Three Rival High School Football Coaches; 120 Plus Years on the Sidelines; and the Joy of Coaching Kids
Like my brothers and sisters, I grew up on the sidelines of high school football. My father, Tom Flaherty, was a head high school football coach from 1963 to 1991. Two high schools: Pentucket Regional (MA) from ’63 to ’81 and Milton Academy (MA) from ’82 to ’91. He was an assistant college coach at Tufts University for two years, and then returned to high school coaching as an assistant (freshman, JV, varsity) straight through until 2018. Fifty-five years, excluding his pre-head coaching days. He coached a son-in-law and three sons as a head coach, and three grandsons as an assistant.
My idea to record him on StoryCorps came when I realized that he and my mother were spending time in their retirement years with Jim and Bev Stehlin. Growing up, Jim Stehlin was the head coach of Newburyport High School — the arch rival, the enemy. I thought it would be fun to hear these two friends and former competitors tell stories about the early years of playing against each other.
About a week before we gathered, I suggested adding Jack Welch to the interview and my dad instantly agreed. Jack was the Ipswich High School coach in that same era and, like my dad, was a graduate of Newburyport High School.
In 1964, these three coaches competed against each other for the head coaching job at Newburyport. Jack was the internal candidate, as an assistant at the program and a lifetime resident. My dad was the rival candidate, one year already at Pentucket, who like Welch, played for Newburyport (dad grew up in Salisbury). Jim was the outside candidate, from the powerhouse Natick (MA) program. Jim got the job, dad stayed at Pentucket, and Jack became the Ipswich coach.
I asked the three of them to sit down for 45 minutes in my parent’s dining room in West Newbury and share some stories for StoryCorps. Two hours later I stopped the record button. They could have easily gone on for two hours more.
Some highlights: coaching for and against their sons, plays they wished they’d called, best pre-game speeches, broken down buses, broken chalk boards, the time Southie thugs started beating up their own halftime band, top wins, toughest losses, biggest characters, and their shared respect for one another and the players they coached.
All sports coaches have stories to tell — football coaches especially. It’s the hardest sport to coach. The most pressure. The most demanding. Every play comes down to a coach’s decision on formation, direction. It’s a chess match — to this day, all three continue to think about plays they should have called in certain games. It’s physical and it’s probably the nature of the sport, in addition to what these three share locally, that continues to bind them.
Below is a transcript of the interview, which comprises two StoryCorps posts. There may be places where the exact words from the audio don’t match the transcript. That’s either because I couldn’t hear it well or it needed smoothing. I add parantheses in certain spots for context. I’ve also spell checked the names but there is a good chance there are a few misspellings. Apologies in advance.
Enjoy this piece of oral history from three coaching legends.
START OF THE INTERVIEW: I ASK THEM TO INTRODUCE THEMSELVES AFTER I GIVE MY NAME AND AGE:
Tom — Tom Flaherty here, West Newbury, been in this town for 60 years. I’m 83 — No I’m not — I’m 82.
Jim — You’re a baby.
Tom — I’m 82. I’m retired now but I coached football for, wow, 60…40…55 years. And loved every day.
Jack — I’m a little bit younger than Jim over here (from the peanut gallery: “yeah, by one month!”). Born and raised in Newburyport, 1932. Like Tom and Jim, I loved every minute of it. If I had to do it all over again, that’s what I’d do. You’re not going to make a lot of money, but a lot of memories, and you hopefully do a lot of good for the young kids coming through the systems.
ON COMPETING FOR THE NEWBURYPORT HEAD COACHING JOB OPENING, 1964
Tom — I’ve just finished my first year here at Pentucket and I think I’m going to dominate the coaching world. And the Newburyport job opens up and it’s four miles down the road. It’s where I went to high school. So I applied. It was as simple as that. Newburyport was a step up, so I applied.
Jim — At the time I was at Natick High School and I was an assistant. Natick was in the Bay State League but they also played a couple of games outside of the league. One of them was Newburyport and we exchanged films and I was watching the film and it was a night game, at a stadium, and I said to Dan Bennett, the head coach, ‘Where’s this game being played?’ And he said ‘Newburyport.’ And I said ‘Wow, that’s kind of an impressive stadium, is it that big a place?’ And he said, ‘Not really, but they’re in the Northeastern conference.’ So that’s the first I actually saw of it. I always remembered that. A little while later, going into my sixth year at Natick — and I love Natick, they gave me such a great background. Such a championship spirit there. They still have it today. I learned so much from them — I really thought if I’m gonna be a coach it’s about time I went on my own.
Jack — (Jack went to the University of Maine, Orono)My wife did not want to be up in Maine. She said she wanted to get out of snow country. There’s two seasons in Maine. Winter, and July. My head coach Harold Westerman said ‘there’s a coaching job in Newburyport, isn’t that your hometown? They’re looking for a baseball coach and assistant football coach.’ So I went and applied for it, got the job. (The Newburyport football team struggled over the next four years).
