Coach Interview: Peter Roberts

Coach Roberts really enjoys coaching and there are many reasons why. Roberts liked playing sports since he was a child, like baseball and street hockey. Also. his dad used to help coach baseball, so he used to come and support him. Later on, Roberts found out that he is a good distance runner, and that became his primary sport. His youngest brother was also a professional runner, so everyone in the family was really engaged in sports. Roberts started his coaching experience at Exeter High School 8 years ago as an assistant coach for track and field and learned a lot of technical aspects of running there.

All these things were some kind of inspiration for Coach Roberts to coach at Ross School. The most difficult part of coaching for Roberts is to make the kids develop their skills in different events.. More specifically, the explanation of basics takes a lot of time and patience. In addition to that, it is really hard to work with limited facilities. Ross School doesn’t have a dedicated field for track, so Roberts has to paint the track on the soccer field. However, with an Athletic Director like Howard Brown, we were able to build a long jump pit, and to pour cement pads for the shot put and discus. Robert’s plan for the 2017-2018 season is to get a lot of students interested in doing track and field and make them practice and compete in different events to see what are they good at. In order to improve next year, Roberts is always doing a lot of research, reading coaching articles and watching YouTube videos. Moreover, last year he brought coach Jared and coach Jess to the Harvard camp for track and field. Coach Jared learned a lot about the shot and discus. Jess learned some things about long distance running. Coach Roberts was learning more about high jumps and the hurdles. In order to improve next year , Coach Roberts will try to get more high jump and long jump surfaces funded and installed for the next season. Also, he plans to learn more about how to coach sprinters.Peter Roberts was born on February 24. He grew up in Cape Cod, Hyannis, Massachusetts. In addition to that, he lived in Exeter, New Hampshire for 25 years before coming to Ross five years ago. Roberts likes to stay in shape, and enjoys running, swimming, cycling, hiking, skiing and skating. Coach Roberts graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic institute(RPI) with B.S. degrees in Engineering and Business Management. Roberts ran Varsity CrossCountry and Track & Field. Also, he ran in the Division III National Championships during his freshman year. Moreover, he liked to play both intramural and gym hockey.