The Walpole girls cross country team was taken by surprise on Friday, September 3 when former coach Timothy Giblin announced that another head coaching position was created by the Walpole public school system. Assistant coach Jamie Farrell was the perfect candidate for the job.

Miss Farrell has been assistant coaching for three years and mainly focuses on the junior varsity team, but this year she is concentrating on the girls’ team as a whole and trying to create the best team in school history. With six girls under 22:00 in the road race 5k Miss Farrell has a strong team with a lot of potential and could easily lead the girls to a successful season. Additionally, the team is the biggest it has ever been: 35 girls and growing.

Although the coaching change is welcomed, the veteran runners who have worked with Coach Giblin for four years will have the most trouble with the spontaneous transition. Senior captain Grace Lynch said, “I am happy that Miss Farrell is going to be our new coach; however, I am accustomed to Coach Giblin’s training techniques, strategies, and workouts. I think this change is good, but it is going to take some time to get used to.”

Miss Farrell does not plan to alter the work-outs significantly. She said, “Coach Giblin has set a very good plan for the girls’ team and I don’t plan on deviating from that.” Even though the girls do have a new coach almost all of the workouts- hills, 800 meter intervals, tempo runs- will have times based off of previous workouts that Coach Giblin has devised.

Miss Farrell also holds high expectations for the girls’ team. She said, “I hope the girls’ team finishes one of the top in the state.” With states in mind Miss Farrell is hoping that the girls will work hard enough to obtain a highly competitive state-wide rank and move on to the post-season.

Although the girls will be missing out on Coach Giblin’s motivation, skills, and life lessons Coach Farrell brings new ideas and fresh tactics. Adding to the coaching staff allows more attention to be focused on the junior varsity team and implementing new assistant coaches also creates a better athlete to coach ratio. Both of the new assistant coaches, Kevin Butera and Philip Gingrass, both ran for Walpole High School and graduated in 2005. Coach Butera is mainly working with sprinters while Coach Gingrass is spending most of his team with the junior varsity team. The girls consider the coaching change a positive thing and are looking forward to a new season, new beginnings, and a new head coach.