By Tom Condardo
Tomorrow afternoon the Pat Lamusta Era of Lynnfield football will begin. The energetic new head coach of the Pioneers will kick off the first practice of the season at 4 pm at Pioneer Stadium.
And for the first time in nearly three decades, I won't be there.
As some of you know from the article in the Villager in April, for the first time since 1989, I won't be roaming the sidelines covering Pioneer football this fall. It's not really a retirement since it's always been a part time gig and I've never been busier with my freelance commercial copywriting business. But it's time to bid adieu to my "hobby."
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| Your Faithful Scribe |
For 11 seasons (1976-1986) covering North Reading for the Transcript and for the past 29 season following the Pioneers for the Villager, I have spent my fall Saturdays and Friday nights prowling hundreds of high school field sidelines charting my little heart out.
I have a two and half year old grandson and a granddaughter due literally any day now in western Mass so I will be spending more time out there. I just can no longer devote the time that's needed to cover the games, compile all the stats, write my newspaper article, and compose my blog posts the way I feel they should be done.
When I started as a wide-eyed cub reporter/advertising rep/layout man/paper deliverer/go-pick-up-subs-for-supper-guy for those late nights putting the papers together, I was using a manual typewriter and a Minolta SLR 200 with no autofocus or auto-advance functions.
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| My Actual Desk with My Actual Typewriter at the Transcript Office 1976 |
My first game was in September of 1976, North Reading at Hamilton-Wenham. Being a city boy from Chelsea, I didn't know Wenham from Mars so in those pre-GPS days I asked Hornet Head Coach Ed Sapienza if I could ride up on the bus. He agreed and that was the first and last time I did that. I went out and purchased a map book the next day.
The final result that day was a 20-0 North Reading win over the Generals and I was off and running all the way to Thanksgiving Day 2017 - fittingly in North Reading - an appropriate ending bookend to my 419 game football writing career.
Lots of Thanks
There are a number of people I want to thank for helping me on this more-than-semi-lifelong journey. First the coaches that I worked with over the years. In North Reading, Sapienza, now a retired Peabody High School principal, and I started our journey together. I was the wet-behind-the-ears reporter and he was a brand spanking new North Reading head coach. He took over a Hornet program that had struggled for years and turned it into a CAL powerhouse winning league titles in 1978-79-80 and going to the Super Bowl in 1979. That was a fun run.
He was succeeded by Gary Sverker who went on to enjoy much success at Lynn Tech. He was followed by Jim Nangle and then Walt Miller. I took a two year hiatus after 1986 but in 1989 my wife and I bought a house in Lynnfield and Al Sylvia Jr. contacted me and said "Great, now you can cover Lynnfield." And that was that.
In Lynnfield I had the pleasure of working with a trio of classy gentlemen in Bill Adams, Scott Brennan, and Neal Weidman. Adams had two tours of duty during my time and he always amazed me with his total recall of specific plays in specific games played years ago.
During some games when the Pioneers would need a boost, the big bear of a man would call them over, huff and puff and stomp around screaming his displeasure, throwing his hat on the ground for the final exclamation point. He would then send his team back out on the field, pick up his hat and saunter by me on the sideline and wink. "Sometimes you have to put on a show," he would tell me.
I covered coach Adams for 146 games and he had a tradition where he would come over to me and shake my hand before the national anthem. We did that 146 times. On days when the sun was shining in your face on the Lynnfield sideline at the old Middle School field, I would have to go on the opposing team sideline so I could get pictures that weren't washed out. But I would have to wait until we did our handshake before I could scurry over there.
Bill struggled through a difficult time in the program when the Pioneers were caught in a perfect storm. Lynnfield's numbers were down but the Pioneers were still playing a full-sized CAL schedule against the likes of North Andover, Masco and the regionals schools like Triton and Pentucket who were big at the time. Suiting up 20-25 kids was not uncommon for the Pioneers. I remember one game in the mid 90's where Lynnfield had 17 kids in uniform.
When Bill left after the 1994 season, he was replaced by Scott Brennan, a young enthusiastic motivator. Think a high school version of Pete Carroll. Always up, always positive, always teaching. Scott is now an Assistant Principal at Triton My son Kevin was on his squads his sophomore and junior years and I couldn't have been more pleased to have my son play for him.
There's something Scott used to say that I still quote today when talking about kids who make the commitment to play football. "You play baseball and basketball, but you are a football player."
Adams returned in 2000 - my son's senior year - and stayed on until 2007 when he turned the program over to his offensive coordinator Neal Weidman. What followed was a wildly successful decade that saw the Pioneers become a juggernaut, winning almost 70% of their games in compiling a 78-34 record.
The Pioneers captured their league title seven of the ten years Weidman was coach including a still alive six championships in row streak. They also won a division title and made it to Gillette Stadium for the school's second Super Bowl.
Neal was great to cover, always cooperative, always available whenever I needed some information or a late quote to finish a story. His wife Jen was always gracious to me as well never mentioning my interruptions over the years. Though I remember one conversation Neal and I had while he was driving on vacation that must have pushed her patience to the limit. No matter the situation, win or lose, he was always right there to face the reporters, many times consisting of just me.
A New Beginning
Weidman announced in March he would be moving on and his assistant Pat Lamusta was named head coach a couple of months later. I first met Pat as a ferocious linebacker who cracked the Pioneers' starting linebacker as a freshman in 2004. Pat was a never-quit dynamo on some struggling Pioneer squads in the mid-2000's but he was always a bright spot during some dark fall days.
I expect Pat to bring that same enthusiasm as head coach. When he was still playing for Framingham State I asked him what he planned to do and he said his long term goal was to be the head coach at Lynnfield. I told him at the time that I had no doubt he would reach that goal. He is someone that is smart, driven and has his priorities in order. One thing is for sure, he won't be outworked.
He has some big shoes to fill and a number of roster holes to plug as he takes over a squad that lost 21 of 22 starters to graduation. But give him a chance and I'm confident he will find a way to continue the winning tradition that has been established.
Thanks also to you for continuing to read my weekly drivel and for passing on the kinds words whenever we met.
So that's it. I'm moving on. I will definitely miss it. It has been a huge part of my life but there is always a time when it has to end and this is it for me. I want to thank all the coaches, players, and parents for making it an enjoyable run. Thanks to the Sylvia family for getting me started and to Glen Dolbeare, publisher of the Villager, for letting me continue. Most importantly, thanks to my wife Noreen who has been a high school football widow for too many fall weekends.
That's all folks. Go Pioneers!
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