It's a passion that runs in their
family
Coaching Kateses a fixture at meets
steve haines/globe staffCoaches Livvy and Rick Kates even met while they were working at a running camp 12 years ago. (steve haines/globe staff) Livvy Kates leaned over the rail of her backyard deck in Pembroke on a recent Sunday afternoon, looking below to where her husband, Rick, was chasing their 3-year-old daughter, Emma, up their wooden play structure and down its plastic slide.
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The Kates family is always on the run.
A calendar hanging on their refrigerator, emblazoned with notations reading "XC meet" in red marker, illustrates just what a power couple they are within Massachusetts running circles. Both are science teachers who also coach - she at Hingham High School and he at Notre Dame Academy. But beyond that, Livvy and Rick work or coach at nearly every big cross-country, indoor, and outdoor track meet in Eastern Massachusetts. That includes yesterday's EMass cross-country meet and this Saturday's All-State Meet at Franklin Park.
"Most people's calendars go around holidays," said Rick, 42. "Ours goes around meets."
They also work or coach about 90 percent of the meets sponsored by the Massachusetts State Track Coaches Association.
"They have a child, which made it a little more difficult, but it doesn't seem to be stopping them," said Frank Mooney, executive director of the track coaches' group. "She's a meet director in the spring and coaches, teaches, and tries to maintain a mother's role.
"They are very organized and upbeat people. To have the kids around those kinds of people is extremely important to us."
Coaching cross country the last six years at Hingham, where she has taught biology for 11 years, Livvy has guided the Harbormen to three league titles. Led by senior Shauna McNiff, who finished fourth in last year's All State meet, the team was ranked 14th in Division 2 by the track coaches' group as of Nov. 2.
McNiff is "about the only one I can't keep up with," said the 34-year-old Livvy, who ran cross country for Plymouth South High School and later at Springfield College.
She recently ran the Boston Athletic Association Half Marathon and has completed three Boston Marathons.
Rick's running career started at Xaverian Brothers in Westwood after he was told he was too slow to play football. It ended 2 1/2 years ago when he fell off a ladder and injured a hip socket.
"I should've died. I was pretty lucky I wasn't paralyzed," said the Dorchester native, who ran track at Wentworth Institute of Technology. "My running days are over."
The running program at Notre Dame couldn't be doing better under Rick's tutelage. The physics teacher has attracted an average of 125 girls per year to the outdoor track team, which last spring won its 20th league title and seventh MIAA team sportsmanship award for its community service. The all-girls school also might just have the state's nicest track facility that doesn't also have uprights in its infield.Rick was director at the first track event held at the long-delayed Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center. "We didn't realize how much work it was, that first meet," Rick said. "Anything that could go wrong did go wrong, but on the other hand, everyone was so excited to be in the building."
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Since then, he's embraced the technology track, learning to use complicated computer programs and timing systems that replace stop watches and eliminate human error. But that means tedious hours of entering data into performance lists before big meets, and tabulating the results during and after meets.
"A guy like me couldn't sit in that chair. I just don't have that technology background," Mooney said. "I've never taken the time when it comes to technology. I leave it to him and a couple other guys and let them run it. We're lucky to have him."
A small office in the Kates household, which Livvy's mother has dubbed "Man Town," is devoted to Rick's laptops and other equipment used at track meets. Lately, however, Rick has risen up the ranks, and finds himself doing less time at the results table. This year he was named director for the MIAA Division 2 outdoor state meet.
The couple's lives are so entrenched in running that they even met while working at a running camp in New Hampshire 12 years ago. Her brother Seth, a former cross-country runner at Stanford University, worked at the camp with Rick. In 1996, she was a last-minute replacement for a camp counselor who couldn't work.
"Sad - running camp," Livvy said. "Yup, that's how we met."
They were married in 2001 and moved to Pembroke five years ago.
Emma often tags along to practice and meets, getting as much of a thrill out of leaping onto the high-jump mats as she does hanging out with the girls. And while Rick and Livvy say they will never push their daughter into running, they are pretty happy with their built-in set of baby sitters.
"Everyone talks about pro athletes being role models. I'd rather have Shauna McNiff than someone in the pro ranks," Rick said. "What better example?"
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