Greg Lilly was already hard at work on Wednesday, sifting through old football uniforms in the locker room at Mohawk Trail Regional High School.
Longtime football coach Doug McCloud begrudgingly gave him the go-ahead to finally discard threads from the 1984 season.
“Even though he says they’re still in good shape,” Lilly said with a laugh.
It’s the beginning of what Lilly and the Mohawk Trail community hope will be a beautiful relationship. The Class of 2003 alum and former varsity baseball coach at the school was officially hired as the district’s new athletic director this week, filling the role after an arduous hiring process that garnered much interest from West County residents.
Lilly was introduced to the Mohawk Trail community in an email from superintendent Sheryl Stanton on Wednesday morning.
“Most importantly, Greg brings a commitment to developing our athletic program so that ALL students can experience a rich and vibrant athletic program,” Stanton wrote.
Stanton told the Recorder earlier this month that the position was originally posted because it changed from managing just the high school’s athletics to overseeing a feeder program that included younger students in the district. She explained the new AD position aligned with the district’s strategic planning goals.
Lilly said that his decision to apply for the position, which had been held by Greg Vouros since the 2017-18 school year, was largely due to a desire to improve the current state of Mohawk Trail athletics.
“I wasn’t super happy with the direction our athletic department has been headed,” explained Lilly. “I have two kids who are in elementary school and I wanted to make sure that by the time they got to Mohawk, they had the same opportunities I had when I was competing in athletics here.”
This week’s announcement came after a search and hiring process that began in the spring and was suspended on June 10 by Stanton herself. In an email to staff, the superintendent wrote that she was “taking time to reflect upon the process and prioritize the unique needs of the district as we move forward together.”
Vouros was one of the finalists during the first round of hiring, Stanton confirmed, but Lilly was ultimately offered the position and accepted the second time around.
Lilly, an Ashfield native who was a star athlete at Mohawk Trail, played collegiate baseball at Western New England and was the varsity baseball coach in Buckland from 2008-10. Since then, he has been involved as an assistant in a number of high school programs at the school, and has also coached his two sons at the youth level.
“I think having someone who is local, who has skin in the game… that’s important,” he offered. “It shows I’m invested.”
Lilly is one of two Ashfield representatives on the Mohawk Trail Regional School Committee, but he said that he would be resigning that post in order to accept the full-time position as AD.
“Through this whole process, one of the things that kept me focused was I have people here supporting me,” he said. “The reason they’re supporting me is they support the program. I like to think that I work hard, put hard work into everything that I do. And people value that in West County. Everyone knows that being an athletic director is not a nine-to-five job, and I’m prepared to put in the work necessary.”
It’s a position that comes with many challenges. The district has struggled with numbers throughout its athletic offerings, and programs have been cut in recent years. That included the boys varsity basketball team this past winter, as well as girls soccer last fall. Football has been a part of the Greenfield cooperative program since 2020.
“It’s incredibly frustrating,” began Lilly. “We’re absolutely going through a dry patch right now and it’s going to be a tough few years. Our senior class, I don’t think we even have 30 kids in it. If families are unsure if their kids are going to be able to play sports at a varsity level, they aren’t hanging around. As much as academics rule the way, sports play a huge role in deciding where kids go to school. That’s a big part of high school life.
“But we’ve got some great feeder programs,” he continued. “I get the opportunity to work with kids starting at the kindergarten level now… that’s one of most appealing parts about this position. It’s not so much controlling those levels, just supporting them in any way I can. I think we all have a shared goal here: to give kids the opportunities they deserve.”