2023 - Jeff Wilson

It is my pleasure and honor to present the Peter Lovejoy Coach of the Year award to Jeff Wilson. 

Jeff has been a high school coach for years. He was an assistant to Peter for years, and then moved on to working with John Eastman and finally being the head coach for Souhegan High School. Jeff came to running after having his dream of being an Elite Basketball player destroyed after being cut from his High school team. He moved on to XC and track at Xavier HS in Conn, and he was on many a State Championship team. I can’t tell you how many times I heard how great his high school team was, going undefeated. Jeff after High School entered the monastery. After finding out they didn’t have a XC or track team he moved onto Boston College. 

Jeff coached his son Keith to being one of the better runners in NH. Jeff has coached 6 State Championship track teams. I don’t know how many before I came to Souhegan.  Not counting his XC accomplishments. He has coached one of the fastest runners in America in the 3200. Jeff has coached numerous runners who have gone on to run for colleges like UConn, West Point, Air Force Academy, Bucknell, Brown/North Carolina, UVM and many more. Jeff is now working on recruiting his grandchildren to run for him. 

I don’t know of anyone of his fellow coaches or his athletes that haven’t liked Jeff.

It is also my pleasure to not only call him coach, but also to call him Friend. 

Congratulations to Jeff Wilson.

2022 - Mike Shevenell

Portsmouth Christian Academy has been blessed to have Mike Shevenell as a coach since 1996, coaching nearly year-round for cross country, winter track, spring track, and even hosting fitness clubs between seasons. 

While he’s coached talented athletes - even record-winning athletes and teams, Coach Shevenell is far better known for his faith and integrity, and for the relentless love and support he shows his athletes.

He has the unique gift of quickly recognizing each individual’s strengths, drawing them out and encouraging them into what he knows they can become. His standards are high, yet without pressure or judgment. His athletes remember him for his mentorship and the knowledge that he was proud of them, and that he cares more about his athletes’ character than their times or distances. 

He loves to be with his team – in the trenches with them, not on the sidelines. Even throughout injuries over the years - his biggest complaint was never the pain of the injury or recovery. It was always how much he missed being with the athletes! He’s always running, lifting, stretching and being silly right along with the team.

He can make anything fun - especially goofy competitions, whether with weekly Fruit Relays or by tracking PRs for how quickly the team could change their clothes or retrieve their dinner and get back on the bus…and then he memorizes these stats and more with the ease of breathing. He knows all PRs and school records off the top of his head, able to recall them in casual conversation or use them to inform shockingly accurate predictions for his athletes.

Under his leadership, hundreds of athletes have learned to set and achieve goals, learned to have a healthy relationship with fitness, and most of all, learned to love running. 72 seasons in and still going strong- for so many reasons, it is an absolute honor to present this year’s Lovejoy award to Coach Mike Shevenell. 

The Peter Lovejoy Award was instituted in 2014 to recognize veteran coaches of cross country and/or track and field who have contributed significantly to New Hampshire athletes over many years.

Peter Lovejoy (1937-2013) began his teaching/coaching career at Simonds High School in Warner, NH in 1960, and he continued at Kearsarge Regional High School in 1970 where he coached and taught until the mid-1980’s. He then retired and returned to college. He received his Master’s Degree at Springfield College in 1985 and his Doctorate’s Degree in sports psychology from Arizona State University in 1988. After teaching for a year at the University of Illinois, he returned to New Hampshire and resumed coaching - both cross country and track for several years at Souhegan High School in Amherst, NH. Peter coached for approximately 30 years in New Hampshire. Many of those years he coached all three seasons - cross country, indoor track and outdoor track.

The Peter Lovejoy Award will recognize annually one cross country/track coach who has served New Hampshire athletes for a minimum of 20 years. People may be nominated for the Award by sending a one-page application stating the nominee’s coaching experience along with specific reasons for his/her consideration for the recognition. The nomination paper should be submitted to the NHTFCA prior to March 1.

Past recipients 

• 2021 - Mike Smith, Mascenic Regional High School

Mike has been associated with Mascenic HS cross country and track & field on and off for more

than 30 years – starting as a successful middle/high school athlete and now mentoring young

athletes as the successful head coach of those programs.

He reacquainted himself with the team in 2000, taking over the helm of both programs that

year. And while it took a few years for the team to find firm footing, eventually winning state

cross country titles in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2014 and recently in 2017, the teams and individuals

have been going strong ever since. Mascenic has had 10 different athletes who have won 30

individual state championship titles.