A few years later, the Newburyport (head coaching) job opened up and I applied for it. The Ipswich job opened up at the same time so I applied for that too. My wife did not want me to stay in Newburyport. She said ‘you can’t go to the post office anymore, you can’t go to the Park Lunch,’ so I thought, a town 10 miles away was perfect. (The Park Lunch was and remains the most popular restaurant for locals)
ON WHAT THEY REMEMBER ABOUT THEIR EARLY COACHING DAYS:
Tom — My first year, I inherited some great kids, we had a great team. ’63. And, sadly, if President Kennedy hadn’t been assassinated, we would have had 8,000 people at our miniscule high school to play Masconomet because we were undefeated, and Masco was undefeated. We played on the Saturday before Thanksgiving — Newburyport/Amesbury play on Thanksgiving — so everyone is going to come to our game. Kennedy gets assassinated, the game gets moved to the next week. We still had 5,000 people at that game, believe it or not.
So here I am — wow, can I coach. We finished 8 and 1. The next year, we went 8 and 1…8 losses, 1 win. I flipped it, and now I’m certainly not the best coach in the world. In that first season, who do I play in the middle of that season — Jack Welch, the head coach of Ipswich. That’s a long time ago. We weren’t good and your (Jack’s) team was solid. Jack ran the Wing T, ran the 5–2 defense, and we lose. And I am crest fallen.
(Dad indicates he’s got something on this mind — an upcoming apology to Jack).
To this day, I’m sorry about it, and I apologize for it. Jack’s film didn’t work out, and he calls me for the film of the game — and I wouldn’t give it to him. I would not give it to him, the SOB. Well, he kept winning and we kept losing, so it didn’t hurt anything.
Jack — Mike Foley was the captain of the Newburyport in that first year you (Jim) came into the Cape Ann League. He (Mike) lived in the projects in Newburyport for 30 bucks a month or whatever it happened to be. It was actually the Veterans Projects. (My mother and father lived in the same projects).
So I’d come home and he’d (Mike) be waiting for me, he wanted me to throw the ball to him. I had the catchers mask, which came out of the Newburyport budget, and he’d sit on my steps until I came out and threw the ball to him. (Mike Foley went on to become the Colgate University Head Football Coach. My dad tells the same story about playing catch with young Mike Foley).
Jim — The first year I was in Newburyport, I had some really great athletes, and some really great guys. But I couldn’t win with them. Whether it was getting my system across, or just getting the plan together against this hard schedule. We came really close. We were 12 to 8 against Gloucester, close score, but we were losing. Marblehead was doing well, tough league. I took a lot of lumps that year, and that’s the one team I’d like to coach again. Because I thought I wasn’t the coach I should have been for that team. I think we went 1–7–1 but at the end of the year we were pretty good. We tied Swampscott. The next year, I had a great bunch of athletes coming back — Larry Russell, Kevin Lucy, Danny Sullivan, Pat Ladd. The next year, we won the Northeastern Conference, and the next year, we went undefeated. Things were going really well. But there were actually two stages of building the Newburyport program. Because the one stage was when I first came. The other stage was when Newburyport split to form Triton (the towns Salisbury, Newbury, and Rowley split from Newburyport to form their own school). We actually had six or seven starters who were juniors. Some people said to me — don’t play them just, play your kids. (In other words, don’t play the kids you know are going to leave your team and join Triton). But I just didn’t think that was fair.
We really took our lumps in ’71. We played our fourth quarterback who was a sophomore, and we just got killed. But we came back in ’72 — our last year in the Northeastern Conference and we had a winning season. In ’73 we came into the Cape Ann League (Pentucket, Ipswich, Masco…). I really had to learn what Jacky and Tommy were doing and I had to learn about the Cape Ann League . I didn’t know anything about Lynnfield , the others.
We had Mike Foley, the leader of that group and probably the best lineman I ever coached. One of the finest people I’ve ever been around as an athlete. We were doing great until this guy (points to my Dad) bumped us off, and we went 8–1 and we shared the title. (Dad chimes in — “with Lynnfield”). We were undefeated and they beat us.
ON MEMORABLE PRE-GAME SPEECHES
Tom — So, we’re playing — we had the good fortune of having a good team in ’72, ’73, ’74. And so when Newburyport came into the league in ’73 and we beat them 15–7, Pentucket, Lynnfield and Newburyport shared the title — three teams with one loss. The next year we go to Newburyport, opening game, at night, and I put together — when I was young and crazy and believed that the pre-game speech was the biggest deal of the whole day, which of course it wasn’t in the least. So I had my wife find — and actually it was the Lay’s (twins George and Jerry) mother that found it — a little clipper ship (The Newburyport mascot was the clipper ship, IE, the “Clippers”), and we’re getting ready to go out (on the football field), and in the middle of my speech, I pull out the clipper ship, and say ‘this is what were going to do!’ and I threw the clipper ship. Well, not only do I throw the clipper ship, I threw it so hard, my glasses went flying, I had no idea where my glasses were, and out we went. (Jack says, “without your glasses.” My brothers tell the story of crawling on the floor between cleats, trying to scoop up the glasses before they were crushed.)
