Peter Conway was for 36 years Greenfield High School boys’ track and field coach. During that devoted, start-studded career, though, the man was handicapped by one glaring deficiency, which is, in fact, perhaps the basic need for any aspiring track coach — an actual track on which the team can train and compete. Every spring, Conway and former GHS girls’ track coach Steve Jakub would go to the back grass field behind GHS and measure out the quarter-mile “oval track,” which a town crew would mark with spray-painted lines to establish a quasi-track on which to practice and hold meets. Although far from ideal for, of all things, Franklin County’s shire town, Conway refused to let his athletes complain, saying recently, “You can’t cry about what you don’t have. We always made the best of it. We didn’t let the kids complain. We tried to convince them that what they had was better than a track because they had to lift their feet out of the mud and work extra hard in practice.” Now, thanks to a push by Greenfield Town Councilor Vern Sund, Conway’s name will be indelibly linked to the school’s new track facility. On May 12, from 2:30 to 3 p.m., a Greenfield School Committee-approved dedication ceremony will be held on the lot between the school and Federal Street to name the new oval Peter Conway Track. Sund should receive the lion’s share of credit for putting Conway’s name on the track. Way back when the school committee was still trying to figure out what it was going to do with the athletic facility behind the high school, as the new school was being constructed, Sund was showing up at meetings to plead his case for naming the track in Conway’s honor. Sund was a member of the GHS cross-country team in the fall of 1964 when Conway began coaching that program, and that very first year the team went on to greatness by becoming to this day the only Greenfield cross-country team to win a state title. GHS was 11-0 that season, won the Catholic Memorial Class B Championship (which is a huge meet in Boston), won the North Division, and WMass title. “He helped mold our lives and taught us to push and never give up,” Sund said. “When you are running and it starts to hurt, you need to keep going. The same is true in life.” Sund began inquiring as to how to pull off the dedication and discovered that he needed 150 signatures from registered Greenfield voters. “I could have gotten a whole lot more,” he said. “I went all over town, and most of the adults who signed either ran for him or had kids running for him. They all said the same thing, ‘He’s a great person as well as a great coach.’ He has never changed.” Conway, who now lives in Gill, grew up in Greenfield and in 1950 went to UMass, where he ran cross country and track. He was fourth on the UMass cross-country team that won the Yankee Conference championship his sophomore year, and also set the Yankee Conference record in the javelin during the spring of 1954. “I only held that record for three minutes because a guy from Rhode Island broke it on the next throw,” Conway joked long ago in a Recorder article. He went into the service and was named to the All-Army pentathlon team during his time there, later participating on the road-race circuit, which included winning the New England AAU 20-kilometer title in 1959, and finishing 17th in the marathon trials in 1960, when he tried out for the U.S. Olympic team. He retired from competitive running in 1960 after winning the national AAU 20-kilometer title. He began coaching GHS cross country in 1964 and continued through 2001, missing a few seasons during that time due to his passion for soccer coaching. In fact, when I myself played soccer at GHS during the late 90s, I can remember Conway coaching the cross-country team, but coming over to chat with coach Jakub during practice. He even helped out when Jakub would pull out the hurdles and make the soccer team work out with them. Conway retired as a cross-country coach in 2001 with an all-time record of 148-131. That included the 1964 state championship team as well as the 1965 team that finished 9-1 (it’s only loss coming to Keene High School), came in second in the Catholic Memorial Meet, and was third at the state meet. He also coached the 1994 team that went 12-0 and won the Catholic Memorial Class C meet, not to mention the PVIAC meet. Conway started coaching track in 1970 after Danny Dyer retired. From 1970 until 1982, Conway’s Greenfield teams won eight western Mass. titles. That included winning the WMass crown in his very first season, and at that time there was still just one division in all of western Mass. He won Division II titles in 1971, 1975, 1976 and 1982, and Division III crowns in 1979 and 1980. The 1979 team went undefeated and was the third team to win the Valley League title under Conway. He retired from the head coaching duties in 2005 with a career record of 224-86, but he has remained with the team ever since, serving as an assistant. This year he is coaching the throwers on the team, working with the javelin and discus throwers and shot putters. “I enjoy every year,” he said. “Every year’s a challenge.” Conway admitted that he never thought the day would actually come that Greenfield would have a track, but was grateful to the voters in town who helped make it happen. “It’s neat,” quipped Conway. “I stand out there and say, ‘Son of a gun, this is good.’ Too bad I’m not in as good of shape as I used to be. I would try to break a five-minute mile.” One person who will not be on hand on May 12 but who is equally deserving of recognition is Conway’s late wife, Patty, who passed away in 2010. “My wife is part and parcel to my coaching all these years because they have to pick up quite a bit of slack when you are teaching all day and then coaching,” he explained. “She was a great supporter of athletics. I wouldn’t have survived that long if I had someone complaining that I had to be at home more. She is just as deserving of this as I am. She used to pitch in and officiate events as well, and she knew just as much about events as any of the officials we had coming in.” Conway found out about the naming honor when he received a text message from former athlete Robert “Hazel” Hunter, who ran track at GHS years ago, and who Conway had to constantly ask to move his truck off the field when other administrators at the school would get upset. “It’s weird because it doesn’t usually happen until you’re dead,” he said. “It will probably sink in when I have to get up and say something.” Don’t expect Conway to have any speech written out. He says that’s not going to happen. Instead, he will speak from the heart that day. While the team is practicing on the track, because the sod has not yet set, the school is unable to host any meets this spring. The throwers are forced to practice in adjacent Shattuck Park. Conway will have to wait until next season to coach on the track carrying his name. “No one ever asks me when I’m going to stop because I don’t know when,” he said. It may be some time, though, judging from his youthful gait and enthusiasm. I received an email from another of Conway’s former track stars, Joe Martino, who finished second in the indoor state meet and set a school record in the 2-mile while at GHS. Martino said that Conway believed in the Lydiard system, which involved establishing a solid base of mileage, running hills, and doing speed work. Unbeaten in dual meets during his senior year in track and cross country, Martino credits Conway for his success. “He is definitely a solid coach in all areas of track and field, particularly in distance running, pole vault and javelin,” Martino said. “It’s hard to find a coach who has such a knowledgable background in so many events.” Martino also remembers the Saturday-morning track practices, which would be canceled on any day after a meet. Conway wanted his athletes to “stay off our feet,” according to Martino, but one Saturday during the season, he and three of his friends from the team decided it would be a good idea to do a “Relay Run for Peace” to Chicopee. “It was during the anti-war demonstration period,” Martino said. “We mounted a sign on top of a car that said “run for peace” and we proceeded to relay run through the UMass campus, where we were cheered like rock stars. Long story short, unbeknownst to us, coach was driving down the road and actually saw us. He was not amused.”
Inducted: 2002