This season has brought many new changes to the cross country team, one of those changes being the introduction of head coach Sean Weldon and assistant coach Cassandra Froio.
Both coaches have had coaching experience in the past, with Weldon coaching golf, soccer, and basketball at the middle school level, and Froio gaining some coaching experience over the summer. Froio is currently a senior at Regis College, majoring in sports management and minoring in athletic coaching. She is also on the track and field team for her school.
Weldon was born in Hollister California, moving to Massachusetts in the third grade. He grew up being interested in sports, and played soccer, golf, and baseball in high school, and continued playing golf in college. Coach Weldon said that he “hopes to continue coaching for the middle school basketball team and cross country,” with last year being his first year coaching them.
Weldon is a 7th grade math teacher at the Beebe school, and likes to motivate his students to pursue sports, especially cross country. He remarked that “at least 70% of the team has to be from Beebe” and then got one of his runners to do the math, and found out that he has had 50% of the team is in his class.
Having prior coaching experience, Weldon knows a thing or two about how to run a team. Weldon stated that having coached the basketball team, it has “definitely helped, but every sport has different challenges to overcome.” Through coaching the teams in the past, Weldon stated that “one thing [he] has learned is that [he] needs to make the athletes want to be there.”
While Coach Weldon has team goals that he set at the start of the season, he also has some personal goals he would like to see himself reach. One of the goals is “being successful and having a good time,” and that he “really enjoys coming and working with the team.”
Coach Weldon is not the only coach on the team however, with assistant coach Froio helping out the team this season. Froio is the cousin of Coach Weldon, which is one of the reasons why she joined the team.
Even though this is Coach Froios first year coaching a team, she seems to be very excited to see how the season goes. One of Froio’s personal goals that she set this season was to “find what motivates the runners and learning more about injuries and how to prevent them.”
Overall, this season seems to be a very exciting one. The introduction of these two motivated and eager coaches has already shown some very good results, with the team having a record of 4 wins and 4 losses, which guarantees them a place in states.
