TnfNorth Interview with Pete Watson
Andrew Maloney
Aug 26, 2010
A chat with the Canadian coach of the University of North Carolina
Pete Watson enters his second season at the helm of the University of North Carolina cross country program. The London, Ontario native competed for Canada and ran collegiately for West Virginia University before training professionally in Kenya. Following his retirement from the sport, Watson was hired at Auburn University as the head cross country coach and assistant track coach. In his first season he coached Angela Homan in the 10000m to contribute towards Auburn’s women’s track NCAA Championship in 2006. In his fourth season he guided the Tigers men’s cross country team to a 5th place performance at the NCAA Cross Country Championships – their highest finish in cross country in nearly a quarter century. Following that success, he was hired to revive a moribund North Carolina distance program and in his first year recruited the number one rated recruiting class in the United States, as rated by Flotrack. Tnfnorth caught up with the second year UNC coach.