It’s impressive when a coach is awarded Coach of the Year even once, maybe even if they two-peat. Yet, Quinnipiac women’s cross country head coach Carolyn Martin has exceeded expectations, winning her fourth Coach of the Year award at the conclusion of the MAAC 2025 season.
And while the award was given solely to Martin, she credits her success to her team and staff as a whole for helping lead such a strong squad.
“I think it’s pretty cool, but I think what everyone needs to realize is it’s not one person,” Martin said. “We have an awesome staff that does it, and I feel like our staff is really cohesive. We really work together.”
Martin highlights former head coach Chris Dickerson as a huge help towards the team’s continued success. Dickerson coached the Bobcats for 13 seasons before retiring in 2022; however he still volunteers and hevlps with Quinnipiac cross country and track & field.
“Chris Dickerson has been working with me since I started as a head coach, and now he volunteers and just does it for fun. And he’s a huge part of our success,” Martin said. “I feel like they make one Coach of the Year, but one of my first proposals is going to be, is there needs to be a staff of the year because it’s not what I’m doing, it’s what we’re doing.”
Martin won her first MAAC Coach of the Year award in the 2015-16 campaign, where she led the Bobcats to their first MAAC Championship in program history, taking down the 10-time defending champions, the Iona Gaels.
Martin joined the Bobcats program in the early 2000s, serving in multiple leadership roles over the years, including assistant coach, head coach for both women’s and men’s programs and Director of Cross Country and Track & Field.
“I had great leadership ahead of me. Our men’s coach at the time and our women’s coach at the time would coach me, Sean Green and Ed O’Connor; they were great people for teaching team culture,” Martin said. “They made my experience really well. So I feel like I kind of built off of what they taught me, and we continue to be successful.”
And if you thought Martin’s connection with Quinnipiac starts with her coaching career, you’d be mistaken. A former Bobcats athlete herself, she ran all four years of her collegiate career, serving as captain for two seasons. During her senior campaign, Martin was named to the All-Conference team and an All-New England accolade at NCAA Regionals.
“The passion runs pretty deep. I’ve been involved,” Martin said. “I tell the girls, I’m like, I was a captain, you know, at first I was an athlete, then I was a captain, then I was an assistant. Now as a head coach, I’ve done every role on this team, and it’s been exciting to see full circle, just to be part of it, as long as I’ve been part of it and been able to continue to help it grow.”
As Quinnipiac women’s cross country closes its chapter on another successful season, Martin and the rest of her squad look to the future and the progress her team has made thus far.
“I think it’s really exciting to be able to see our team grow, and to be able to get up there with some of these teams that you know have a lot of pieces of things that we don’t have,” Martin said. “It’s fun to be able to go compete with them and go compete at this high of a level.”
