Prep track coach Ray Carey retires after 38 years, leaving lasting legacy

For the first time in nearly four decades, Ray Carey will no longer be coaching cross-country or track and field at St. John?s Prep.
?My wife Dianne and I have nine grandchildren,” said the 66-year-old Carey. “They all live far away. I just spoke on the phone with one of my grandkids, but all I could think was how great it would be if we were sitting there together and I could see her face.”
The legendary coach, who graduated from the Prep in 1967, will be officially retired from the coaching ranks following the New England meet on Saturday and the Nationals next weekend.
?I?ve been the head coach at St. John?s Prep for 38 years and 109 seasons, and it seems like that?s enough,” he said. “It wasn?t an easy decision, but it came down to our desire to be with the grandkids and see them throughout the year. Every time I see them at Christmas, then turn around and come home, it?s hard to leave. I?m going to miss coaching, but it?s an easier transition with such wonderful, talented coaches on our staff.”
Carey and his wife, Dr. Dianne Carey, will celebrate their 44th anniversary this August. They couple even attended the St. John?s senior prom together in 1967. Yet Carey?s professional journey took some twists and turns. After graduating from Holy Cross, he enrolled in law school but left midway through his first year to serve in the Air Force. He then considered a decision that would impact thousands of young minds: Carey decided to teach and coach at St. John?s Prep in Danvers.
?There were no teaching job available in 1976, but the cross country job was open,” he explained. “I started coaching that year, I worked nights at Kelly?s Roast Beef, and I was working toward getting my teaching certification.”
Carey began teaching the following year, and he retired from the classroom in 2006. He has always viewed himself as an educator, and his runners ? past and present ? do not disagree.
?Coach Carey instilled in us that practice doesn?t necessarily make perfect, but perfect practice makes perfect,” said Steve Langton, a 2001 Prep grad and two-time bronze medal winning Olympian in bobsledding. “I vividly remember an occasion toward the end of my senior outdoor season where we ran through our relay handoffs so many times in preparation for the state championships, that I literally blew out the side of my track spike. Over the course of the next week, I bought new spikes and we won the state championship in the 4-by-100.”
As much as Carey loved the meets, he was a coach who savored the team?s practice sessions.
?The track practice was more than track practice,” said Carey, whose Eagles captured the Division 1 Eastern Mass. championship last year while he was honored as Coach of the Year. “It was educating kids in a way that you think is progressive. We?ve tried to engender the idea of a team, and we?ve tried to produce a team that was competitive, went to the big meets, prepared well, and yet, at the same time, helped everyone get better. We can help the kid who?s trying to break six minutes in the mile, as well as take kids to the national championship.”
Joe Luongo will be the final runner Carey coaches. Luongo, a 2015 Prep grad who will attend Harvard in the fall, will run the 800 next weekend in North Carolina at the New Balance Nationals.
?I was at a meet last year,” said Luongo, “and I was getting in line to race when an official walked up to me and said, ?You?re from St. John?s Prep? Well, Ray Carey is a great coach, but he?s an even better person.? And it really is true ? he does so much for people. I?ve never worked with anyone like Coach Carey. He puts his heart and soul into everything.”
Carey also serves as president ofHealing Abuse Working for Change,a group committed to serving all individuals affected by domestic abuse.
?The thing I?m most proud of is stepping outside the classroom to do something different at St. John?s Prep,” said Carey. “Making St. John?s Prep think about who we were as a school and who we w