Jack — One time, and I keep getting reminded of this, but we came in from the first half, and I started talking to them about the situation out there, and I kept winding up, winding up, and the next thing you know I’m out of my mind. And I wanted to punch somebody, so I punched the blackboard and put my fist right through the blackboard. The blackboard belonged to the home economics teacher.
I was more of a pregame talk, rather than a pregame speech guy. Talking about what we have to be doing and that kind of thing. Elliott (Elliott Roundy, Ipswich Athletic Director and former head football coach) was a screamer, my AD, and former coach, so my first game is against North Andover, and we go down there to the Middle School, so he’s outside the locker room and he can’t hear anything, and he thinks its empty, so he goes in and sees me and he can’t believe they’re sitting there listening to me.
One time, as a coach, at half time, he was getting wound up, as he always did, and it was a rainy day. So he’d taken his clothes off and all he has on is his skivvies. So after the speech, he yells “let’s go” and he runs out in his underwear.
Tom— He was a crazy, wild, wonderful man.
Jack — Remember we had the jamboree at your place Jim, and before we left I had some trouble with some kid and I made him run and I wasn’t gonna wait until we came back from the scrimmage. I was gonna do it right now. So I had him on the track running, and Elliott’s driving the bus — because that’s what he did. He wouldn’t hire anyone to drive the bus. But here’s the AD, driving the bus, he’s behind the wheel, and he’s looking at me, and he’s looking at the clock and then off we go to Newburyport. And then we get to the light in Rowley, and he looks at his watch, and he (realizes he’s late for the jamboree) and says (Jack imitates Roundy bashing his head on the steering wheel) ‘oh, no. Jim will not be happy.’
Jim — We always had a blackboard in the visitors locker room and we were playing Swampscott in ’66 and this was our big game. This is probably, in my experience, the most athletes I’ve seen on a field at Newburyport — Swampscott had Jauron, who I thought was unbelievable, and Billy Adams. They were loaded. Billy Adams was a very aggressive, tough kid. I remember after the game, it was a big win for us, it really made our program, established our program. But I remember after the game one of the custodians came to me and said, ‘well you won’t be using that blackboard in that room anymore.’
There was a huge hole through it. I didn’t learn that it was Billy Adams who did it until about 20 years ago. Drove his fist right through it.
Jim — As far as pre game speeches. I always tried to create emotions from speaking low. I never really screamed that much or anything like that.
But I do remember one thing that I said that I thought was important. And it wasn’t to one of my successful teams. But it meant an awful lot to them because they told me so over the years. I mentioned that first year we were 1–7–1 and that was the team I really would like to coach again. But I remember on Thanksgiving, we were playing Amesbury, such a big game, and I said to them, you know, this is the last game we’re going to be together. But I want you to know one thing. Things haven’t worked out as well as I had hoped they would work out. And I’m sure they haven’t worked out for you. Especially you seniors.
But we’re gonna get there. Don’t worry about it. And when we get there, you seniors will still be with us. And I want to tell you one thing. Right now, if I didn’t come up here, I’d be at Natick High School. Natick is 8–0 going into Thanksgiving. I’d rather be right here.
Years after that, they said that was the best thing they remember from that season.
I always try to bring it up from the standpoint of bringing emotions out of us, and how much this means to us and how much we will going from this by being able to play together.
HAVE ANY PLAYERS COME BACK AND EXPRESSED THEIR APPRECIATION FOR YOUR LEADERSHIP
Jack — Many times. Well, just recently, Rich Smith, who I think is the epitome of a person who gets to a point, not so much through talent, but hard work and perseverance. He’s a retired captain in the Navy, JAG officer. He wasn’t the best athlete in the class, but he became the best athlete. He wasn’t the best student in the class, but he became the best student in the class. Captain of football and captain of track and went to Bowdoin where he was captain of football and track. Graduated with honors. And he said to me, I almost went to a prep school, but that would have been a big mistake. I’d have missed the opportunity to play for you.
So that was a moment of thinking what you can do for a kid.
And that’s the other thing about it. When you see that kid come along and starting out and you see him graduate and you see the big difference in that youngster, it has lots to do with being involved with athletics. Especially football being the tough sport it is. It’s not an easy sport. It’s not for everybody.
Tom — I have two examples that I interact with once or twice a week to this very day. I’m playing golf now, twice a week, and two of my linemen from the 1968 football team play golf with us. One of them is very good, he’s the best golfer of the group. They are best friends to this day. They call me coach. They will not call me anything else. And, they can’t. It’s funny how that is. They can’t. And something will happen while we’re playing golf and they’ll say, ‘oh no, here comes the hit and rolls.’
We had a drill, and everybody had to do the drill. It was against the seven-man sled. And you’d start in one end, and get down in your down stance, bang a shoulder, then you have to seat roll, hit one, skip one, and so you hit the odd ones. 1,3,5, 7. And that was my go-to drill for a lot of reasons.
