BELCHERTOWN — New Belchertown High School Athletic Director Kevin McNeill might never have held an AD position, but he brings with him years of coaching experience in not just Belchertown, but Hampshire County as a whole.

McNeill replaces Jen Gouvin, who left Belchertown after five and a half years for a job at Clinton Public Schools. McNeill, his wife and their three sons live in Belchertown, and McNeill said he always wanted to work for the district. He’s spent the past two years teaching physical education at Swift River Elementary School.

“(Taking an athletic director position) is definitely something that I’ve thought of doing,” McNeill said. “I love high school athletics, and I love working with high school kids in the classroom but also on the athletic fields and in their different activities. It’s definitely a really great opportunity to oversee it all and be able to pop in and help out, and at the same time, be able to help out the coaches whenever and however I can is a big thing for me.”

In town, McNeill and his wife started a fast-growing youth wrestling program that hit 75 members this past winter. He also helps out with Belchertown United Soccer Club.

Elsewhere in Hampshire County, McNeill spent 10 years coaching wrestling at South Hadley, in addition to time coaching JV lacrosse. After stepping away from South Hadley wrestling when his third child was born, McNeill came back into the sport and spent the past two seasons coaching at Granby. He’s also called defensive plays for Ware football. At one point, he was coaching all three seasons at once.

In his own athletic career, McNeill played rugby, football, lacrosse and wrestling. He said he hopes his experience in different sports at different schools will help his coaches at Belchertown.

“I know quite a lot of people in the area from my years of coaching,” McNeill said. “It’s nice, I can reach out to different people at different schools and I’ve crossed paths with a lot of them… having those relationships with people in the surrounding communities is going to be really pretty helpful for everyone involved.”

Hampshire County coaches that have previously worked with McNeill described him as knowledgeable but also willing to learn about what he isn’t already familiar with. McNeill said he’s been spending the summer trying to familiarize himself with athletic director responsibilities that he didn’t have previous experience with as a coach.

“From him being our wrestling coach, it’s kind of like ‘go ahead and do your thing.’ I put all my trust in him,” Granby athletic director Dylan Dubuc said. “To be honest, with us bringing in a new coach, reporting scores or making sure guys are in these tournaments, he did all that. All I had to do was bring them the invoice to make sure the tournaments were paid for. He was organized, he was structured.”

Amherst football coach Vinnie Guiel first met McNeill in 2010 as a wrestler for West Springfield when McNeill was the coach at South Hadley. When Guiel took his first head wrestling coaching job at Smith Vocational, he leaned on McNeill for help with paperwork, weight certifications and any other rules he wasn’t familiar with. He called him a “bank of knowledge.”

South Hadley football coach Brian Couture took over the Tigers wrestling team after McNeill stepped down and said McNeill taught him not just about the rules, but techniques for practice and coaching during meets. He studied YouTube videos of McNeill coaching state champion Troy Johnson and modeled his own coaching style after McNeill’s.

“When I talked to Kevin about it, he was like ‘amazingly, you can scream as loud as you want in a wrestling match, those kids don’t hear you. But if you just talk normal, they get it and it comes through,’” Couture said. “That was huge for me in being able to talk on the side of the mat.”

Area coaches also commended McNeill’s dedication to be a force in the development of his players. Amherst and Granby co-op for football and wrestling, and Guiel served as McNeill’s assistant at Granby, while working with many of his Hurricane football players. He said McNeill helped many of his players’ lives off the mat. Nick Rojas, who wrestled under McNeill for his first four years at South Hadley, said McNeill knows exactly how to push his students.

“He wanted his kids to do well in the field, he cared about how kids’ home lives were doing,” Rojas said. “They’re people to him, not just students, which I can’t say for all coaches I’ve seen. It was very apparent to me that he cared. He was there for us in wins and losses. That’s the thing. He coached state champions and people who never placed a day in their life, and he treated everyone with respect and dignity.”

Coaches also predicted that because of McNeill’s experience working with a myriad of different sports, he’ll help Belchertown continue to grow athletic participation rates after rates across Hampshire County dipped during the pandemic.

“The impact he’s going to make on Belchertown sports with getting kids out to run track, getting kids to join the lacrosse team, getting kids who are kind of just in the building, not doing anything,” Guiel said. “You watch, in the next five years, Belchertown with Kev there, you’re going to see a huge uptick in numbers in sports there.”

McNeill has been on the job since July 1 and has been readying all summer for his first fall season in charge. After years in Belchertown teaching physical education and coaching kids in the youth programs, he’s excited to be involved on the high school side.

“It’s a really great place,” McNeill said. “And I’m really excited to be a part of it.”