St. John’s Prep Strength and Conditioning Coordinator Billy McSheffrey has been named the 2021 Massachusetts Coach of the Year by the National High School Strength Coaches Association (NHSSCA). The annual honor recognizes a scholastic strength and conditioning coach for achievements in the field and passion for the profession. State Coach Of The Year winners are chosen by their peers across the Commonwealth.
“This is a great honor from the NHSSCA, but our program isn’t about one person,” said McSheffrey, 33, a native of Connecticut who now lives in South Boston. “This is a reflection of the talented, hard-working strength coaches we have on staff, the ceaseless support of our Mahoney Wellness Center staff and the Prep’s dedicated athletic staff and coaches. Most important are the hours of unsung blood, sweat and tears that our student-athletes, past and present, have labored through in our fitness facilities. As we put it around here, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.'”
Coach McSheffrey arrived at St. John’s in 2017 from the world of professional ice hockey, where he worked for the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes as well as that franchise’s former AHL affiliate, the Springfield Falcons. Prior to that, he coached at Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning in Middleton. McSheffrey, who holds a master’s degree in Applied Exercise Science along with a B.S. in Kinesiology from the University of Rhode Island, began his career as a strength and conditioning intern with the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres.
“The impact Coach McSheffrey has on his athletes, staff and the St. John’s Prep community is commendable,” said Kevin O’Neill, Northeast regional director of the NHSSCA. “He’s truly an exemplary member of the NHSSCA and the high school strength and conditioning community at large.”
A methodical, inexhaustible and inspiring presence inside the Prep’s expansive Mahoney Wellness Center, McSheffrey has gained a reputation for adapting, improvising and innovating in guiding the school’s athletes. When students were moved to a remote-learning model last spring do to pandemic protocols, he moved his physical fitness curriculum online, creating free, streaming video workout content and tailoring his expertise to meet a variety of needs, from the typical physical education student to varsity athletes to faculty, staff and even parents.
“When I was hired at St. John’s, I resolved to pursue the goal of building the best high school strength and conditioning program in the country,” said McSheffrey, who is scheduled to accept the award at the NHSSCA’s national conference later this year. “In truth, that’s more of a mindset. As a staff, we ask ourselves every day: ‘How can I make this program better?’ I encourage our new hires to share their ideas from the outset. To challenge the way we do things. To always be asking, ‘why?’ We put the student first. We apply ourselves to being transformative coaches. This staff is a deeply collaborative group.”
The mission of the NHSSCA is to educate, equip and empower coaches to make a positive impact in the lives of student-athletes by helping to develop coaches that are trustworthy, knowledgeable, effective, passionate and transformational. The organization’s vision is for every high school student athlete to comprehensively develop their character, their mind and their body through coaching excellence. To learn more about the NHSSCA awards, visit https://nhssca.us/.
