Williams Cross Country Coaching Staff

HEAD COACH

 

 

 

 

 

Pete Farwell is the head coach of the men’s and women’s cross country teams at Williams (men since 1979 and women since 2000).

In December of 2017, Peter Farwell was inducted into the United States Track & Field Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

Twenty-eight times Williams has advanced to the NCAA Championship race where in 1994 and 1995 Farwell’s Ephs brought home the title. Eleven times Farwell’s Ephs have finished in the top five at the NCAA  Championship. In addittion, Farwell has guided the Ephs to 18 NESCAC titles.

Through the 2019 season his men’s teams have won 14 NCAA New England regional titles plus they have claimed five runners-up and four thirds, 18 NESCAC titles and 8 ECAC titles, garnering Farwell nine regional coach of the year honors, most recently for the 2015 and 2013 seasons. He was named 1994 National Coach of the Year after leading the Williams men to the first of its two NCAA championships.

In 2015, Farwell’s Eph men’s team finished second at the NCAA Championships, just nine points from the title, while his Eph women’s team won the NCAA title by a margin of 98 points. The combined finish of the 2015 Eph teams was the best combined finish in Eph history.

Since 1993 the men’s teams have finished in the top ten 20 times: 1st, 1st, 2nd, 2nd 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 5th, 5th, 6th, 6th, 7th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 9th and 10th at the NCAA championship meet.

Since Farwell’s first year as head coach in 1979, he has had 27 individual All-Americans who have accumulated 42 All-American honors.

Farwell took over the reins of the women’s cross country team in 2000, and the Ephs won the NCAA title in 2002, 2004 and 2015 and have recorded four runner-up finishes (most recent in 2013), three 3rds, three 4ths, a 5th, and two 8th’s for 17 top eight placings in the past 17 years!

His women’s teams have won five New England regional titles, most recently 2019 to go with nine runners-up finishes and two thirds, seven NESCAC titles and five ECAC titles, and he has been chosen women’s regional coach of the year four times (most recently in 2015), NESCAC Coach of the Year 26 women to 48 All-American finishes (including two national champions).

At the regional level four Ephmen have captured seven individual championships, and eight of the men have taken runner-up honors 10 times. Under Farwell, six Eph women have captured nine individual regional championships.

Bringing to the sport a Williams (’73) liberal arts undergraduate education combined with a scientific knowledge of physiology (M.A. in P.E. Coaching, Central Michigan University ’90), Coach Farwell has devised a training plan that improves runners of all levels. His devotion to every athlete on the team helps make Williams one of the deepest Division III teams in the nation.

Farwell’s 23-year competitive experience included a 23rd-place finish (2:20) at the Boston Marathon and the 6-mile Williams school record.

Farwell was head coach of the Williams men’s and women’s track & field team from 1988 to 2001 and also in 2008 and 2013, being honored 15 times (11 for men’s team, five for women’s team) as New England Division III Coach of the Year. In 1995 he was named Men’s National Coach of the Year. Other years he has served as assistant track coach of the distance runners 1980-1987 and 2002 to the present.

While track was under his leadership the teams won nine indoor and 11 outdoor New England titles for the men plus six indoor and nine outdoor titles for the women, 11 men’s and 10 women’s NESCAC titles, four men’s and six women’s ECAC titles, and at the NCAA Championships the men placed 2nd twice and seven times in the top 10 while the women garnered 10 top 10 NCAA finishes, highlighted by two 3rds.

Altogether he has coached 83 different track All-Americans to 199 All-American performances, plus relay members (10 men’s and 10 women’s All-American relays).

These totals include 27 distance women (57 awards) and 20 distance men (42 awards), 18 women and 18 men in other events (for 40 women awards and 37 men’s), including 22 national champion performances (by 11 different athletes and one relay: seven women distance, five men distance, six women and four men).

ASSISTANT COACHES

 

Dusty Lopez returns to Williams College for a second stint as an assistant coach of cross country and track & field.

Lopez is a 2001 graduate of Williams, where he earned a B.A. in history in 2001. A four-year letter winner in cross country and track & field for the Ephs, Lopez was a captain his senior year. He earned All-America honors in cross country in 2000, won the NESCAC 10k, and was the 5k New England III champ.

In 2001 Lopez was an All-American in 10k (2nd) and 5k (4th). He also briefly held the school record for 10k, until Neal Holtschulte broke it a couple of years later.

Lopez’s coaching resume includes coaching at NCAA DI and NCAA DIII schools and began with a two-year graduate assistant opportunity at Syracuse University.

In his first coaching stint at Williams as an assistant coach (2005-07), Lopez helped coach national cross country champion Neal Holtschulte and NCAA 5k/10k outdoor and 5k indoor champion Caroline Cretti.

Team performances during Lopez’s first three years coaching at Williams included the women winning the NESCAC and NCAA Regional titles and posting a third place finish in each, while finishing second and eighth at the NCAA championships. The Eph men in NESCAC were 1st and 2nd; NCAA Regional: 1st, 4th; ECACs: 1st, 1st; and 7th at the NCAA Championship.

After Williams, Lopez spent five years as head coach at Webster University (St. Louis) where he coached the cross country and track & field teams for men and women. In 2011, the women’s cross country team won the first conference championship in program history.

Lopez’s last stop before returning to Williams for the second time was as an assistant with the men’s cross country and distance teams at the University of Michigan, most recently under head coach (and past Olympian) Kevin Sullivan.

Lopez and his wife Caitlin (a former Eph softball player) reside in Williamstown with their three daughters.