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new athletics Director Keith Zalaski Takes the Reins

Luckily for Rivers, Keith Zalaski, the school’s new director of athletics, is a man who likes solving problems. The veteran math teacher and coach acknowledges that, in taking on the AD position in this challenging year, he’s stepping into a landscape populated with “moving targets— and you don’t know where they’re going to land. But,” he continues, “the math side of me enjoys complex word problems.” The keys, he says, are “flexibility and nimbleness.”

Taking on the role held by longtime AD Bob Pipe, Zalaski is very aware of the legacy he’s inheriting. “It feels like I’m stepping into big shoes, but in the best way,” says Zalaski. “The way he operated was in some ways similar to the way I operate.”

To Zalaski, whose parents were both educators, that means seeing the whole student and integrating the academic and athletic sides of the day. He cites a maxim his father used to invoke, referring to the classroom: “He’d talk about the Three R’s: Relationships, relevance, and rigor. If people know you care, you can bring in relevance and rigor, but the relationships have to come first.”

Zalaski played basketball at Amherst College, where he majored in economics. After graduation, he says, “I was looking around at jobs in finance, and I wasn’t really excited about it.” A reprieve came in the form of a coaching job at Williston Northampton School, which he pursued at the suggestion of his college coach. “I found that I enjoyed working with kids,” he says, both on the playing fields and in the classroom.

Eventually, he made his way to Boston, where his then girlfriend (now wife) was living and where he would go on to earn a master’s degree at Tufts. He also served as assistant men’s basketball coach at Tufts, while teaching at area high schools. But Zalaski was eager to combine both functions—teaching and coaching—in one position, and when a suitable opening came up at Rivers in 2015, he jumped at the opportunity. He continues to teach Advanced Algebra II even as he takes up the athletics director position.

Zalaski acknowledges that this year, with its COVID-19 restrictions and protocols, will provide a very different type of experience for the school’s student athletes. But, he says, “The approach, and the things we’re looking for our kids to get out of it—those things don’t change. The most important thing about coaching is understanding that we are educators, and that our job is to educate the students to develop as players and as people.” — JD

new Coaches Join Rivers

Along with a new athletics director, Rivers welcomed four new head coaches this year. • Freddy Meyer will serve as boys’ hockey coach. A former NHL player, Meyer was a member of three Beanpot Championship teams at Boston University. He has many years of experience coaching at the semi-pro, club, and student levels. • Courtney Sheary is the new girls’ hockey coach. She played at

Cushing Academy and the University of New Hampshire, and most recently served as assistant coach at Buckingham Browne and Nichols School. • New head football coach Randdy Lindsey P’22, ’24, ’26 was promoted to the top job this past spring, having served as associate head coach since 2019. He is also head coach for Mass Elite Football University National Team, a program for middle schoolers. • Helming girls’ basketball will be Lindsay Miller, who spent five years as assistant coach at her alma mater, Harvard University.

She also holds an M.Ed. degree in clinical counseling and sports psychology from Boston University.