A change at the top for Carlmont cross country

Heck served as an assistant coach for the track team in the spring, working with the distance runners on first-year head coach James Berry’s staff.

“After I saw how things were going in track, I saw that James Berry did really well with the track team,” Lilygren said. “And Ben Heck had taken over the distance coaching and he had a really good rapport with the team, and he and Julie Meade seemed like they would be a good fit to take over with the cross country.”

Heck is returning to his roots, having graduated from Carlmont in 2010.

“It’s sad because John has been there for quite a while,” Heck said. “But I was excited at the same time. I enjoy coaching track with the kids and it’s always good when you can coach year-round and keep the train running.”

For Lilygren, the coaching position at Carlmont was his first.

A lifetime distance runner who competed at UC Davis, where he was one of the founding runners of the Aggie Running Club, Lilygren later relocated from San Jose to Belmont following a career in semiconductor manufacturing. He said he wasn’t looking to coach, but when there were no jobs available in his field, the coaching job at Carlmont opened up.

“There just weren’t any similar positions,” Lilygren said. “At one point my wife said: ‘You [need] something to do, why don’t you put in an application at Carlmont?’ But I wasn’t sure. I had about 40 years of running experience but as a coach I had zero experience.”

As it turned out, Lilygren would bookend his coaching career with Central Coast Section individual champions in cross country. The year prior to his taking the job, Ryan Dimick won the CCS Division I individual boys’ championship as a senior. Lilygren coached Dimick with the track team in 2014, and Dimick, the eldest of three brothers, told his coach his youngest brother would be even better than him.

In Lilygren’s final season as the cross country coach in 2021, Aidan Dimick made history by winning the CCS Division I individual boys’ cross country championship, making him and Ryan Dimick the only brothers in school history to claim the honor.

Lilygren also led the girls’ cross country team to the state track meet two years in a row, with the Lady Scots finishing runners-up at the CCS meet in both 2017 and ’18, with Kaimei Gescuk becoming the first Carlmont girls’ runner in eight years to win the CCS Division I individual championship.

“I think getting the girls’ cross country team to go to state … and that was probably my proudest achievement” Lilygren said. “The girls just ran really well and the fact that we able to make it to state was just a really special thing.”

Lilygren will continue working with the Peninsula Athletic League as a cross country meet coordinator, hiring times and starters, and helping arrange for meet permits. This fits more into Lilygren’s other career ambition. He has worked as a USA Track and Field official since 1981 as a master pole vault official.

Lilygren said he was disappointed when he wasn’t selected for the recent World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon. But he’s got his eye on the big prize when the Summer Games come to Los Angeles.

“If I stick around in 2028 there’s the L.A. Olympics,” Lilygren said. “So, you never know.”

Heck brings quite a track record in returning to alma mater. His high school career was during an era of Scots dominance, as the boys’ program captured seven CCS Division I team titles in eight years between 2005 and ’12, including five straight from 2005 to ’09. The girls’ cross country team was also a section power, capturing CCS Division I titles in 2007, ’08, ’09 and ’11.

Carlmont opens its season Sept. 10 at the Lowell Invitational at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. While Aidan Dimick is graduated, Heck is touting the upcoming group of sophomores. At Monday’s two-mile time trials, sophomore Ian Wong was in the top tier with senior Michael Chong for the boys, while sophomore Katherine Peacock was “definitely the top girl,” Heck said.

“The team as a whole is definitely stronger,” Heck said. “Obviously we don’t have the individual of Aidan Dimick … but we have a lot of depth.”