The Pingry School

She began coaching at Pingry in the fall of 2010, following some gentle coaxing by then-Athletics Director Gerry Vanasse, and when the time was right in her career. A position as assistant coach of the Girls' Varsity Cross Country Team, which she still holds to this day, was quickly followed by work with the track & field team—both indoor and outdoor—and head coach roles for the Middle School Track & Field and Cross Country Teams. Not counting weekend meets, which are known to drag on, she estimates she spends 25 hours a week on the Basking Ridge Campus, overseeing Middle and Upper School and practices. Fond memories abound, but one that will forever stand out, she says, is helping the girls' varsity 4x800-meter relay team advance to Indoor Nationals in February of 2018, and watching as they gutted their way to a blazing school record of 9:15.05, a ninth-place finish.

A leading collegiate and then semi-professional runner in the early days of the Title IX era, Mrs. Christensen has some pretty neat memories of her own: A New York City Marathon debut, which led to an Adidas sponsorship; several international appearances, including the first Women's International Marathon Championships in 1982 in Japan (she took eighth); and a qualifying ticket to the first ever women's Olympic Marathon Trials in 1984 (she finished five minutes behind Joan Benoit in a PR of 2:36)—all while launching a successful banking career, it should be noted.

What keeps her coming back to Pingry, season after season? "Coaching was always kind of a dream job, so I was lucky to have gotten the opportunity at Pingry. Considering what I went through in college—injuries and training mistakes—and my experiences running post-collegiately, I thought much of that could help me as a coach, and it has," she says. "I've been able to coach some phenomenal runners, but all the kids are special. To watch them go off and enjoy running in college, or maybe just for fun, that’s great. I hope the kids learn how to get what they want from running, to gain confidence from setting and achieving goals, and finally, to realize that it can be a lifetime sport." 

"Coaching is very similar to being in a classroom. . . you see in a concrete way the time it takes for someone to master a new skill," she says. "One kid is going to get it right away, another will need to see it in a different way, a third will want you to stand with her and do it a few times with your guidance. Coaching is a reminder of the different ways in which kids learn, and the excitement they feel when they master a new skill."

An insatiable athlete growing up, Margi, who joined Pingry in 2004 as a Spanish teacher, was a three-sport varsity athlete and captain in high school. At the University of Pennsylvania, she played Division I varsity lacrosse and club ice hockey (she served as the team's president her last two years). After a junior-year spent in Madrid, she returned to Penn her senior year and rowed crew. Having numerous teaching-coaching experiences, with stints at schools in Bainbridge Island, Pebble Beach, Virginia Beach, and Chicago, at Pingry, she has supported the lacrosse and field hockey programs from the Middle School to the varsity level. 

The mother of three Pingry student athletes who pursue—or will, upon graduation—sports at the collegiate level, Margi has also managed to find time to coach her town's girls' lacrosse rec league for several years. She admires her mother's own athletic experiences, and champions the importance of sport for girls, in particular. "I think girls should play sports because it's fun, healthy, and encourages risk-taking. . . It is really a gift to be able to share that sort of experience with a bunch of high school kids who want to learn and challenge themselves. Perhaps what I love most is the laughter and connections made on the field."

"I knew Ami [Gianchandani '18], Christine [Shao '19], and Ashley Lu '20 through summer tournaments and I'd heard so much about them—they were so good!" she remembers. "I was really intimidated at first, but it was great to play with better players. It was huge for the mental aspect of my game; they taught me so much. Before high school, I thought golf was just a hobby. When I joined the team in the Upper School, I knew it was a sport I wanted to play in college."

Speaking of which, Ami, who two years earlier was helping Zara with her chips and sand shot, is now helping her navigate the college admission process. "She taught me how to talk to college coaches, how often, and when. She even shared with me her inquiry emails to coaches from five years ago!" says Zara. 

