Hunters Leaving Loudoun Valley VA For Colorado And New Coaching Challenges

By Mary Albl of DyeStat 

Call it the shortest retirement ever. Back in early 2021, powerhouse Loudoun Valley High co-coaches Joan and Marc Hunter made the personal decision to retire from coaching at the northern Virginia school at the end of the school year. 

“We did not announce this to our athletes or school at this time, just knew it was time for us to be done,” Joan Hunter said. “We had no plans to do anything new. We were just feeling ready to take a break from coaching after a pretty stressful year of coaching due to COVID restrictions and limited competitive opportunities.”

But as one coaching chapter was set to close for the Hunters, another quickly sprouted.

When the Tinman Elite training group, built around their eldest son, Drew, announced the coaching departure of Tom Schwartz back in early March, the team asked Joan to step in and help with the training while they figured out its next move. 

Joan and Marc knew the athletes in the Boulder-based group quite well thanks to numerous visits and interactions at competitions. 

“The Tinman Elite guys had a need, I had the ability to help, and I found that I enjoyed the challenge of working with them,” Joan said. “As I started working with the entire team, I got to know each guy and found myself really enjoying working with all of them. We mutually decided that this would be a good long-term decision.”

Last week Joan was officially announced as the head coach of Tinman Elite. She takes over a program that currently has 13 male athletes listed on the team’s website. 

“The goal is to get everyone healthy, focused on running fast, and qualifying for championship meets and making teams,” Joan said of her vision. “We are in the process of finalizing who will be on Tinman Elite going forward.”

Joan said she and Marc decided that an eventual move to Colorado was something they wanted to do, so on June 19, the co-coaches ended their seven-year run at Loudoun Valley by winning boys and girls VHSL Group 4 state track and field championships for the final time. The Hunters turned Loudoun Valley into a nationally recognized program, beginning with Drew's high school exploits, and won 19 state titles across three sports, including back-to-back Nike Cross National titles in 2017 and 2018. Kevin Shirk will take over head coaching duties at Loudoun Valley.

Joan, who is a mother of nine, brings more than 25 years of coaching experience to her new role, including the forming of NOVA Athletic Club, a youth team in Virginia. She acknowledged the presence of a learning curve, but is looking to carry over her coaching philosophies and training to Tinman. 

“One thing I do well is individualizing training for my runners,” she said. “If I could do that with a large team, I can do that with a much smaller team even better. I am also good at overseeing athletes who struggle with injury, adapting their training and cross training, and implementing injury prevention routines. I have always been a coach who tries new things, asks questions of other coaches, isn't afraid to find an expert to talk to if I don't know something, and always tries to improve my coaching skills.”

Joan and Marc plan to move to Boulder eventually, but for the foreseeable future she will be out in Colorado and March and a few of their kids will join her in the next few months. 

Schwartz, who was the head coach of the programs since the founding in 2017. His departure quickly became a hot topic via social media and message boards. Joan said this past spring was definitely stressful with so much online negativity, much of it based on hearsay or incomplete knowledge of the situation.  

“Pretty quickly, the team decided to stay off of social media and turn towards each other and tune out the noise, which was what was needed,” she said. “As the season progressed, slowly the guys who were healthy started making progress again, and several of the injured guys were able to return to training and even racing, but we weren't where we wanted to be before the Trials.”

The program name, “Tinman Elite.” will stay, Joan explained, as they have contractual obligations under that moniker with their sponsors, adidas and WHOOP. However, she did say they are actively seeking to add two or three women to the group. In her new role, and as a female head coach, she said coaching males is nothing new and nothing she’s given too much extra thought about.  

“The young men on Tinman Elite are older and faster than the young men I coached at Loudoun Valley,” she said. “If my stepping into a job coaching young men inspires other women to pursue coaching careers at a higher level (or really, any level!) that makes me happy.” 

Her new role will also serve as a reunion with Drew, as she last coached him during his highly decorated prep career at Loudoun Valley that included a Foot Locker Crosss Country title and becoming the eighth prep to break four minutes in the mile. She said the main focus is getting all the members of the group healthy and ready for the coming year.  

“(I’m) super excited to work with everyone on Tinman Elite, and happy to be coaching Drew again,” Joan said. “Right now, my main focus with Drew is to work closely with him on his recovery from his foot injury.  We are taking a very conservative approach to returning to running, and working with some new treatments and professionals to restore better function to his foot. We have a couple other guys who are also coming back from pretty significant injuries, and the focus for all these guys will be to recover completely and prepare patiently and thoroughly for returning to running.”