When Kevin Quinn started as the head coach for track and field and cross country at Saint Joseph’s University, he had no office. His initial salary was $1,500.
There was no women’s team. The school, then called St. Joseph’s College, didn’t even have any female students.
“Everything has changed in some way or another over the past 49 years,” Quinn told Runner’s World Newswire.
Everything, that is, except for Quinn.
Quinn, 75, has been an institution at the Catholic university on the edge of Philadelphia. Since 1966, he has coached 147 seasons of men’s and women’s cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track at St. Joseph’s. That run will come to an end this summer.
Quinn announced his retirement on June 8.
Despite the modest beginnings, Quinn, who graduated from St. Joe’s in 1962 and set school records in the mile (4:13.4) and two-mile (9:17.7) runs, carved out a legendary career as a coach.
He guided 40 NCAA qualifiers and nine All-Americans, including Donna Crumety, who became the program’s only NCAA champion when she won the triple jump in 1991.
“Kevin Quinn is running at Saint Joe’s,” says Mike Glavin, who oversees men’s cross country and track and field at the school. “When you do something for almost half a century and do it so well, you become it.”
In 1973, Glavin was a high school recruit when he took the train from his home in South Jersey and met Quinn at the subway stop next to Roman Catholic High School. Quinn taught history there for 26 years while also coaching the Hawks.
The two walked to St. Joe’s campus. They talked. There was no recruiting pitch. “Kevin just said, ‘Here is what we are, here is what we do, and we would love to have you,’” Glavin recalls.
After Glavin ran for St. Joe’s from 1975 to 1978 and twice qualified for the NCAA cross country championships, Quinn hired him in 1989 to coach the men’s running teams.
Their offices are next to one another on “Coaches’ Row” in Hagan Arena. Quinn’s door is always open.
“There will definitely be a void once Kevin leaves,” Glavin says.
Although Quinn hasn’t moved out yet—his official exit date is set for July 31—he has started to take inventory of his space. That includes the first picture he sees when he walks into his office. It’s of Joe Genther, winning the 1,000-meter run in the 1979 IC4A indoor championships at Princeton. The next three finishers in the photo, from Richmond, Farleigh Dickinson, and Villanova, all later competed for Kenya in the Olympics.
“It was a completely stunning upset,” Quinn says. “No one could have possibly imagined it.”
But the thousands of St. Joe’s runners who competed for Quinn will probably remember their coach’s famous axioms more than any result or achievement. Quinn calls them, “Rule Ones,” and they outline his philosophy for success.
At the top of the list is Rule 1A: You’re known by the company you keep.
“Don’t forget the second part, from that great Philadelphia sage Benjamin Franklin,” Quinn adds. “If you lie down with dogs, you come up with fleas.”
Other examples are Rule 1B: What you do in practice, you do in a meet. And Rule 1G: Coach is always right.
There was not one specific moment this year when Quinn decided it was time to hang up his stopwatch, but as the outdoor track season progressed, he started thinking about another rule.
Rule 1H: Give the extra five percent.
“Am I able to give that extra five percent next year?” Quinn began to ask himself.
“If you can’t do it right, then don’t do it,” he says. “The program deserved my very best and I wasn’t sure that would happen. I didn’t want to be that guy.”
Now, Quinn plans to devote more of his time to his six children (five attended St. Joe’s) and 10 grandchildren. He hopes to attend more Penn field hockey games so he can support his youngest daughter, Colleen Fink, who is the Quakers’ head coach.
Yet don’t be surprised if you still see Quinn—with his bushy mustache and his slipping glasses—cheering on the Hawks harriers when they toe the starting line this fall.
“I’ll still go to some of the meets,” he said. “I’ll miss the kids too much to stay away.”
