After Jay Phillips, C’05, MT’08, devoted seven years to
He spent early mornings in prayer, at the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception (where he often prayed alongside, proposed to and married his wife, Dale Phillips, C’05. “By the time I had graduated, the Mount community put me into a particularly difficult dilemma,” he says. “The Mount had not only given me more than I deserved but also had given me more than I had the capacity to give back.”
During his undergraduate days, Phillips majored in theology with an education emphasis and minored in philosophy and Latin. He single-mindedly pursued excellence as an athlete who ran track and field, a gifted student in the honors program and a compassionate resident assistant.
He recalls that every interaction with his professors provided awareness and understanding. “They all liked what they did and they poured themselves into their students, athletes
Phillips’ coaching mentor, Jim Stevenson, C’95, showed him what it means to sacrifice for your team. “When someone invests that much in you, it changes you—causes you to grow, to love and to share that desire with others,” he explains.
Tasked with how to live significantly, he had finally received the answer: “I can give others a love greater than my own. I can strive to give others the love of God. I can try to love my student-athletes, my staff, my colleagues in the way that God loves them. So that’s what I try to do.” As head coach of the Mount’s cross country and track and field teams since 2015 and assistant coach from 2008 to 2014, he teaches students the life-changing rewards of focus, courage, resilience, teamwork
The word Catholic means universal. “I love the challenge of bringing such a diverse group together to strive for common goals,” he says. With nearly 120 members, the track and field team is one of the most diverse groups on campus. Teammates are invited to live, love and work next to people who wouldn’t be in their natural social circles. “Every difference they may see in a teammate has the chance to be viewed from a common foundation, a humanizing foundation. They laugh with each other, push each other and cry with each other—succeed and fail with each other; in short, they become real people to each other,” he says of his team members. “The growth from these encounters can’t be underestimated.”
As a result of his time at the Mount, he teaches student-athletes to learn from everyone they spend time with—to pay attention, listen and keep taking steps toward their best selves. In 2018, the men’s outdoor track and field team won their first Northeast Conference (NEC) Track & Field title in 21 years, and Phillips and his staff were voted by colleagues as NEC Coaching Staff of the Year.
Throughout his career, as a runner and a coach, Phillips says the track is a meaningful place on campus where he goes to find solace, joy
“I’ve walked the lanes with athletes and friends in great and tough times. I’ve seen the track mold young men and women into excellent young men and women academically and athletically—it’s a training ground for more than just running fast, jumping high and throwing far.”