“If Haddonfield had a Mount Rushmore of athletes, alumni, Erin would definitely be one of them up on that mountain.”
That’s how Lefteris Banos, athletic director for Haddonfield schools, announced that the high school has hired former Olympian Erin LiVecchi as its new girls track and field coach.
LiVecchi, who lives in Haddonfield with her husband and three young children, was unanimously approved to the position at the Jan. 29 school board meeting, along with Kerin Sulock and Barry Jackson as assistant coaches. She competed in the women’s 1,500 meters at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and won numerous titles at the high-school and college levels.
“She’s had tremendous success in her high-school career, collegiate, professionally being an Olympian, representing the United States at the Beijing Olympics,” Banos enthused. “Her passion and commitment to the sport, her interest in growing in the sport of track and field in town by starting the Haddonfield track club … really lead us to have zero doubts that she’s the right person for this storied program.”
The track club is a developmental program for elementary-school runners that LiVecchi started a few years ago.
Banos said the girls track and field team typically has about 90 members. LiVecchi will start when the season does on Monday, March 9, replacing Jason Russo, a coach for six years who is stepping back in the spring for family reasons. He will remain a cross-country coach.
In the leadup to her new position, LiVecchi has been working with the the cross-country and track teams; they’ve been aware for several months that she would replace Russo.
“I have a good feel for the team at this point, and they’re already really really good, which is a great thing,” she explained. “Coach Russo has had this program, they’re perennial contenders in cross-country, indoor and outdoor track for state titles.
“So I’m stepping into it in a great situation here with a really nice group of kids.”
Banos said LiVecchi has been involved in track and field snce returning to the borough in 2020.
“When he heard that Erin was interested in coming in and helping out … she said, ‘Hey, I would love to be considered,'” Banos recalled. “And we were all like, of course … But now that she wants to take the reigns, we’re ecstatic.”
LiVecchi scored more than 1,000 points on the borough high-school’s basketball team and was a 33-time New Jersey State champion in cross country and track, including six wins for outdoor track; one for indoor track; two for cross country; and a championship in the 800-meter, 1,600-meter and 3,200-meter for the javelin.
LiVecchi won the National Scholastic High School Championship and was named New Jersey female athlete of the year in 2001. She was inducted into the Haddonfield High athletics Hall of Fame in 2016.
