Assistant Professor of Physical Education, Emeritus
1978-2023
The story your résumé tells is simply spectacular.
Five NCAA team titles; 228 All-Americans, including 29 individual national champions. Five selections as national coach of the year.
And there’s more on that résumé: 58 Little Three titles in men’s and women’s cross country. A career track and field record of 459-51. Selection to the sports’ coaching Hall of Fame.
But no résumé tells the whole story. And the part yours doesn’t tell is also spectacular.
That’s because, to you, running isn’t just about getting to the finish line first. It is, as one graduate put it, about “striving and struggling and learning about yourself.”
It’s about becoming not just a better athlete, but also a better person.
How do you help runners, jumpers and throwers accomplish that? You see them as individuals; you help each to set and pursue ambitious goals. You emphasize teamwork and patience. You foster traditions (some involving cider and doughnuts and a large stuffed bear). You encourage service and build community—a huge family, really. It’s a family in which the legendary “slow boys” know they are just as important to you as the stars—and that they contribute just as vitally.
You are a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of this college, and, like the very best teachers, never stopped learning during 45 years on our faculty. You didn’t focus just on your field, though. No, you also audited dozens of Williams courses over the years, running down whatever trail piqued your intellectual curiosity. Just another spectacular example you set for the women and men who remain so close to you years after graduation. With love and great respect, they call you “Coach Farwell.”
I hereby declare you Assistant Professor of Physical Education, Emeritus, entitled to all the rights, honors and privileges appertaining thereto.
June 4, 2023