Northern Essex coach’s long love affair with sport continues
Nelson Desilvestre has now been the head coach for the Northern Essex track and field team for three years and has coached athletes to reach the national competition at the end of each track season. Desilvestre also coaches for the Manchester Essex indoor track team when he’s not coaching the Knights. He also has a big history in competing in track and field ever since he was only eight years old. His first meet ever was when he was in third grade at the YMCA, competing for Prospect Elementary School of Beverly, Massachusetts. He has competed for a total of 17 years. Desilvestre has broken a total of four records in his high school, three are team relays and the last one is an individual record.
His relay team of the four by four have a record of 3 minutes and 25 seconds, the four by two for indoor track with a time of 1 minute and 33 seconds, the sprint medley with a time of three minutes and 39 seconds, and his individual record for the triple jump with a distance of 45 feet and 9 inches. His last four years of competing track were at the University of Maine at the Division 1 level. He’s had a love for this sport for so long that he wanted to become a coach. “I wanted to give back to the sport that helped me get through high school” Desilvestre stated.
His three favorite things about coaching is building relationship with the athletes and getting to know them personally, watching them improve in every race that they do, and see the expressions on their faces when they do something they never thought they could do such as getting a new personal record. “Out of all my favorite memories of coaching for track and field, I would say my favorite memory was when Manchester Essex won the conference championship,” Desilvestre says, “because seeing everyone so happy was an amazing feeling to me as a coach and watching them improve and seeing their hard work pay off.”
Looking to join track next year? Contact head coach Nelson Desilvestre at ndesilvestre@necc.mass.edu or at 978-556-3826. For more information and results from track & field and other sports, visit neccknights.com or follow the official Instagram sports page @neccknights. For more information on how to compete for the knights in other sports, contact Dan Blair, the director of athletics at dblair@necc.mass.edu, or Jeff Mejia, the assistant director of athletics at jmejia@necc.mass.edu or Maureen Saliba, the other assistant director of athletics at msaliba@necc.mass.edu.
