Walsh Brothers Have Built Something Special At North Hunterdon NJ

By Brian Towey of DyeStat 

Two brothers have brought the North Hunterdon NJ girls' program back to prominence.  

Coach Sean Walsh, and his brother, volunteer assistant coach Brian Walsh, are serious about running. At North Hunterdon, a high school program with a storied tradition (Olympians Julie Culley and Anne Marie Letko are alumni, as is Brendan Heffernan, the 1991 Kinney national champion), the Walshes found the chemistry to make things work. 

"We're brothers," Brian Walsh said. "We fight a lot. This is the life we've chosen. We don't have kids. I'm 43 years old, married. My brother has a girlfriend. But we don't have kids. These are our kids. Every year we get 25 kids." 

On Saturday, the resurgent team, ranked No. 1 in the Northeast, will try to cap its New Jersey season at the Meet of Champions at Holmdel Park. The Lions can qualify for Nike Cross Nationals at the Northeast regional Nov. 24. 

Sean is the "art" guy, according to Brian. 

"If a kid is having a bad day, he'll pull them aside, privately," said Brian, who is the "workout" guy. "I'm more of a hard-ass." 

They work with girls. It's a different kind of calling (Tom Higgins coaches North Hunterdon's boys). 

"Girls have huge hearts," Sean Walsh said. "They want to do well for people who care about them. Once they get in a program like this, they kind of take care of themselves. Once they start racing together, then they start training together. That's when you turn the corner." 

North Hunterdon is looking for a third straight trip to Nike Cross Nationals. It's a credit to a run-centric community and its youth program, the Hunterdon Lions, say the coaches. 

"People move to the exurbs because they want to be fit, have an active lifestyle," Brian Walsh said. "That's something they pass along to their kids. The NJNY Track Club was in Clinton, where we're based (It's since moved to Westchester County, New York). You had Donn Cabral at your local coffee shop. This is how these kids grew up." 

Adds Sean: "We have a huge feeder program. That's a huge part of what you see. We have kids coming in as runners instead of other (sports programs)." 

The Hunterdon Lions spring track program began in 2005 when Jim Crossin, a former distance runner at St. Joseph's University, and Sean Walsh saw the need for a female-oriented track program.  

"I found there had been a program called the Hunterdon Harriers, and you had people like Andy Martin, (former Van Cortlandt Park record-holder) Brad Hudson, and a number of girls who were good pre-Anne Marie Letko," Crossin said. "It's almost like we did a re-do of the Hunterdon Harriers 25 years later." 

The Lions, which began as a female-only program, now carry fourth-through-eighth graders, boys and girls, and up to 280 runners at a time. 

The community has also received support from NCAA Division I athletes who've come back to coach.  

"It's happened that we've had a lot of former Division I athletes in the area who've wanted to give back," Crossin said.  

The Skyland Conference, of which North Hunterdon is a part, has produced eight of the last nine girls' New Jersey Meet of Champions titles.  

"Ridge won in '15 and '16," Brian Walsh said. "We were second in '16 and won last year. Rich Refi and Hillsborough won in '09 and '10." 

The local ties have imbued a camaraderie unique to cross country.

"Rich Refi sat down with me before we started coaching to explain to us," Sean Walsh said. "And we've done that for other coaches." 

Sean and Brian Walsh inherited a strong, state-wide program when they took over the helm. They've done things their way: some fire, some ice, to build a cross country stronghold at North Hunterdon. 

It's a process, and one that's hard to re-enact.

"We thought once you got good, it would just keep going," Sean Walsh said. "It's hard because you have really good runners who don't think of themselves as good runners. It's difficult for teenagers to understand how good they are when they're in that type of competition not with other teams, but their own team. 

Adds Brian: "There has to be accountability. In today's society, kids are a lot freer than when we were growing up. We've had some success with this: we've sent one kid to Foot Locker and have been to NXN twice.  

"We're building strong, self-reliant young women. And there's no better place to do that than in distance running."