To this day, they say ‘it made it us. It made us.’
ANY MOMENTS THAT STAND OUT AS THE PINNACLE OF YOUR COACHING CAREER
Jim –When I came up here, I knew these people were serious. They wanted success. I was concerned about how much time they would give me. You know, and I had fortunately been around the Natick system, which is tremendous, so I had some good ideas about high school football. But I think I would say there were several games that really meant a lot to us and really turned us around. And these guys know — Gloucester was hanging over your shoulder all the time. The first year we lost 12–8 and the next year we won over at Gloucester and that was great. I think that changed things to the extent of, they thought, ‘well, you’re breaking barriers.’ But there’s no doubt about it. The game that made our program was Swampscott. Where we really got our respect. They had so much respect at the time. That was the biggest crowd we ever had at Newburyport. They were standing on the walls. ’66. The years we had Russell, Andy Sullivan, Kevin Lucy, Billy Cashman, Eddie O’Bara, George Gagalis.
If there wasn’t any Swampscott, I would have never seen the Cape Ann League. Let’s put it that way.
Jack — Unfortunately, it’s the losses that stick with me. Still do. You wish you’d done something different to win that game. Or something you could have done better. Back in ’93, we could have won the Super Bowl three years in a row and we’re playing Newburyport and, I’m just not big on taking chances. Steady type of thing. I always played it pretty safe. Too safe sometimes. By the end of the game, Newburyport had to score and they scored with one second left in the game.
There are four or five of those games that I keep thinking about in the middle of the night.
Tom— They don’t go away.
Jack — But coming into the league, the two big teams were North Andover and Masconomet, and we had problems with them before and so, you had to stand up to those two teams, or may as well go some place else. First game, we play against North Andover we win, and the next year, they beat us pretty bad. So I finally said to myself, we have to get ready for North Andover and Masco, same thing. They’re the team to beat. Because they’re the biggest team in the league.
So we play them the first time, and Walter Roberts is the coach over there. And he’s got this guy named Chew (Steve Chew) — and at the end of the game, he’s still in the game, and he wants to go for the school record, state record, and they’re still handing the ball to him. And I pull out a handkerchief and I start waving the white flag to get him off the field. I’m waving it at Walter. After the game is over with, I go over to him and say ‘nice game Walter’ and I walked away from him. I didn’t shake hands with him. So the next year, I’m thinking, I’ve gotta beat this damn team, so we do. We beat them in an upset and so I go out across the field, and I’m ready to shake hands with him, he looks at me, and says ‘where the fuck were you last year.’
Those teams you had to be ready for. They were very good. It was a challenge to me, and a challenge to our football team, to play with the big guys.
ANY CHARACTERS STAND OUT FROM YOUR DAYS OF COACHING
Jim — One person who always keeps jumping into my mind, and I see him every once in a while now because he’s a painting contractor in the Newburyport area, is Pat McAniff. He is one of the McAniff brothers. I was fortunate to coach four of them — there were five brothers. He was having a great career. He was undoubtedly one of the best football players I coached, and he’s not in the Newburyport Hall of Fame.
But he was something else. He was tough.
He was a linebacker and a full back. In his senior year when he was a captain, we were having double sessions and on the Thursday of double sessions, we would go out to Governor Dummer (now Governors Academy, an independent school) because they had a couple of teams out there, and we’d have a pads scrimmage. So we went out there on a Thursday and on Friday we were going back for two light practices because we were going to scrimmage again on Saturday and we go out in the morning and we’re awful. No energy. Nothing is happening. And we sit them down on the hill in the outfield and I say we’re not getting anything out of this and we’re not going to do that much anyway because we have a big scrimmage down in Stoneham tomorrow but we’ve got to get some things in, and there’s no energy here. You’re not doing anything. And Patrick puts his hand up and says, ‘can I talk to these guys?’ I said sure. So I go over with the coaches and we’re about 20 yards away and Patrick stands up in front of them and says ‘Look, coach is right. We’ve done nothing. Everybody is tired. Yeah we played last night and we’re tired. But I want to tell you something. We’ve got to do something for the rest of today. Or else — I’m going to start slamming some people around. You understand that? Do you guys understand that? You want to get slammed around? I’ll show you what it’s like. Now get up, and get out there!’
They got up, they ran out, and we had the best practice. They were terrified. He was just that type of kid. I don’t think I’ve felt as sorry for him as any player I’ve ever had. In his senior year, we opened up at Gloucester. He scored something like two touchdowns and made 20 tackles. Shut them out. We went over to North Reading, they were going through a fairly good run — shut them out, he scored a few more touchdowns. We go over to Triton, the first set of plays, tears his knee out, he’s gone. I never forgot that. I felt so bad. I remember coaches saying, ‘that kid is a menace. We’ve tried everything.’
