Entering the next chapter of Bearcat athletics

Dempsey Quinn took over as athletic director at The Hotchkiss School in 2023 and set the bar high for year two.

Copey Rollins

Entering the next chapter of Bearcat athletics

LAKEVILLE — Team huddles at The Hotchkiss School often break with, “‘Big Blue’ on two. One, two, Big Blue!”

Entering his second year as athletic director this fall, Dempsey Quinn has spent the summer preparing for a “Big Blue” year two.

His first year was met with success in every season. In fall sports, Hotchkiss mountain biking went undefeated to win its league title and boys cross country won the Founders League. In winter, boys diving and boys and girls squash each won their Founders League tournaments. In spring, girls lacrosse won its third straight Founders League title and two golfers (one male and one female) took home first prize in the end-of-season tournaments.

The bar is high for Quinn’s second year as athletic director. In the off-season, two fifth-year basketball recruits were added to the boys varsity team: a 6’8” forward from Brooklyn and a 6’6” guard from Seattle. Additionally, Hotchkiss athletics was represented at the 2024 World Junior Squash Championships by rising senior Oscar Okonkwo.

“It was a big, big learning experience,” said Quinn about his first year in the new job. “A lot of revamping the department and taking a look at what the vision is.”

The son of a coach, Quinn, has been playing sports his whole life. “My earliest memories as a three-year-old were running up and down the sidelines with my father’s high school football team,” he remembered. Quinn attended Avon Old Farms, where he played football, basketball, and baseball. He went on to play Division 1 football at Cornell University.

Immediately after graduating, Quinn went straight into the world of school sports with a job at the Berkshire School, where he worked for four years before deciding to go to Brown University to coach football. At Brown, Quinn got to see a different side of coaching and got a deeper look into the college recruiting process.

But he wasn’t able to stay away from high school sports for long. After a brief stint at the Kent School, he joined the Hotchkiss community in 2020. It was a difficult time, right at the start of Covid. “We were doing remote classes and meals were being delivered,” he recalled. After a second year at Hotchkiss working as a math teacher, football coach, and girls JV basketball coach, Quinn realized that he wanted to try a more administrative role in order to have greater impact on the inner workings of the school and a deeper connection to students.

He became class dean for the seniors of 2024. “That was the most rewarding,” he said. “You learn a lot about how a school is run.” And then, just two years later, the job of athletic director opened up. “Athletics had always been my passion, and I felt it was the area that I had the most impact both on policy and students,” he explained. Quinn decided to go for the position.

In his first year Quinn’s main focus was fixing issues with staffing. Along with that, he developed a new program for coaches, making sure they are supported and developed with the help of student feedback. “The first year is just laying the groundwork,” he said. With that came a key new hire.

“We have recently hired a director of athletic performance,” Quinn noted proudly. Seth Diters, a strength and conditioning coach from Virginia Tech, has joined Quinn’s team. “He has very high-level Division 1 experience and he will have an impact on every program,” Quinn says.

Hotchkiss has sent many players to Division 1 colleges for a multitude of sports. Quinn believes it’s important that Hotchkiss “continues to improve how they present student athletes to the outside audience,” and that it is also imperative that an athlete’s parents and coaches have as much information as possible about the recruiting process.

A goal of Quinn in year two is to welcome the local community to Hotchkiss. The athletic program does things such as host open swims, let nearby schools use facilities, and host camps. “It’s giving back and paying it forward,” Quinn said.

Quinn hopes that more locals will come watch Hotchkiss athletic events, too, from football under the lights to soccer played on gorgeous fall afternoons, “If you are looking for something to do, bring your kids over!” said Quinn, who noted that Hotchkiss is hosting the New England Championship for swimming and cross country along with the Founders League Championship for track and field in the coming school year.

Looking ahead to the next few years, Quinn wants to, “Continue to be available and approachable for students and faculty alike.” Most of all, he wants the Hotchkiss Athletics Department to be supportive of the students who study at the school and the community at large. “I want people to leave thinking that that is an operation that does things well and treats us with respect.”

Latest News

All are welcome at The Mahaiwe

Paquito D’Rivera performs at the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington on April 5.

Geandy Pavon

Natalia Bernal is the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center’s education and community engagement manager and is, in her own words, “the one who makes sure that Mahaiwe events are accessible to all.”

The Mahaiwe’s community engagement program is rooted in the belief that the performing arts should be for everyone. “We are committed to establishing and growing partnerships with neighboring community and arts organizations to develop pathways for overcoming social and practical barriers,” Bernal explained. “Immigrants, people of color, communities with low income, those who have traditionally been underserved in the performing arts, should feel welcomed at the Mahaiwe.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Living with the things you love:
a conversation with Mary Randolph Carter
Mary Randolph Carter teaches us to surround ourselves with what matters to live happily ever after.
Carter Berg

There is magic in a home filled with the things we love, and Mary Randolph Carter, affectionately known as “Carter,” has spent a lifetime embracing that magic. Her latest book, “Live with the Things You Love … and You’ll Live Happily Ever After,” is about storytelling, joy, and honoring life’s poetry through the objects we keep.

“This is my tenth book,” Carter said. “At the root of each is my love of collecting, the thrill of the hunt, and living surrounded by things that conjure up family, friends, and memories.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Beloved classic film ‘The Red Shoes’ comes to the big screen for Triplex benefit
Provided

On Saturday, April 5, at 3 p.m., The Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington and Jacob’s Pillow, the dance festival in Becket, Massachusetts, are presenting a special benefit screening of the cinematic masterpiece, “The Red Shoes,” followed by a discussion and Q&A. Featuring guest speakers Norton Owen, director of preservation at Jacob’s Pillow, and dance historian Lynn Garafola, the event is a fundraiser for The Triplex.

“We’re pitching in, as it were, because we like to help our neighbors,” said Norton. “They (The Triplex) approached us with the idea, wanting some input if they were going to do a dance film. I thought of Lynn as the perfect person also to include in this because of her knowledge of The Ballets Russes and the book that she wrote about Diaghilev. There is so much in this film, even though it’s fictional, that derives from the Ballets Russes.” Garafola, the leading expert on the Ballets Russes under Serge Diaghilev, 1909–1929, the most influential company in twentieth-century theatrical dance, said, “We see glimpses of that Russian émigré tradition, performances we don’t see much of today. The film captures the artifice of ballet, from the behind-the-scenes world of dressers and conductors to the sheer passion of the audience.”

Keep ReadingShow less