with the top coaches in the world.”

In addition to producing PC’s only two NCAA team championships, both his women’s and men’s cross country teams have qualified for the national meet in 16 of the past 18 years. Thirteen of his cross country teams have won NCAA Regional championships, and he’s coached 59 All-Americans and 11 Olympians. The list of greats includes Mary Cullen ’06, Sinead Delahunty ’93, Marie McMahon ’98, Amy Rudolph ’95, Kim Smith ’05, Mark Carroll ’95, John Evans ’89, Andy Keith ’94, and Keith Kelly ’01.

The success is extraordinary, considering that until this past fall, Treacy’s student-athletes did not have an outdoor track on which to train. The track, which is named in his honor, will be dedicated in April.

Ray Treacy ’82, standing
Ray Treacy ’82, standing on the new outdoor campus track named in his honor, offers training advice to student-athletes, clockwise from front, Jackie McCarthy ’14, Brendan Sullivan ’16, Stephen Robertson ’16, and Devyn Pryor ’15.

While the consistency of the Friars’ cross country and track programs is startling, Treacy, a native of Ireland and a three-time All-America runner at PC, downplays credit.

“Success breeds success,” he said, noting the men’s program was strong nationally before he became coach in 1985. Treacy, who founded the women’s varsity cross country and track programs, added that success has bolstered recruiting.

“It’s easier to get into the game with the top recruits,” said Treacy, whose international recruiting has expanded well past PC’s roots in Ireland and England to countries including New Zealand, Australia, and Switzerland. What concerns him is finding student-athletes “who fit PC’s mode athletically and academically.” He added, “You are going to get student-athletes who see us for who we are.”

Treacy draws satisfaction that his teams traditionally have matched their athletic prowess with solid academic work. Last spring, for instance, the women’s and men’s cross country and track teams sported combined GPAs of 3.32 and 3.05, respectively.

PC’s ability to sustain potent running programs also is attributable to other pivotal factors, said Treacy. Historically, the College has provided scholarship aid “to let us be successful on the national stage,” and the administration, including athletic directors he’s worked under, has always recognized the importance of recruiting and competing in major regional and national  meets. PC’s membership in the BIG EAST also boosts the programs’ prominence, he said.

But, there’s no replacement for good coaching. Those who have been around him say Treacy is masterful in his approach to training and developing the whole person.

“One of the reasons the programs are successful is that Ray has used the mindset ‘If I develop each athlete, the program will be successful,’” said Ronan, now the head coach of women’s and men’s cross country and track at Stony Brook (N.Y.) University. “Over the years, by protecting athletes over time, that’s played out to success at the highest level.”

Ronan said Treacy has “an amazing instinct to read athletes” and come up with the right balance of training for each. He explained that Treacy has a “framework” for student-athletes but is flexible enough to alter his approach, citing how Treacy developed two very different runners, Amy Rudolph ’95 and Kim Smith ’05, into world-class athletes.

“He has a ton of experience, and it really goes to show with the results his athletes have produced and the way he deals with each individual to get the best out of everyone and the team,” stated Laura Nagel ’14 (Napier, New Zealand), one of three All-Americans on the 2013 NCAA Women’s Cross Country Championship team.

Trish (Logan) Hillery ’89 & ’09G, who was one of Treacy’s first female recruits along with Tina Moloney ’89, recalled how Treacy was like a father to the two Irish runners and adopted a conservative approach to their distance training. Knowing that Hillery ran barefoot in Ireland, Treacy let her train initially on grass and slowly introduced her to roadwork.

Hillery said Treacy worked with her through injuries and was “such a calming influence.” She emphasized that being recruited by Treacy and coming to PC “was the single-biggest opportunity in my life,” leading to her development into a top U.S. master’s runner and her career as a middle school English teacher in Providence.

Keith Kelly ’01, who won the men’s individual NCAA Cross Country Championship as a PC senior, said Treacy stood out among the American coaches who were recruiting him out of Ireland because he was earnest and not “like a salesman.”

“I felt comfortable and trusted him,” said Kelly, who dealt with chronic fatigue as a freshman and felt “I would have been sent packing” at another school.

“Ray made me miss PC the day I graduated,” he stated.

Another current Friar, Shane Quinn ’15 (Waterford, Ireland), said he appreciates Treacy’s “relaxed and humble” attitude because it is infectious among teammates and leads to positive results.

“It is a massive relief to have a coach who does not enforce much stress on you, while being able to get the job done. This attitude makes it easier to perform at a high level,” said Quinn, who was 42nd and led PC’s men to a 16th-place finish in the 2013 NCAA Men’s Cross Country Championship.

Not one to get carried away with personal accomplishments, Treacy said his goal for the future is to keep the running programs “at the level where we are,” including “now and then getting back up on the (NCAA) podium.” He is clearly content at his alma mater, saying that early in his career, other schools “got the message I wasn’t budging.”

“After 29 years here, I get up every day and am very happy,” he said. “I see my grass as very green. I feel fulfilled here.”