He was one of those players, he would look over a scouting report, and I don’t think he understood any of it. He’s the kind of player, when you snap the ball, he’s going to find you. Aggressive, and he loved it. Loved every minute of it. Sometimes when you lose a senior year like that, you also lose your opportunities.
Jack — We’re playing against Pat McAniff, and we had a play, toward our bench, and they’re coming over to our sideline, and here comes Pat McAniff, he hit him hard, slammed him right at my feet. And Pat’s laying on the ground, and he looks up at me and says ‘how do you like that Coach?’
I said, ‘I wish to hell I had you.’
Dad — Here’s Ralph Klein’s history (the Newburyport head coach before Jim). Ralph Klein grew up in Salisbury. His father ran a store, primarily a meat store, right in the center of Salisbury, and Ralph played for Tony Tassinari at Amesbury. They dominated Newburyport. Pre-war, post war, Newburyport couldn’t beat them. They didn’t beat Amebsury until ’53 — Bobby McAniff’s Senior Year: Pat McAniff’s father. (Jack and Jim ask if it was 1954).
Tom — I’ll tell you why it was ’53. Because I was a sophomore, JVs, we didn’t dress, so I was in the stands. And it was McAniff, and Marshall, Canepa, and Reilly. Oh, were they good.
WHICH CHARACTERS STAND OUT, CONTINUED…
Jack — The Gorniewicz brothers and the Galansis brothers. This is ’71, ’72. Peter Gorniewicz was the all-time best running back I ever coached. His mother died very young. His father committed suicide. He was brought up by his sister. The older sister. Yashu (Peter’s nickname) was a character.
We’re playing Amesbury, and, before the game, in the paper, the Newburyport Daily News, there’s an article that he obviously got a hold of, and it said that Mondalto was the best back in the league. And Peter took exception to the fact that his brother was the best back in the league, and not Mondalto.
Peter’s key was the fullback for that game. I can’t think of his name. So, he’s not paying attention to his key, he’s looking at Mondalto. And the other guy is kicking our ass. So I call him to the sideline and I say, ‘your key is the fullback — Ambrose, that was his name — you get Ambrose.
Against you, Tom, both undefeated teams, we score with about 30 seconds to go in the game, with Gorniewicz, and I remember we had one time out left. We call the play, call the time out, so now we’ve got 30 seconds to go and the quarterback says to me, ‘what are you going to run coach?’ And I said ‘we’re going to go off tackle, 733.’ And he said, ‘what if we don’t go in?’ And I said ‘what would you do?’ And he said, ‘I’d run the same play.’ And I said, ‘you’ll be a hell of a coach someday.’
So we score, and Yashu is running along the sidelines and all of a sudden a flag goes up in the air and we get a 15 yarder and Yashoo claims he was going along the sidelines going, ‘we’re number one, we’re number one’ (with his index finger up). But I think he was going ‘we’re number one’ with the middle finger.
That was one hell of a game.
Tom — 32–26. The score is 26 to 26, and we’re driving and we’re feeling awfully good and we run an inside reverse and the hand off was high on the kids chest and his hands didn’t get on the ball and it pops out and this little, shit wrestler — Larochelle — grabs the ball in midair and returns it to our 50.
So now, we stop them. And now it’s third, might have been fourth down (turns to Jack) I’m gonna ask you for the name of the quarterback — not yet. And we’re feeling good and they come out with counter pass to their left, our right, counterpass. Fake to the fullback, roll, fullback in the flat, and we didn’t contain the quarterback and he made the first down.
Jack — He did.
Tom— Right in front of our bench, and then you guys rolled in. And you know what — you were talking about losses. That was a crushing loss, because I wouldn’t show the kids the film on Monday.
However, on the day of the game, it was not a crushing loss. It was one of those football games that you cannot forget. Up and down the field. Two great teams. And it happened.
Jack — That was a fantastic game. Sandy (Jack’s wife) was in the hospital after a back operation. I remember pulling over to the Groveland drug store there and calling her up and telling her the good news.
Tom— I want to go back to the most memorable game topic —
Jack — By the way, do you have the quarterback’s name yet?
Tom— Hold on,
Jack — Sinclair, Gary Sinclair, one of the best throwers I ever had.
Tom— I want to jump back to the game I remember the most. There are two of them. And they weren’t at Pentucket. They were at Milton.
Both were against Noble and Greenough, our rival, the first one was his (points to me) brother, as a senior, and Jeff Perkins, one of my great athletes at Pentucket, is now coaching defense with us (at Milton. Jeff went on to become the Randolph High School football head coach). So this would be the ’72 team, and Jeff Perkins was the defensive end — (to Jack) I don’t remember our game. You probably beat me you bastard.
Jack — ’72? That was Bubbas’s senior year (Bubba Galanis)
Tom— Well then if it was Bubbas senior year —
Jack — You beat us the following year when we had Nathan Sarazy, who could have been the best back I ever had. He was a big Polish kid, 6‘ 1”, 210 pounds, ran track, 100 yard dash, 16 year old kid, so he didn’t play that game against you.
