Marlborough has hired two new varsity head coaches for the fall 2020 season. Varsity Volleyball Coach Kathleen Luft, and Cross Country Coach Tim Cullen, are being welcomed into the Marlborough community and have exciting goals for their respective sports programs.

Coach Luft’s main goal in creating a successful volleyball program at Marlborough is to introduce a developmental program. Through this program, students would learn the same skills at each grade level and continue to improve upon these skills throughout their consecutive years in the program. She hopes that this program will allow athletes to excel at specific skills that will help them succeed in volleyball games.
Additionally, Coach Luft has designed safe and creative ways for her athletes to stay in shape during COVID-19. Practices are currently designed to put more emphasis on technique rather than practice games, which has helped her begin to implement the developmental program style that she hopes to introduce.

Throughout her time playing and coaching volleyball, Coach Luft has learned many valuable lessons she hopes to share with the athletes she coaches. Among these lessons is the idea that some things are simply out of one’s control.

“I have learned that you can’t control what you can’t control. You can’t control what your teammates are doing, you can’t control how the other team is playing. Controlling your actions, your mind, your mental state, and what you’re putting forth I think is very important,” she said.

Coach Cullen, Marlborough’s new Cross-country coach, shares exciting goals for the Cross-country program. He hopes to bring more fun to running by emphasizing team bonding during practices.

“People don’t really think of it [Cross-country] as a team sport. But it does require a team to be successful. So I am really coming from the perspective that we are a team, we work together and we are building off of each other and learning from each other,” he said.

To foster team bonding and enthusiasm for Cross-country, he is meeting with each athlete on the team to discuss their personal goals, and is creating a custom workout program tailored to each athlete’s specific goals. He hopes to make the program more welcoming to beginners and provide specific direction as to how each athlete can grow and achieve their goals.

Both Coach Luft and Coach Cullen share the same sentiments in hoping to improve their sports’ respective programs and to encourage more participation in Marlborough’s athletic programs overall.