Dyer home on BG sideline

NASHUA – This time Dick Dyer’s experience as a high school assistant coach is much more fun.

How could it not be? Twenty years ago, he and John Fagula were pressed into duty at to run the Nashua High School football team after the late Ken Parady stepped down at the end of the school year.

“We didn’t even have time for a coaches meeting,” Dyer recalled. “I went over to John’s house a couple of nights and we put a plan together and said, ‘Let’s give it a shot.’ The first couple of weeks were very chaotic. We didn’t know each other (as a staff).”

But now? He’s coaching perhaps the best group of athletes he’s ever coached as the linebackers coach at Bishop Guertin High School. In 1989, the Panthers muddled their way to a 5-4 mark and a tough first-round loss to Portsmouth. This year, the Cardinals are generally known as the state’s best team and heavy favorites to repeat as Division II champions.

But that’s not why he got back into the high school ranks. Dyer, 60, the former Nashua High School and UMass standout at quarterback and linebacker, has always been active coaching on the youth football level, including his grandsons’ Pop Warner teams. He was a popular coach at the Nashua Boys Club, which years ago basically served as the junior high/freshmen team for the NHS varsity. That’s where he coached current BG offensive coordinator Mark Phillips.

“Mark’s been calling me every year for the last 10 years saying ‘Why don’t you coach with us?’” Dyer said. “But I’d say I can’t because I have a full time job (regional sales manager for a Danbury, Conn. electronics company).

“But this year he called and said ‘We need a guy.’ I said the same thing and he said, ‘Just come down and talk to Tony (Cards head coach Johnson).”

So Dyer did, and the two meshed. The addition of Dyer has followed a trend where the Guertin football program under Johnson over the years has reached out to longtime Nashua area coaches. Phillips was also instrumental years ago in bringing in the late Bob DeMello to help out.

“They’re good coaches,” Phillips said. “We’ve got kind of an old school staff. Dick and those guys were good coaches. There’s a segment of guys who were with Nashua (years ago) that I’ve remained friends with. He (Dyer) has been a great addition.” Indeed, Johnson felt Dyer is a great fit because while he brings old school ideas, he brings new age communication.

“Really, he knows the game,” Johnson said. “He can sit back and say, ‘This is what I want you to do and this is why.’ The ‘why’ part was really never there years ago. The fact of the matter is, the kids respond to him. He has a way of coaching and communicating to the kids the right way and the wrong way.”

“It’s worked out great,” Dyer said. “Tony couldn’t have treated me any better than he’s treated me. A couple of times over the years I’d gone down to practice, looking a specific defenses for specific teams, blocking schemes, etc. I’m having a great time. I couldn’t have walked into a better situation.”

Indeed, Dyer says he’s never, in all his years of coaching, been around a better group of athletes.

“Not even close,” he said. “Not just athletes but good kids, kids that want to learn, they absorb what you tell them. They want to be better. They don’t just go through the motions. From a coaching standpoint, it doesn’t get any better than that.”

Dyer says the high school athlete has definitely changed over the years, and so is the game of football. Even when he played for the legendary Buzz Harvey at Nashua, defenses were man-to-man and the game was more simple on both sides of the ball.

“The game is spread out a lot more (on offense),” he said. “A trick play in my day was the reverse. That’s changed a lot. I’m a real guy for fundamentals. I think if you do things right, winning will take care of itself. But they’re stronger and faster (at BG). It’s my first time back, so I can’t tell you if it’s an every-year thing. But this Guertin team, they’re dedicated to lifting and running. I think we’re actually getting stronger as the season is going on.”

With all the changes, is Dyer coaching the same way he was, say, 20 years ago and beyond?

“I don’t think (his style) has changed at all, to be honest with you,” he said. “It’s ‘Let’s think it through, understand what you’re trying to accomplish.’ If they learn what you’re teaching them, and it makes sense to them, then they can do it. It’s been great.” Dyer has always been in demand. From the moment he was appointed interim Nashua coach for that one season, Fagula was on the phone to Dyer. Phillips has had Dyer repeatedly prior to this year in the press box with him as an extra set of eyes. Dyers sons have always wanted him helping out with their Pop Warner teams.

Dyer will leave a BG practice and head to a youth practice without blinking. He works until about 3:45, leaves BG around 5:30, and then heads to Bedford a couple of days for Pop Warner practice and gets home at 8:30. He’ll have a BG game on Friday or Saturday and then a Pop Warner game on Sunday morning.

“You can’t coach halfway,” Dyer said. “You can’t just show up once in awhile.