Tom— Good.
Jack — So we practice on the first holiday of the season — Columbus Day? He doesn’t show up for practice. So, I found out he was in Boston visiting his girlfriend, to spend the weekend with her… So anyhow, I ran his ass off that particular day, after walking off the field, I said to him, was it worth it Nathan? And he said, ‘yeah, it was.’
So the next time its Veterans Day, he doesn’t show up again, so I benched him.
Tom— Thank you Jack for a great coaching decision. Okay, so Jeff Perkins, ’72, is running our Milton defense and we had a veteran (coach), Jack Garrity, hockey All American. We’re at Milton. 1984,. It’s our third team and haven’t beaten Nobles yet. And you had to beat Nobles. Jack Garrity (is the defensive line coach) and Jeff is the head defensive coach and Jeff says ‘Tom, I really want to run a 4–4.’ We had probably been running a 5–2 and he wants an eight front, 4–4-. So I said fine, go ahead. Do it. He’s a great kid and I had great confidence in him.
We go into halftime, we have the ball, and we’re down 28–6. The 4–4 isn’t going so well. We get a score, late score, so going into halftime it’s 28–14. And we beat them 46–28. And we had a second half. My son Patrick was part of an awesome group of kids, but I can still see his reverse, for a score, I can still see his stop and go (I interject, trying to correct that it was an out and up). No, stop and go. His out and up was unparalleled, but we were running stops to him. Anyway, that game, oh my god. And guess what, let’s see, that was ’84. Six years later, your junior year, Mike (me) is the quarterback. And here we are again. We haven’t beaten them since ’84, until he (me) arrives. It’s raining, like hell. And we arrive at the game, and it’s at Nobles, so nobody says anything to us, so we go out to the field, and we warmup. They don’t. They stayed indoors to warm up. It pissed off every kid on our team. We were so ready to play football. And this guy (me)… what a game you had Mike. It was just special. We won that game pretty convincingly.
ON COACHING YOUR SONS
Jim — It was quite an experience. First of all, I didn’t want to force him to leave Newburyport and go somewhere else and not play for me. I knew there would be a lot of pressure on him. So I really let him make that decision. Do want to stay here or what do you want to do? And he stayed. You got to remember, your kids, when they grow up with that (being the son of a football coach) — man, they know things that other people don’t know. He probably knew what Larry Russell had for breakfast when he was 7 years old. (I damned near knew what Steve McCarthy and Tom Cadigan had for breakfast…)
So he’d been around, Larry Russell, Kenny Ladd, Kevin Sullivan — who broke my heart when he passed away. Dennis Stevens, he’d seen them all, he knew where every piece of equipment was at Newburyport high school.
He’d be in the office with me. So they (coaches sons) have a different understanding. What I didn’t want to do was put him in a pressure situation. You know, go out and throw the ball 60 pct of the time because he’s the quarterback.
Eventually, he fit into it. I was a little upset that I had to use him his sophomore year a couple of times before he was really ready because we were really hurting at quarterback. He got hurt, a concussion, at North Reading, and they were really good in those days. He had a great year, ended up an all Cape Ann League quarterback, tied for a championship, had some great experiences with it. It meant an awful lot to him. It was fulfilling. It’s pressure on both of you too. When you’re handling 35 other guys, you’ve got to be sure you’re not taking too much care of your kid, or treating your kid a certain way. He handled it really well. I was glad we did it. We had some great times.
Jack — Travis (his son, who played for Newburyport because that’s the town they live in) was very good. A line backer. Wish I could have coached him.
(Ipswich played Newburyport in Travis’ senior year at Ipswich)
We’re ahead late in the game. It’s at our place. So I get into a Power-I offense just to run the clock down. So I look out at him and he looks at me and he knows exactly what I’m gonna do. I’m coming right at him.
We had a big fullback, O’Flynn, comes right at Travis. Travis makes the stop at the line of scrimmage. So Newburyport calls a time out. So I look at him, and he looks at me and he knows what I’m going to do. I’m coming right back at him. So three straight times I run at him — you think I’d be smart enough to run the goddamned ball away from him. Then he blocks the punt. They pick up the ball on the one yard line and score, and we lose the game.
So, how smart am I? I get him and I come through the door and I said ‘wipe that smirk off your face and stay the hell out of the refrigerator.’
Tom — I was at Tufts, he (me) was at Bowdoin, we played in Galway, Ireland. So, the game ended in a tie, we get down inside the ten, and he knows what we’re doing. We’re in a pass offense, and he knows we’re on the goal line so we’re gonna do a play action pass. And, we didn’t score.