In addition to his high school teaching and coaching duties at Mascenic HS, he is also the head

coach of the Valhalla RC junior olympic cross country program, a USATF sanctioned club that

since 2017 has had national championship qualifying athletes. Still putting in the miles as an

athlete himself, he shares his wealth of knowledge, experiece and fierce love of the sport by

coaching an adult program through the Monadnock Regional Milers. “Wednesday Night

Workouts” occur weekly at Con-Val HS from April through September and focuses on getting

adults to run faster over a variety of distances.

As if there were 36 hours in his day, he is a member of the NHIAA Outdoor Track & Field

Committee and also a valuable member of Tim Cox and Greg Hall’s staff at NHTF.com and

NHCC.com, acting as a contributing editor, Division 3 expert and at times conscience of the

sport.  Not only does he provide previews and recaps of seasons and competitions, but we all

benefit from his occasional reflections regarding current topics within our sport.  With his

gravelly voice, when not generating articles, Mike is one of the voices of NHTF and NHCC as a

race commentator. 

It goes without saying that without the support of his wife, Gretchen, and their

children very few of these accomplishments would have been possible.

• 2020 - Tim Cox, Coe Brown Northwood Academy

A coach is often thought to be and referred to as a teacher. No NH coach better exemplifies this reference

than this gentleman. When asked what is most important to him with respect to the teams and athletes he

coaches, you would hear: a willingness to step outside of their comfort zones, a conscious choice to

become the best version of themselves, and a desire to become a student of the sport well after their time

at Coe-Brown ends. 

Winning is of little importance to the Coe-Brown Academy coaching staff, but because they all follow the

example of Coach Tim Cox, the success of the Coe-Brown programs cannot be overstated. His dedication

to and involvement in the lives of his athletes has itself come full circle many times, and in fact three

former athletes are now themselves members of the Coe-Brown coaching staff. These athlete-coaches

have enlisted to pay forward what Coach Cox taught them, and along with their mentor, will touch the

lives of hundreds of more athletes in the future. 

Of the thirty-eight current outdoor track and field school records, only three girls and one boys records’

remain from before his tenure. Coach Cox, along with Coach Brent Tkaczyk, also started the indoor

track program in 2005, and have had a hand in all of the current indoor track and field school records, as

well. Individual Coe-Brown athletes have also set a number of Class I, Division II, and New Hampshire

State outdoor and indoor state records under his tutelage. 

Individual and relay divisional champions that Coach Cox has coached include every girls’ event with the

exception of hurdles, 4x100 relay, and vertical jumps. On the boys’ side it includes every event except the

100, 4x100 relay, and vertical jumps. Coe-Brown athletes have at the state level won many individual

championships including the 100, 200, 800, 1600, 3200, 4x800 relay, long jump, discus, and shot put.

Three Coe-Brown athletes have even won New England championships in the 800, 1600, and long jump.

Using the team championship as the truest standard of success to measure any coach, Coe-Brown won

four straight outdoor track & field girls’ titles (2012-2015), a boys’ title (2019) and now a boys’ and girls’

title in 2021. Together they have built a running program which has generated 25 state championships in

cross country, indoor and outdoor track while also coaching athletes and teams on the national level. 

He is the co-founder of the highly successful, wildly popular, and nationally renowned

newhampshiretrackandfield.com and newhampshirecrosscountry.com. His roles are legion - editor-in-

chief, front-end collaborator, correspondent, interviewer, commentator, social media  – just to name a

few. As if all that weren’t enough to fill a day, he is also a member of the NHIAA Outdoor Track & Field

Committee

It goes without saying that without the support of his wife. Jen, and their children, very few

of these accomplishments would have been possible.

• 2019 - Suzanne Johnson, Londonderry High School

Suzanne has been involved in track and field all of her life. She was an individual state champion at Salem High School, and continued her track career at the University of Rhode Island. In 1982 she was hired as a Social Studies teacher at Londonderry High School and has been there ever since. She started as the girls junior high school coach and since 1984 has been the head coach of indoor and outdoor track for Londonderry High School.  For 36+ years she's been the face of girls track and field at Londonderry.  Suzanne goes beyond coaching, building community within her team. Her talents have often brought her recognition, but she always remains humble.

• 2018 - John Goegel, Merrimack Valley HS / Bishop Brady HS / Concord HS / Belmont HS

• 2017 - Bernie Livingston, Kennett HS

• 2016 - John Snell, Merrimack HS

• 2015 - Stan Lyford, Portsmouth HS

• 2014 - John Eastman, Kearsarge HS / Souhegan HS