“What does a kid with a history degree do for a living?”
That’s what a young Peter Farrell mused to his roommate at Notre Dame.
The answer, at least in Farrell’s case, led him on a near 50-year journey that will culminate with his induction into the USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame as a member of the Class of 2021.
After a stellar athletic career for the Irish, where he was a two-time All-American in the 880 yards – placing as high as sixth in 1966 – and a five-time letterwinner on its cross country and track & field teams, Farrell turned his attention to helping others, specifically young women, achieve their athletic goals in those same sports.
Farrell initially used his degree to teach American history at Christ the King High School in Middle Village, New York, for nine years from 1968 to 1977. He eventually added “coach” to his resume five years into his career when he established the Royals’ girls cross country and track & field program. It didn’t take long for Farrell to show his coaching acumen, as Christ the King won several championships, including the AAU Eastern Regional cross country title.
The collegiate ranks called again, beckoning Farrell to Princeton on September 1, 1977.
Farrell took over the women’s club running program, which finally gained intercollegiate status the next year. His first order of business was to purchase uniforms – bought from the school store, actually – followed closely by hitting the recruiting trail. His first recruit was Lynn Jennings, who would eventually become the first American woman to win an Olympic medal in a distance event on the track, among other feats. It’s that attention to detail that lifted the Tigers to great heights over the next 39 years until his retirement following the 2016 outdoor track & field season.
Princeton got off to a hot start with Farrell at the helm, winning 11 Ivy League titles in his first six years on campus. That included a Triple Crown during the 1980-81 academic year, where the Tigers captured Heps titles in cross country, indoor track & field and outdoor track & field Princeton replicated the feat exactly 30 years later, starting with the 2010 cross country title.
After an extended lull, where the rest of the Ivy League appeared to catch up to Princeton’s women, the Tigers came roaring back in the last 10 years of Farrell’s career. Princeton won 11 team titles between 2006 and 2016, with 10 coming in the first five years of that span.
The Tigers were especially strong in cross country, where they reeled off five Heps titles in a row from the mid-to-late 2000s. No team came together better than the 2009 edition, as they became the first – and still, only – squad in Ivy League history to sweep the conference meet. Princeton came awfully close the previous year with a 1-2-3-5-6 finish for 17 points.
With one individual national champion in track & field (Julia Ratcliffe, 2014 hammer), 55 total All-Americans, four Mid-Atlantic Region cross country titles and two top-5 finishes at the NCAA Cross Country Championships, you can’t overlook what Farrell’s Tigers accomplished on the regional and national stage under his direction, either.
Farrell is the fourth Princeton coach to be inducted into the USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame, joining Larry Ellis (2009), Keene Fitzpatrick (2011) and Fred Samara (2017).
He and his wife Shane have two daughters, Susan and Virginia, both of whom graduated from Princeton.