Brewer High School

Glendon Rand has the unique distinction of being the first individual inducted into the Brewer Athletic Hall of Fame for his accomplishments as an athlete and a coach. A graduate of the class of 1980, he was one of the best cross-country and track and field athletes ever to wear a Brewer uniform. After a successful collegiate career at the University of Maine, he then embarked on a coaching career at Brewer High School that spanned 38 years, longer than any coach in school history. 

This hall of famer started his running career, according to Rand, due to a happy accident. That happy accident was Rand’s willingness to give spring track a try during his sophomore year in high school. His science teacher, Bill LoPotro, had expressed to Rand’s mother during a parent-teacher conference that he looked like a distance runner and recommended that her son join the spring track team. Rand knew a few kids on the team, so he decided to give it a try. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

Rand recalls being one of the slowest runners on the team, but he also remembers that something “just clicked” about running distance races and that he felt a real joy while running. He didn’t spend many seasons near the back of the pack; in fact, his improvement was meteoric. During his junior year, in only his third competitive season, Rand was already competing against the best distance runners in the state. He made the state championship podium in indoor track in the mile and the two-mile and posted the second fastest two-mile time in school history. His spring track season was equally as impressive and during that season he set a school record in the two-mile. His senior year, he established himself as one of the top distance runners in the state. Rand led the 1979 cross country team to an Eastern Maine Championship and a state runner-up title. During the indoor track season, he was state champion in the two-mile and set school records in the mile and the 1000. In spring track, he broke his own school record in the two-mile, setting a Penobscot Valley Conference record in the process. Rand’s school record in the two-mile (9:37.8) still stands to this day, 43 years later!

Rand’s Brewer teammate, John Mills, highlights the qualities that truly made Rand special as a runner, “Glendon was a quiet leader, always working hard in practice and always running well in meets. He never seemed to be nervous or scared before a competition, and this gave his teammates the confidence and courage to do their best.” 

Rand’s running career didn’t slow down in college.  At the University of Maine, he competed in cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track. He was a four-year varsity letterman in cross-country and selected as captain in the 1983 and 1984 seasons. His senior year, he was the Maine State Collegiate champion in the 5K. He placed 29th in the New England Intercollegiate Cross-Country Championship at historic Franklin Park in Boston and he competed in the NCAA Division 1 National Qualifier.  In track, he ran personal best times of 4:21 for the mile, 9:14 for the two-mile, 14:56 for 5K, and was on the school record setting 4 x mile relay team. 

Rand’s accomplishments as a coach are equally as impressive. Rand was head coach of the Brewer boys’ and girls’ cross-country teams for 29 years and also served 10 years as Head Coach of the outdoor track team. He coached a total of 76 teams for Brewer High School during his career including two state championship teams: the 1997 girls’ cross-country team and the 2019 girls’ spring track team which earned the first track and field state title in school history. In addition, his girls’ cross-country teams were state runners-up in 1995 and 2008, his boys’ cross-country team was Eastern Regional Champion in 2001, and he’s coached numerous PVC and KVAC championship teams. Out of all the athletes on Brewer’s “Outdoor Track and Field Top 20 All-Time” list in the program’s 107-year history, Rand has coached 80% of them during his tenure.

According to athletes who ran for Coach Rand, his hall-of-fame worthiness lies in something more important than wins on the cross-country course or the track. He is described as a coach who was kind and caring, bringing a unique energy to coaching that made a fun, welcoming environment that transformed the team into more than just a bunch of runners. Rand believed that team traditions teach runners that they are part of something bigger than themselves. Brendan Carr, class of 2006, remembers how Coach Rand used one specific tradition to inspire his team. “At the pre-championship meet pasta feed, Coach Rand broke out Orange Crush jerseys, the same kind that he and his teammates wore during their meets. He would be proud to see our team represent the Brewer cross-country tradition by wearing those jerseys in our Eastern Regional meet. That was just the boost of confidence our team needed.”

For decades, Coach Rand has been a professional leader in the state of Maine. He has served as a cross-country liaison to the Maine Principals’ Association and has served as past president of the Sub 5 Track Club, one the largest and most active running clubs in the State of Maine. Since 1997, he has been the webmaster for the Club’s website, which serves as the hub for race info and results for youth, high school, collegiate and adult long distance running and track and field. In 2002, Rand established and has since served as Meet Director for the Maine XC Festival of Champions, the largest high school sporting event in Maine attracting over 2000 runners from Maine, New England and Canada.

Rand has received several honors over his coaching career, most notably: he was the recipient of the Maine Track and Cross-Country Coaches’ Association Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014 and the Maine Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association Larry LaBrie Distinguished Service Award in 2020. For his achievements as a runner and coach and for his contributions to cross country and track at the local and state level, Rand was inducted into the Maine Running Hall of Fame in 2020.

In 2023, Rand retired from coaching and teaching science for 38 years at Brewer High School. He already has plans to travel to Norway during his retirement in addition to directing the Festival of Champions and timing cross country meets for Brewer Timing Services.   Glendon lives in Orrington and has three sons, Luke, Colby and Dixon. 

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE INDUCTION AND ACCEPTANCE SPEECH OF GLENDON RAND

Inductee Glendon Rand and Presenter David Jeffrey