ON COACHING LESSONS
Tom — The lessons for me, were always about what you would call ‘the players.’ When I retired, I retired as a head coach in ’92, and then I coached (Milton) right through ’08. What I learned in that time when I wasn’t the head coach is that it’s all about the kids. You just coach them, you learn how they react, you love, you know how to work with them, what to say to certain kids, what not to say. And when I retired, and we came home to this house, it was no different at Pentucket. I was public school for 20 years, private school for 25, and I volunteered at Pentucket for ten years — kids are the same. I don’t care where they are or how they grow up. If you coach them right, and I think the three of us knew how to coach kids, that was the special part. That was the memory. There are so many memories.
Jim — I picked this up early with coaching: you don’t have anything without the kids. You don’t have a job, you don’t have anything. And whatever happens to you, you had better feel that you did the most you could with those kids. And for you to really be able to get something out of your profession, you’ve got to realize how important they are, how much their success means. And if you don’t realize what their success means, you’re not going to have your success. I always thought that was extremely important. I tried to emphasize that as much as I can, I think in all of our cases, the kids that come back to us, and contact us. I feel verry happy that I don’t go through a week where I don’t hear from somebody. I really appreciated what those kids did for me when they re-did the stadium and they put that group together to push for the field to be named in my honor, and I thought that was one of the greatest things they could do. Though I felt, in a sense, that whatever I was able to do for them, they have paid me back so much more, in so many ways by what they have been able to do. Of all the experiences that I’ve had with coaches, you can almost always tell the coaches who care for the kids. And you can always tell that by how their kids talk about them.
The other thing I want to bring up, and I think we all understood this well. The most important thing is not what we teach as far as Xs and Os, offense or defense, or we use this or we use that, the thing that’s important is — you make it important. If you can create an importance among your players to make them realize that the sacrifice that they’re gonna make, the commitment they’re gonna make to your program is worthwhile, then they’re gonna be successful. You talk about selling a program, that’s selling a program.
We all coached in a cherished time. We’re not gonna see that anymore. Not that kind of attendance or community commitment to it. There’s just too much more going on now.
Jack — Football and coaching football is all about family as far as I’m concerned. Family is so important. We have a big family. And you get together, and have respect for each other, helping each other. That’s pretty much what I associated my football team with: family. Everybody is concerned about the person in that group, whether it be a star player or any kind of player, he’s part of the family. So you don’t have a group of guys isolated from another group — the stars of the team. That type of thing. There is no such thing as stars on a team. You come out there, and you join the family. If you don’t behave like you should be behaving, I don’t want any part of you. That’s my feeling. Anybody who tries to instigate problems by talking about somebody else or whatever that happens to be, I’d step in and say, wait a minute now, this is not allowed around here.
I’ve had people come in and think they’re going to be superstars — come from little league football and they show up and I say — who the hell are you? Your part of this team now and you better behave the way I expect you to behave. In the town, around the school. I felt when I was a player myself, that I was part of a family. So that to me is significant.
ON THE ONE PLAY YOU WISHED YOU’D CALLED DIFFERENTLY
Jack — You opened a can of worms now.
Jim — -You think back on all the situations, whether the call was bad or they played it so well. Sometimes you feel you done the right thing but they were there to stop you. More than just the play, there’s sometimes things you wish you would have stuck with, whether it be an offense or a defense, rather than saying I’ve been with this for a while, I’ve got to change. That’s what I think of more. Jack is known for the Wing T, he was the Wing T. Tom had a great offense, a similar offense. I changed a bit, I started off the Power I, I loved the Veer, but I started out with that Power I that Notre Dame ran, in the Larry Russell years, we were very successful with it. And then I went to the Wishbone, I went to the Veer. Sometimes I felt maybe you should have stayed with this a little longer.
Jack — My biggest concern was defense. A few calls I’d like to have back, or lack of a call. Offensively, one time, down on the goal line. One of the times against Newburyport, I don’t’ know if you were coaching then Jim, one of those games a lot of back and forth. There was a quarterback, Jean, Bobby Jean, he threw the ball 35 times that game. I threw the ball twice. We were down the goal line, and we were about to score, which would have won the game at the time, late in the game, couple of minutes to go. We had this kid, a wingback, who went in motion, and I noticed you followed him on the line of scrimmage, so there was a tight end pretty much alone on the cornerback there so I said, well, so I send him in motion, and we’ll throw the ball there. So I said ‘look to the tight end because he’ll be wide open.’ So the wingback goes in motion, and on the play, the tight end didn’t move. He claimed he got held at the line. I should have given it to the fullback who was moving the ball all the way down the field. Stay with him. I didn’t stay with him. Mainly, I think I could have taken a few more chances.
Tom — I have one that just came to me. Thanksgiving, I’m at Triton, game is at Pentucket, in the fourth quarter, a heck of a game. we’re down. We put in Wishbone for short yardage, and we had a pretty solid kid at fullback and a couple of good runners. We were going to score to go ahead. I call a fake to the fullback and give to the running back. And it was the dumbest thing I ever did in my life. Fullback was big and strong, that’s the play, that’s what you do with Wishbone. That’s the one — you know it, the kids know it. Nothing fancy about it. We needed a yard. The kid, Brian Sullivan. Every time I see him he says, ‘coach, what are we gonna run this week?’ That’s the one play.
