The shortest sprints are in a straight line.
Other foot races have curves.
Kind of like life.
Like Richard O’Riley’s life, for sure.
Many area track and field athletes and fans will recognize that name as belonging to the Valhalla High School coach who has turned a small-school program into a force.
Seventeen medals at the recent state outdoor championships confirm that.
O’Riley was also one of eight coaches, and the only one from the high school level, chosen from across the country by USA Track & Field, to receive fully-funded instruction last month as part of the USATF Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
But it wasn’t that long ago he had a far different job.
O’Riley left teaching Spanish at Albany High School and his work as an adjunct professor and assistant hurdles and jumps coach at the University at Albany to become a top-level clearance linguist for the U.S. Department of Justice.
Working in part out of Albany and San Antonio, Texas, his job involved national security investigations for the FBI.
“I think the experience gave me good global vision,” O’Riley said. “I’d travel here and there. What a career. But I started to miss teaching and always my goal was coaching. Track felt like a friend I’d lost.”
That global vision is coming into play now in his coaching.
After four years with the government, O’Riley, who graduated from Albany in 2000 with a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish and Latin-American/Caribbean studies, and who holds his Master’s degree in…
