Ryan McMaster is a History teacher at Ben Davis in addition to being the head coach of the cross country team and the coach of the boys’ distance track team.
McMaster grew up in Wayne Township and went through elementary, middle and high school in Ben Davis school system. Though he is now living with his wife and three children in Brownsburg, he has lived and dedicated almost his entire life to Wayne Township.
McMaster didn’t know what he wanted to do after high school until his senior year. As a senior, he did some tutoring in a math lab through the National Honor Society which he found really rewarding and enjoyable.
“The ladies who ran the program told me that I was actually pretty good at it and that I should consider teaching. It just became a natural fit since I liked history and both of my parents were teachers,” McMaster said.
Following his interest in the stories of the past, he decided to study history at University of Indianapolis.
“There’s not a whole lot of careers out there for people in history unless you are willing to get your master’s degree or really focus on one specific part of history,” McMaster said. “Teaching became one of the things as I looked at careers for people studying history that seemed appealing.”
By the way it was set up, he pretty much followed a double major with a major in history and a minor in education.
However, McMaster explains that he’s not sure what started his interest in history.
“I’m not sure what necessarily sparked my interest in it. When I was a kid, I would go on vacation with my family to places where we could hike or camp. Since it was a long drive, we would stop on the way at museums or just kind of historically important places. I think that it probably started some of my passion for that but I don’t necessarily have a specific moment that made me realize that I liked it.”
He explains that he likes studying and seeing how far we have progressed as a society and civilization as well as learning how people used to live.
In elementary school, he was a soccer player and wasn’t interested in running. One day, one of the lifeguards at his neighborhood’s pool, who was on the 1995 cross country team that had won state, encouraged his parents to have him run the township elementary school race. Though hesitant to run the race, McMaster ended up placing third or fourth overall.
Following this event, he started to do both soccer and cross country throughout his years in middle school before dropping soccer and focusing on running in high school. While McMaster would have loved to continue to do both sports, coaches from both sports told him he had to choose one or the other.
“I liked the team culture of cross country more than soccer. I was good at soccer, but thought I had a higher ceiling in running. I still enjoy soccer and watching games (he’s a Chelsea fan) but running’s been kind of my passion ever since then,” McMaster said.
McMaster started coaching cross country during his first year out of college when the coach of the girls cross country team asked him to be a volunteer coach. He said that it was a natural thing for him to become a coach since he ran from middle school through college.
“Sometimes it’s the highlight of your day,” he said. “If it’s a rough day teaching or just personally, going out there and being able to run and get some dopamine from exercising feels pretty good. You’re also interacting with kids who are motivated to progress and that definitely helps a lot.
“What I like in being a teacher or a coach is seeing the progress of students or athletes. Even seeing a kid change from their freshman year through their senior year and seeing them mature and change in positive ways, is really fulfilling. There are a lot of jobs where you never get to see the end product, but here we do and it’s special.”
After 17 years coaching, he is now the head coach of the boys and girls cross country team and the coach of the boys track distance team. During the fall season, he brought the boys to State and the girls to Regionals which was a big accomplishment for both of the teams since the boys hadn’t made it to State for 25 years and the girls went back for the first time to Regionals since 1998.
When asked why he wasn’t coaching the girls distance track team, McMaster answered that as much as he would love to, it is too hard for him to manage coaching both teams and have time for his family. In Cross Country, meets are on the same day at the same location. In Track, meets are usually on different days and at different locations for the two genders.
Track season officially started on Friday, March 7 for the Giants with their first indoor meet at UIndy. The schedule of our athletes is pretty full for the next few months as they will generally be competing more than once a week. With that being said, we wish our Giants and Lady Giants a great and successful track season.