Most vivid among Zara's memories as a Pingry student athlete to date is when the team took gold at the 2018 Tournament of Champions, a sublime end to an undefeated season. Everyone played their best, she recalls, rattling off their scores: 70-70-79-80. "I remember Ami had said that if Ashley and I break 80 and Christine goes under par, she would jump in the course lake and yodle," Zara laughs. "She didn't end up doing it, but I remember that. We joked about her promise for two weeks leading up states! It's one thing to be a great player, like Ami, but it's another to inspire other people to become better."

“I had just made an assist to tie the game when I heard a pop,” he recalls. “I fell to the ground and knew something was wrong.” Six hours later, he was in the operating room to repair a stress fracture in his tibia and growth plate. He was disappointed to lose out on his freshman season, to be sure. But the lessons he learned through recovery were valuable ones. “Getting over the injury was pretty hard, but I learned how to be resilient,” he recalls. He attended home games when he could, but spent most of his time focusing on recovery and academics. He won’t soon forget how Assistant Coaches Wayne Paglieri and Jeff Patten visited him in the hospital before his surgery. Or how often Associate Head Coach David Fahey ’99 would stop him in the hallway at school to ask how he was doing.

Anthony looks forward to his comeback in the fall, and to reconnecting with his passion. “I’m a pretty quiet person; I let my soccer do the talking. When I’m on the field, I’m not thinking about anything else.”

Winning two back-to-back state championships as a sophomore is pretty special. Equally special, he says, is being part of—and learning from—such a close group of teammates. A lacrosse player since the second grade, Ben, who also plays basketball for Big Blue, credits his fellow Pingry teammates and the tough competition they face during the season with helping him to improve his game. “But also,” he adds, “the academics have taught me how to manage my time and be productive when I’m not playing. I’ve learned how to prepare better—know when I have an away game, know what work I need to get done, and be proactive about it.”

Halfway through his high school career, Ben is hoping to put another two state championships under his belt. But he doesn’t lose sight of the advice he and his teammates got one day from Coach Webster. “We all talk about the championships, he told us, but it’s really not about the championships. It’s about the relationships you form with your friends and teammates; you consider them family.”

Winter season: Basketball team—again, to try something new. Spring season: Carson, a lacrosse player since Grade 3, proudly makes the Middle School Girls’ A Team, the only sixth grader that year to do so.

Her passion for sport, she says, is partly attributable to her sister, Avery ’19, who is captain of the 2018-19 Girls’ Varsity Field Hockey Team, and her brother, Tripp ’21, who was part of Big Blue’s varsity lacrosse lineup as a freshman. But Carson is quick to point out what benefits she sees for herself: “Sports helped me in the transition from the Lower School to the Middle School—being on teams is a great way to meet other students. And it’s great in the Middle School now to have the freedom to pick what sport we want to play.”

Next year, she’s considering a return to her beloved field hockey in the fall, perhaps giving squash a try in the winter, and, of course, keeping up with the lacrosse team in the spring. Thinking ahead to her athletic career in the Upper School, what are her goals? “It would be great to make varsity field hockey and lacrosse as a freshman, but I know that’s really hard,” she says. “I just want to make an impact on whatever team I play on.”

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Come spring track season, he won every 800- and 1600-meter event he raced. A year later, as an eighth grader, he avenged his runner-up status in both meets the year before by winning the competitive Ed Scott Invitational—on Pingry’s home course—and Gill St. Bernard’s Great Pumpkin Run.

Henry’s love of the sport—and talent—is a family affair. His older brother, Stewart ’14, who captained Big Blue’s cross-country team his senior year, competed for Dartmouth College for a year (an injury forced an early end to his running career). His older sister, Anna ’18, also a standout runner at Pingry, recently broke the indoor track school record in the 3200-meter run. A lover of math, who also plays ice hockey in the winter (“I like to go fast!” he says), Henry embraces the work ethic and persistence that running require. “Like schoolwork,” he says, “you get out of running what you put into it.”