Glory Days: David Sulley Recounts His Track and Field Coaching Career
If you gave David Sulley a spreadsheet that lists both the cross-country and track & field teams he coached during his career at both Mount Olive High School and Delbarton School, asked him to close his eyes and place his finger on the page, he’d have a story to tell about the team where his fingertip lands.
“Every season is a story,” Sulley says. “And within that story, there's lots of other individual stories, successes and challenges, things that happen. I think the program made headlines a lot and made Mount Olive recognized.”
The heights attained by the many teams he coached are forever etched in the history of each school, especially Mount Olive High School. From 1978 to 2011, Sulley was head coach of the boy’s and girl’s cross-country teams at the school, and after leaving Mount Olive, he helmed the program at Delbarton from 2012 until his retirement in 2019. During his career, Sulley’s teams had over 600 wins and won 69 titles, and he coached six All-Americans, two national champion runners, and an All-American relay team.
“A lot of memories, a lot of great teams, and a lot of great individuals,” Sulley says of his tenure as Marauder coach. Some of the names of those he coached – Steve Slattery, Christine Engel, Jackie Coscia – jump off the page at you. “As with any team, I think it's a matter of imparting a vision and an excitement about what could be accomplished in a season, and getting that buy in from the kids that are willing to put their efforts, their dedication, and their hard work into making that happen. It's always pretty much the team's focus, and then, as the individuals emerge, and they start gaining a sense of understanding of what they could accomplish individually as well. Then it’s a matter of helping to guide them towards success.”
The list of names can go on and on: Kim Primavera, Marianne Herbst, Scott McDonnell, Mike Roberts, Chris Behre, and Steve Slattery’s brother, Patrick. And “success” is an apropos word. Sulley’s boy’s cross country teams were undefeated six times, but his girl’s clubs celebrated 16 undefeated seasons, six straight in the 1990s, and in one 10 year period from 1987 to 1996, MOHS girl’s cross country won 10 consecutive conference titles. Perhaps the crème de la crème was his 1989 team which swept the conference, Morris County, and Group III sectional titles, won an overall Group III crown, and the Meet of Champions title. “That was as good a season as a coach could hope for,” Sulley says. “We had a very small team. I think we had only eight girls on the team, so we really had no room for error. We had some great front running and just good talent overall. We stayed healthy and ran our best races at the right time. At the Meet of Champions, we just had a good race plan and followed it, and when the smoke cleared, we found out we had the lowest point score. It was the greatest team accomplishment we ever had, and that team was just inducted into the Mount Olive Hall of Fame.”
Sulley has his memories, and they stem from his team’s practices along the roads of Mount Olive, and individual and team performances. “We mostly did our training out on the local roads,” he says. “We were always looking for different places where we could go to do workouts that would simulate the courses we were going to run, so if we were going to run a really hilly course, we knew we wanted to do some work on hills. We very rarely went onto the track to do workouts. We did, but it was rare, because my view was that all your running is done in cross-country off the track. You pretty much have to make sure that you're always practicing on those kinds of surfaces.”
Now retired and living in Texas, Sulley sometimes reflects on his decades in Morris County, and the accomplishments that were so special. “We had so many great athletes, and so many great teams over the years. It was a lifetime where I dedicated myself trying to always have as great a team or excellent team as possible.”