ON COMPETIING AGAINST EACH OTHER ALL OF THOSE YEARS AND MAINTING THEIR FRIENDSHIP
Jack — Respect is the word. Did I like these two guys in the season? No. But I certainly had respect for them both. And most coaches in the league.
THAT TIME THE PENTUCKET BUS BROKE DOWN…
Tom –We go down to play Lynn Tech. Mike Carr was the coach. Manning Bowl. Mike was pissed at me for some reason. We played in the morning. 10 o’clock game in the Manning Bowl. And we lost and it was a pretty tough game. These two lineman who I play golf with talk about a third lineman on that team, who has since passed — Vynorius. The Vynorius family on 110 — the pile driving company. He was a big kid. And he caught one of their runners, and the kid wouldn’t go down and neither would Venoris, and he ran him right into the Manning Bowl wall. That wall is close. The game was getting wild, tough Lynn kids . We lose, we didn’t play well.
So we’re coming home from Lynn, get off at 133 in Georgetown… there’s a farm there…and we’re five miles from home and the bus breaks down. Bus driver says ‘we’re going to have to wait. We’re going to need another bus.’ I said , ‘no we’re not. Let’s go boys, we’re walking home.’ And we walked home. And thank God the Superintendent was a football father… Oh my god, I’d be fired now, to say the least. We get into West Newbury, and here’s a young sophomore, and he’s six feet, 260. And he’s not ready yet. And his father was a construction worker — tough as nails. And the boy is the last boy and he’s a little bit in front of the coaches before we take the last left. And here comes the boy’s father in a truck. And I’m thinking, ‘holy mackerel, I’m dead in the water.’ And he slows down, and he rolls the window down, and he says, “Bobby — if the coaches beat you home, watch out, because I’m gonna beat you.” And Bobby Silvia — he did not lose to the coaches.
Jack — We had a situation where we were playing Billerica, and on the way there, we’re going through Billerica, and the bus breaks down. So I figure, shit, I’ve got to do something here. You know, a pregame warmup, right? So we do it right there on the golf course. The guy went out of his mind. I didn’t see anything wrong with that.
NEWBURYPORT VS. SOUTH BOSTON, 1976
Jim — One of the toughest experiences I ever had was 1976, and we went to the Super Bowl at Boston University, and we had to play South Boston. It was during the all of the school problems and Joe Crowley was the coach of South Boston and I knew Joe well. So he calls me and says, ‘Jimmy, we shouldn’t play this game. We don’t have the kind of team you have, and we’ve got a lot of problems here. So I said, well what can we do? We can’t refuse to play it…We get the game scheduled and we go down. Great crowd. We sent over 20 buses to the game. We go in to play the game and they’re not very good at all, and especially against Todd Davis, Serwon, and Ronny — really tough kids. The Twombleys, Dennis Stevens. So, right away, it just started. It was 20–0 within nine or ten minutes, so we start to calm it down. But things just started happen. And all of a sudden, we turn around, and they’re rolling people out of the bleachers. Fights and everything. So we go in at halftime.
They had a woman on the school committee — Trixie Palladino (Pixie Palladino) — and she had said we’re not going to let Newburyport come down, with their flashy uniforms, and their bands, and all their flashy things — and they (South Boston) don’t have a band. So she gets the top drum and bugle corps to show up for them. So the drum and bugle corps goes out, and these guys start coming out of the stands (to fight the band) — that’s the band for them! And they start fighting with the drum and bugle corps. It was unbelievable. We finally got them off the field.
Joe comes to me at halftime and says, ‘this is awful Jimmy, and it’s gonna get worse.’ And I said, well I’ll put other kids in the game and we’ll play and let’s see if we can through the game. Well, all of a sudden, they start throwing bottles, there’s fights in the stands, and it was getting brutal, so we eventually had to call the game off with two minutes left. And everybody got right off the field.
Jack — The guy who was the Ipswich High School music teacher later on was playing in that band. So I got talking to him about that game and he said ‘yeah, I was beating some guy with my trombone.’
Jim — We finally get off the field and we had to wait in the locker room for a half hour. And I’m worried about my wife, and Kevin is with me. It was a zoo, and we got everyone out of there.
Jack– Jerry, the guy I was telling you about, became the music director at Ipswich, very talented guy. So his first year there — he didn’t’ really know me, I said hello to him in the hallways — the band is playing, and I’m walking off the field, and I hear in the background ‘hit the road, Jack, and don’t you come back. Hit the road Jack, and don’t you come back, no more, no more, no more.’ So the next time I see him in the hallway, I said, ‘Jerry, do you know who I am? And he said, ‘yeah, you’re coach Welch. I said ‘it’s also Jack Welch.’ And he goes, ‘oh shit.’
My wife says to me, everything about football you remember. Everything else you don’t.
Tom — I hear that every day. ‘How can you remember that and you go to the store and you forgot — you buy minnie chocolate bits instead of regular.’
