The Boston Athletic Association announced today that Terrence Mahon, former head coach of the Mammoth Track Club and for the last year the head endurance coach for British Athletics, has been hired to lead and coach a high performance distance running initiative for the organization.

“This has been in the works for a while,” BAA executive director Tom Grilk told me this afternoon.  “We have wanted to get a high performance coach; we’ve been looking around for good people to work with around several fronts.  But we got slowed down by what happened at the marathon this year (the terrorist bombings). Terrence was one of the people we asked if he was interested.”

“Since I got here (January 2011) we’ve talked about the mission of the BAA going back to its beginnings. The mission has always been to promote health and fitness by 1) putting on events, which is what everyone sees; 2) developing community support for kids and adults alike; and 3) the development of excellent athletes.

“Remember, the majority of the 1896 U.S. Olympic team was BAA guys.  So this is just another way of us getting back to the original mission.  We got lost a little along the way, but this (hiring) is a good way to hit the third part of our mission.” (more…)