Mount Greylock Coach Ray Miro Ending 'A Good Ride'

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — With one more week in his hall of fame coaching career and four months left in his four-decade long teaching career, Ray Miro is ready to go to work.

“I think the kids know that I enjoy them,” Miro said on Saturday morning at the state Division 3 wrestling meet. “When I come to school, it’s not my job, so to speak.

“One of the things about teaching is if you’ve got passion for whatever it is and you’re willing to do the work, it’s not like a job. The next thing I do is I’m going to get a job.”

This weekend at Taconic High School, Miro was performing the role he has served at Mount Greylock for a quarter of a century. And several of his charges did their jobs well enough to earn him one more weekend of coaching: at next week’s all-state tournament in Reading.

Miro is a coaching legend in two states: at Vermont’s Otter Valley Union, where he built a powerhouse over the course of 10 years, and at Mount Greylock, where his teams won six Western Massachusetts titles.

But for Miro, it’s not all about wins and losses, though he has more than 600 dual meet victories on his resume.

The key to success in work or life is building relationships, he says. And sometimes, and looks like Miro has collected at least as many friends as he has wins.

Watching him work the room at an event like this weekend’s state meet, it is clear where his priorities lie. Sometimes, it looks like the time he spends sitting in the corner during matches is secondary to the time he spends chatting with coaches from across the commonwealth.

“I’ve told people the last few years, I’ve said that’s the part I really enjoy,” Miro said. “When the kids come to wrestle, that’s their time. I know coaches get into stuff on the side. I’m usually pretty quiet. … If you haven’t done your coaching during the week, there’s not a whole lot you can do in six minutes.

“In any sport, you see coaches going crazy on the sidelines and stuff like that. It’s like, ‘Guys, you do your job during the week, you’ve got to try to relax your kids and let them do their thing.’

“A number of these coaches were wrestling in high school when I first started at Greylock. The two Foxboro guys, both really good wrestlers, and I got to watch them. That I’m going to miss.”

It is unclear how long he will miss it or where he will get his wrestling fix in years to come. Miro said he and his wife may move to the Southwest after his June retirement, and wherever he ends up, he is not ruling out a return to coaching in some capacity.

“I need to take a year,” he said. “I need a change. It’s time for somebody else to take the reins and do what they want to do and go from there.”

Miro is not sure who that somebody is.

“I can’t make a decision for my administration, but right now to keep continuity, it would be good to keep the coaches we have now and they can figure it out,” he said. "The difficult part is being outside the school. I coached my first eight years at Greylock outside the school And I think today more than ever with the kids … It gives you that day-to-day interaction.”

Not surprisingly, interactions are what Miro will miss the most.

“I feel really fortunate to be in this position,” he said. "I look back over 41 years teaching and coaching, and it’s been a really good ride. I can say for the most part I’ve enjoyed going to work every day.

“This has been enjoyment. It doesn’t mean you don’t work. It’s just that you enjoy it. That’s the sad part: how many people don’t like their jobs and they’re miserable going to work every day.”