Athletic directors from Franklin High, Hopkinton and Keefe Tech step down from roles

Now that the school year has come to a close, so have the tenures of three local athletic directors.

Hopkinton's Rich Cormier, Franklin's Tom Angelo and Keefe Tech's Chris Kane are all stepping down from their AD posts.

Angelo and Kane are both retiring after a combined 75 years of service in education. Kane spent all 37 of his years at Keefe Tech, while Angelo spent the last six of a total of 38 years in education at Franklin.

Angelo stepped down after Franklin went through perhaps its most successful run, with arguably the state's most successful Division 1 program across the board.

During Angelo's time as AD, the Panthers won the baseball Super 8 Division 1A state championship in 2018 and the girls basketball team was named co-state champions in 2020 after state championship games were canceled due to COVID-19.

Perhaps Angelo's most rewarding accomplishment  is starting the Unified Sports program, which saw the Unified Basketball team come home from Florida with a national championship.

"To give attention to an area or a segment of our population that also needs support and recognition, and to do that through sports, it just doesn't get any better than that," Angelo said.

Despite all that success, Angelo knew when to call it quits.

"I just felt like it was time," he said. "The hours that you spend as an athletic director, your day starts first thing when you wake up in the morning and my day doesn't stop until I fall asleep."

Cormier, who took over at Hopkinton three years ago after Dee King stepped down as AD in 2019, is leaving to spend more time with his family.

"It was a very hard decision," Cormier said. "It's all I've known for 18 years is working in schools as a teacher, coach and athletic director.

"It became the way that I want to do the job as an athletic director makes it tough for me to be the father that I want to be," he added. "Between picking that and my family, family is going to win out every time."

In addition to Cormier leaving athletics administration, he will also be leaving education altogether. His next professional endeavor will be working for a solar company helping people save money on energy costs for their homes.

"I'm looking forward to my new role in solar," Cormier said. "But I am also looking forward to getting more immersed in my kids activities. They are both athletes and so it is a lot of fun watching them and their friends play and being a little bit more involved on that side of things."

Cormier has twins – one boy, Coleman, and one girl, Adeline – who are both going into fourth grade.

"I don't think I was naïve about what being an athletic director is all about and all that it entails," Cormier said. "I think I was naïve about being a dad. I didn't realize how at such a young age, how many activities the kids have.

"I knew that it would become an issue at some point, I just didn't realize that it would come so soon."

Despite taking a step back for the time being to focus on family, Cormier isn't completely ruling out a return to high school athletics.

"Time will tell," he said. "I have a tremendous love for high school athletics. I have a feeling that I will be dragged back into coaching at some point."

Kane began at Keefe Tech in 1985 as a basketball and baseball coach while he was still the football coach at Ashland. After Ashland, Kane took over the Keefe Tech football program, a position he held for the next 15 years until he took over for Jim Blair as athletic director, a position he held for the next 18 years.

According to Kane, his greatest accomplishment was expanding the athletics program from 12 varsity teams to 18 and specifically starting the girls volleyball program.

"Our first year of girls volleyball we lost every game of every match and went 0-16," Kane said. "Two years later, we have a full girls volleyball program, varsity, JV, and freshmen and go 16-2 and win a league title."

To this day, girls volleyball remains one of the most popular sports at Keefe Tech, according to Kane.

"It's been a great run," Kane said. "I've never regretted my decision to do what I did once, which a lot of people can't say that.

"One job, 37 years. And I loved it the whole time."

Ethan Winter is a senior multimedia sports journalist at the Daily News. He can be reached at ewinter@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @EWints.

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Athletic directors at Franklin, Hopkinton and Keefe Tech stepping down