On several occasions, Ken Spellman read the names of the state’s Hall of Fame track and field coaches on a wall inside Boston’s Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center. “I would look at all the great people who have been put up there and wonder ‘do I really belong here?’” said Spellman. The answer was a resounding yes from the Massachusetts State Track Coaches Association, which inducted Spellman into its Hall of Fame on June 4. “It is a great honor, and I certainly thank the MSTCA for recognizing not only myself, but also the coaching staffs I’ve worked with at Ipswich,” said Spellman, who began coaching track and field at Ipswich in 1969. “From Wayne Arsenault to Michelle Horgan to Jack Welch to Don Hennigar to Harold Flynn and Chuck Homan, the list goes on and on. It’s also been great working with Marty Binette, as well as Sue Markos, on the current staff.” Of course, he had very special words for the thousands of athletes he’s coached in multiple track seasons over the last 47 years. “You can always talk about some of the great athletes who have gone on [to continue running after high school], but there are also the kids who just worked so hard and developed a great work ethic as they entered the working world,” said Spellman. “I’m lucky where a lot of these former athletes are my good friends now. Some live in town, and some live elsewhere, but we still keep in touch.” Of course, the team that Spellman is most indebted to are his biggest fans – his family. “When you’re coaching for a long time, there’s a lot of sacrifice your family is willing to make. There will be birthday parties and I’m at a track meet in western Massachusetts,” said Spellman. “There are not only the sacrifices they’ve had to make, but also the very important part of the program my wife Jane has become, doing a lot of the paperwork involved.” His stepsons Chad and Jamie – Chad lives in Ipswich, Jamie lives in the Pacific Northwest – “are both doing great, and they have been a very important part of the program.” Athletic Director Tom Gallagher has worked with Spellman for nearly 20 years since first coming to Ipswich as a certified athletic trainer in the 1990s. “I can’t think of a more deserving Hall of Fame inductee than Ken Spellman. The experience and expertise he provides not only here at Ipswich High School, but to the Cape Ann League as well, is second to none,” said Gallagher. “He is as hard-working, dedicated and committed as anyone I’ve ever met.” Spellman first started out as an assistant football coach to longtime friend and Mass. Football Coaches Association Hall of Famer Jack Welch in 1965. Spellman was hired as the Ipswich boys track and field head coach in 1969. He added girls track and field head coach as a title in 1974, upon the founding of that program. At the time, track and field was just held in one season, outdoors in the spring – indoor track and field in the winter was added in 1980. Spellman retired as a head coach after the 2008-09 school year, but he continues to work with the track and field program as an assistant. During his time as both head coach and assistant coach, he had different specialties – such as hurdles and jumps, or more recently coaching the throwing events. “It wasn’t always that way. Back in the early 1980s, there were only a couple of us coaching. You had to really become not so much an expert, but knowledgeable about all the different events,” said Spellman. “With 17 events in track and field, you had to have a good background and a good base for all the events. Then, depending on what the other coaches’ specialties were when the numbers increased, you put them there and found other events to develop a good knowledge of. “When Don Hennigar [later a MSTCA Hall of Fame coach at Newburyport] was coaching with us in the late 1970s, I let him coach the distance kids. When Jack Welch retired last year, my hat was back in the throwing events. It’s good to move around event to event.”
Inducted: 2016