PHOTO BY BOB ROCHE.
Karen Guillemette has accepted the position of athletic director at the Monomoy Regional Middle School in Chatham and Monomoy Regional High School in Harwich.
By Anne Marie Tobin
PEABODY — Let’s just say it’s going to be a very busy fall hiring season for the folks at Bishop Fenwick High School.
Assistant athletic director Karen Guillemette announced this week that she will be leaving Fenwick at the end of the fall season to accept the athletic director’s position at the Monomoy Regional High School in Harwich and the Monomoy Regional Middle School in Chatham.
“Being an athletic director has always been a career goal of mine, and this one came out of the blue,” Guillemette said. “It opened quickly, so I went for it and got it. It’s funny because I just had registered for some certification classes, so the timing was perfect. I have loved my time at Bishop Fenwick, but now I have the opportunity to advance to another level.”
Fulfilling a dual position is nothing new to Guillemette, who has worn many hats during her tenure at Fenwick. In addition to teaching physical education, Guillemette also coaches both girls soccer in the fall and girls lacrosse in the spring. She has compiled a career record of 128-51-31 to date in soccer and a record of 135-55-4 in lacrosse.
Guillemette helped lead the Crusader soccer team to three Catholic Central League Large championships (2007, 2010, 2015), earning CCL Coach of the Year honors in 2007 and 2015 and Item Coach of the Year honors in 2015.
In lacrosse, Guillemette’s teams won CCL titles in 2009, 2011 and 2013. Guillemette received Item Coach of the Year honors in 2008 and 2009.
Guillemette’s tournament track record is equally impressive: in soccer, her teams have qualified for the North tournament every year since she began coaching the team in 2006, while her lacrosse teams missed out the first year of the program in 2007, but have qualified the last nine seasons.
Last fall, Guillemette guided the Crusaders to the final of the Division 3 North Girls Soccer tourney, where they lost a 2-1 heartbreaker to North Reading.
“She is a phenomenal coach, just phenomenal,” Fenwick athletic director and football coach Dave Woods said. “Not only does she have all the knowledge that a coach needs about the sport, she has a knack for being able to read a team’s personality to find the ways to motivate her players. She knows which buttons to press, and that’s something you don’t learn, either you have it or you don’t and she has it.”
Originally from Rockport, Guillemette graduated from Fenwick in 1993. She graduated from University of Maine (Farmington) in 1997 with a degree in community health education.
Following graduation, Guillemette coached the Beverly High junior varsity girls lacrosse team for seven years from 1998-2004.
In 2001, she returned to the friendly confines of Fenwick for one year as coach of the girls soccer junior varsity squad under varsity coach Jose Isidro.
From 2002-2004, she served as an assistant coach for the Endicott College women’s soccer team, then got her her first head coaching position at Wheelock College, where she coached women’s soccer for another two seasons from 2004-2005.
Along the way, she earned a Master of science degree in physical education at Bridgewater State University in 2006.
“I had an opportunity to come back to Fenwick in 2006 to teach PE and to coach the girls soccer team, so I took it,” she said. “At the time, they were talking about starting a girls lacrosse program, so I told the AD (Bo Tierney) that I was very interested in starting up the program, so when they made the decision to go forward, I was hired to coach the team and have been there ever since.”
Guillemette, who was named assistant AD in 2009, told the players on the soccer team on Monday afternoon that she would be leaving Fenwick sometime before Thanksgiving to accept her new position.
“They were a little sad, I was a little sad, but they took it well considering I know they have to be a little bit nervous about the future,” Guillemette said. “It’s sad to leave a place I love so much, it’s been such a great experience and I have coached some amazing kids.
“Fenwick has been like a home to me, but I am ready for the next step. Monomoy is a great opportunity; everything is new as the two towns merged their districts just a couple of years ago, so it’s a fantastic school system. I am just very excited to finally achieve a professional goal that I have networked toward over the past several years.”
Woods confirmed that Guillemette will stay on at Fenwick through the end of the fall season. An exact exit date has not been established.
“We’re not exactly sure when her final day will be, but we have already posted the job and have received a few applications, so after that, it will be up to Brother Tom (Zoppo) and Sister Geraldine (Burns) and the Health and Wellness department, which I believe falls under the Science department to take it from there.
“It’s big loss for us, for sure, but it’s something that Karen has wanted for a very long time and I am sure she will do a great job.”