In Their Own Words: Matt Sawyer on Mark Conroy

During a retirement party for Mark and Monique Conroy at the end of the 2023-24 academic year, longtime English teacher and coach Matt Sawyer, who worked with Mark Conroy in myriad roles at Williston, delivered a speech about what Mark Conroy meant to the school. Below are his remarks from that event.


When many of us think about Mark Conroy, his steadfastness, his preparedness, and his diligence come quickly to mind—and those characteristics are part of the fabric of who he is. But I would argue that Mark’s secret sauce is actually his ability to value and celebrate the whole—whether it be a team, or the athletic department, or the Williston community in general—while also having a complete and laser focus on each individual within that whole.

I wish all of you could have been there for Mark’s end-of-practice speeches. The players would be in front of him, breathing a little heavy after some sprints, and Mark would not release them to the locker room before some advice that almost never had anything to do with football. Most famously, he would go silent and look at the foliage while the sun set and urge everyone to do the same (“Boys, I may be biased, but this has to be the most beautiful setting for football in all of New England!”). But more usually, Mark would urge his players to sit in the front row, to talk in class, to get extra help. I remember there were multiple times where Sarah and Will and Anna would be off to the side, waiting for practice to end to take me to dinner, and Mark would call Sarah over to the group. (“Boys, do you know Ms. Sawyer? She runs the Writing Center. What a TREMENDOUS opportunity you all have to get better at writing! You would have to be CRAZY not to visit Ms. Sawyer in the Writing Center…”). Or, if there was a choral concert coming up and one or two of the players would be singing in it, he would have them stand up and give us a preview. He showed the team how much he valued academics and the arts at Williston. What an amazing message for an Athletic Director and football coach to give.

I know I am a much better school person because of Mark Conroy. Working at an independent school is difficult because the professional and personal lines so often get blurred, but what Mark has taught me over the last 24 years is that success in this world comes from an embracement of that blurriness. I know Mark well enough to know that he is an outstanding husband, a caring father, a tremendous son and brother (and an already doting grandfather). He has modeled for all of us the importance of family. But more than that, he has treated all of us AS family. He treats Williston students like his sons and daughters; he treats all of us as brothers and sisters. I may be biased…but I am also right: Mark Conroy is the ULTIMATE independent school person. Every single day with him was “a great day to be a Wildcat.”