Posted by Teddy Panos, Sun Staff
Leave it to Lowell Sun Sports Editor Dennis Whitton to stir the pot around the Lowell High Football coaching position.
In case you missed it, Whitton wrote a Sunday column criticizing Al Pare’s performance, while also throwing plenty of blame in former Athletic Director Brian Martin’s direction for forcing Scott Boyle out in the first place. It’s a must read article on many levels.
For starters, I agree with almost all of what Dennis says. There was no need to remove Boyle as football coach, not with the success his teams had on the field. This argument about not being able to do both the basketball and football job at the same time was ridiculous. Unless there’s something we weren’t told, Boyle’s players were doing just fine in school and weren’t filling up the Police Log in the newspaper.
Where Martin’s reason for the change really gets disingenuous is when he said he didn’t have a problem with Boyle taking that assistant’s job at Central. How could he not take issue with that if the point was to make Boyle accessible full-time to his basketball players? No way! I didn’t buy it then and I still don’t! There was some type of personality conflict there, and the shame is it was allowed to interfere with a football program that was on the right track.
I also agree with Dennis calling the injury excuses overblown. I was very uncomfortable reading week after week about Lowell’s injuries. Sure, they had them. But any great football coach will tell you when you give players an excuse to fail, they’ll fail. The coach should have banned any injury talk, not led the way with it, which I felt Pare sometimes did.
That said, I believe what’s done is done. We can rehash history and the hiring process all we want, but that’s not going to move things forward. Pare was hired to do a job. He deserves a fair amount of time to do that job. One year isn’t enough to initiate the changes in the program and feeder levels that a football coach needs to make to bring it in line with his philosophy. Whether that philosophy will prove successful is open to debate, especially after a 2-9 season, but one year is too soon to tell.
And this is where it gets tricky; because of a unique contract situation, Pare got a 1-year deal to start with. His next contract MUST be for 2-years…the one after that, for 3-years. It’s a Lowell high policy. So the choice is this; end the Pare era now or commit for two more years. There’s no meeting halfway and giving him one more year.
It says here that Pare, a great cheerleader for the program deserves another shot to show he can be a great leader as well. It’s not his fault a very successful coach was let go before he was hired. Give him a fair chance to prove a second mistake wasn’t made with his hiring.
That’s the view from here…how do you see it?
Teddy I feel for Scott Boyle and I know people are going to not agree with me on this. I say this because no matter how much injuries can be used as an excuse as to why teams dont do well, well this time Injuries played a LARGE part to why Lowell didnt do as well as they could have. So when your football team loses your star quarterback for most of the season you should NOT be blamed for not having a great year...
Posted by Shappy | November 25, 2007 9:56 PM
Posted on November 25, 2007 21:56
Brian "what's in it for me" Martin is really to blame. He runs Coach Boyle and Coach Cunha out. He couldn't leave well enough alone - LHS was not producing losing teams. Any new coach should have his contract reviewed after 1 season. Coach Pare may have brought his "cronies" out to the games - but let's see how many show up next year. As with all high school sports, the parents whose kids are starting will be happy, the parents whose kids are not will be heard. Good riddance to Brain Martin and his self serving interests.
Posted by LHS Alum | November 25, 2007 11:53 PM
Posted on November 25, 2007 23:53
Well said LHS Alum. However, I thought we had said good riddance to Martin when he left city hall. Unfortunately, he'll slither his way back into Lowell's ranks somehow. But till then, it's good to see him go!
Posted by T2 | November 26, 2007 3:48 PM
Posted on November 26, 2007 15:48
Very tough call. Was a darn shame what happened to both coaches - Cunha and Boyle (I'll bet Martin would have found a way to get rid of Coach Bossi had he not retired years ago) but I just don't know what to think about coach Pare. So much political "stuff" went into his hiring and then to have such a horrible year makes it tough to commit for 2 more years to the guy. I'd say he deserves another year but if that goes sour you are stuck with him for another year before you can do anything?? Hopefully Martin is truly out of the picture now and cannot do any more damage in this situation.
Posted by dboisver | November 27, 2007 10:11 AM
Posted on November 27, 2007 10:11
What happened to Boyle was not fair, as for Pare, the injuries to the team were real. They lost their starting QB and don't forget Jethro Kolie there best playmaker only played in the first game and was also lost to injury. There were only two other returning starters from last year, Callery oline who missed 4 games due to injury, and Couchu who missed 2 games due to injury. All the other players had virtually no varsity experience. I don't yet know if Pare can do the job or not, but it seems to me that this year is not a reasonable one to make that judgement, I say give him the 2 year contract and lets find out. Also, did anyone ever ask Boyle why he chose to keep the basketball job instead of the football job, he has always said football was his favorite. Could it have been he knew the cubboard was bare in terms of returning talent in football, as opposed to a basketball team that should win the state championship with the returners he has this winter?
Posted by Ed Blaine | November 28, 2007 2:42 PM
Posted on November 28, 2007 14:42
I played for Boyle, Cunha, and also wrestled under Bossi. First of all, Boyle and Cunha should not even be mentioned in the same sentence as Coach Bossi. Also, I believe I would be here for weeks if I was to talk about Cunha, but I will stick to the Boyle subject. When I read about the praise Boyle was getting for going 32-10 over a four year span and how great an accomplishment it was I wanted to throw up. The truth is, the four teams over that span were far better than their record showed. This was not due to defense because these four teams were some of the best teams in the state, which is a representation of boyles great defensive coaching. On the other side of the ball, however, it was very different. Personally, I believe that if Boyle was the defensive coordinator under Pare for the last 10 years, Lowell high school would have a few superbowls under their belt. On another note, sometimes programs just have down years. To bash Pare is unfair, because it is very hard to come in and do things your way and change things around when these kids only know a different(Boyle's) style of football. Plus, there were some devistating injuries and it is clear to see that a majority of the remaining players don't care very much. For reference, Bossi (recognized nationally for most winningest high school coach) had down years. There were several years where Lowell hovered around .500 under Bossi. After Bossi retired for the first time, Mike Kuenzler took over and did a great job coaching the 1996 team to a state title. What would we be saying about Kuenzler if he had stepped in during one of those down years that even Bossi,one of the best coaches of all time, had? Would everyone be saying 'get him out' after one year? I don't know one person that would say Kuenzler was a bad coach and I believe he still would have been a success even if he stepped in on an off year. We should not be so quick to judge and we should see how Pare will rebound from the first season. I honestly think that getting rid of him and introducing a new coach with a third style of football in 3 years will only make it harder on the kids and set the program back farther.
Posted by Connolly | February 27, 2008 12:56 PM
Posted on February 27, 2008 12:56