Telegraph photo by TOM KING Nashua North defensive coordinator Kyle Tave goes over some adjustments with linebacker Lucas Cunningham during the Titans' semifinal win over Salem last Saturday.

NASHUA – One day at Merrimack High School, when Dante Laurendi was the Tomahawks head coach, he saw most of his defensive players holding hockey sticks at practice.

Huh?

It was one of the many unorthodox, but fun, methods that Laurendi’s defensive coordinator, Kyle Tave, used.

“He brough out hockey sticks so we could work on having a base of form tackling,” Laurendi said with a grin. Just to have their kids have their hands here (waist level), good base, keeping your head up, holding (the stick), good form. … He finds a way to teach if the kids aren’t, well, getting it. And he’s a teacher first.”

And that’s why Laurendi wasted no time in bring Tave with him – among others – over from Merrimack to Nashua North when he took the Titans head job back in 2015.

Tave is one of the most prominent assistant coaches in the area, first as the Titans defensive coordinator but also as Bishop Guertin girls basketball coach Brad Kreick’s right hand man on the bench for four straight titles. When Kreick got the Cards job five years ago, Tave was the first person he called. And it’s been a highly successful coaching combo.

But Tave is getting kids ready for another championship game, preparing the Titans defense for Saturday’s 1 p.m. Division I title game vs. Goffstown and the Grizzlies’ spread offense.

You’ll hear Tave’s voice in these quiet stadiums these days with virus-limited crowds, yelling out instructions from the sidelines.

“The one thing people have told me is no matter what, you can’t change who you are,” Tave said. “You coach to your personality. … That’s just who I am. You have to be yourself, energetic and enthusiastic.”

Or, as Titan linebacker Anthony Greene said, “Crazy. He goes through a lot of stuff through practice, and gets us ready really good for the games.”

There’s always a method to Tave’s ‘madness’.

“How can we get these kids to play fast and have fun,” Tave said. “You want them to play fast and think less.

“In New Hampshire, you have a unique challenge every week because usually it’s against a program that have their own offensive system.”

And the way he gets his players ready for the challenge is huge for Laurendi.

“It’s not so much his philosophy, but just his preparation, what he’s looking to defend and how to defend it,” he said. “And how he hammers home the fundamentals, and gets the message across to the kids is outstanding.”

Tave was a longtime assistant at Alvirne under Broncos coach Bob Nimblett, then joined Laurendi at Merrimack. Laurendi had a lot of Nashua based educators on that staff and Tave found his way into the Nashua school system.

One coach gave advice when Tave was an assistant at Alvirne. “Whatever you can do,” he and the coaches there were told, “try to keep your staff together. Your philosophy, your staff, has to be on board with you.

“So the guys I coach with on the defensive side of the ball, we believe in the same system, we believe in working together.”

Those are coaches like Titan assistants Rob Russell and Tony Santorsa and Eric Fowler, among others.

“These are guys who know what we want to do, how we want to approach the preseason, we’re constantly evaluating and talking with each other about what we have, what we have coming back.

“The best resource is me is listening to those guys, trusting those guys that they’re doing what they’re supposed to do.”

So Tave lets his fellow defensive coaches under him as a coordinator do the work. “Us being on the same page and having fun, the kids see that,” Tave said.

Tave says that the multitude of offensive systems that high school defenses have to prepare for causes a lot of thought.

“What do we need to do to tweak our system so we’re not making the kids think duirng the practice weeks leading up to the game,” Tave said. “A lot of the stress is in the preseason.”

Tave feels the fact that there’s a plethora of returning seniors on defense – like Max Ackerman, Spencer Whiting, Curtis Harris-Lopez, etc. that can tutor the younger players – helps.

This week, the Titans have had to prepare to go from Salem’s Wing-T to this week Goffstown’s spread-to-run – not an easy transition.

“I’ll tell you what, we’ve got to tackle,” Tave said this week. “We didn’t tackle as good last week, and now you’re looking at two strong backs and a good quarterback in (Goffstown’s Jarrett) Henault.”

But that’s the challenge Tave always craves when he’s coaching on that side of the ball.

“The reason I became a defensive guy I think is because growing up, I always felt very confident on the defensive end,” Tave said of his playing days at Mahopac High School in southern New York’s Putnam County. “I always wanted to be in the mix and as a reactive kid. I had confidence.”

It was a blue collar town at the time, and Friday night football games were the thing. “I loved to tackle,” he said, and when he moved on to play at Cortland State, first as a defensive back but then a middle linebacker.

What Tave loved was this: “The challenge,” he said, “of how am I going to stop people.”

Ironically, Nimblett made Tave his offensive coordinator. But as much as he liked that, he still couldn’t escape “the challenge, and the thrill of how to stop this person. How can I combat offenses that are always a step up on the defenses. They’re engineers. They’re constantly coming out with things. Trying to stop what somebody wants to do really, really well.”

Tave knows every town is different. He’s coached in Hudson at Alvirne, at Merrimack, at Pelham – he was the head Pythons girls basketball coach for one season n 2010 – and in Nashua, and BG.

“The one thing you find out is whether you coach middle school, whether you coach girls, you coach boys, you’ll have the same expectations for yourself and for the players. You’re still as demanding, it doesn’t change.”

The difference for Tave between football and basketball, he says, is “Football has shaped me for who I am. I’ve learned throughout. I was cut two or three times in college. And finally I worked hard enough to get my shot as a starting middle linebacker. But all the principles you learn playing the ultimate team game, there’s a passion there.”

He has the passion for basketball and when he coaches girls softball at Elm Street, but, as he says, “Football’s a part of my life, who I am.”

Don’t expect Tave to cave and become a head coach. “I love being an assistant,” he said. “I can really focus on a certain aspect the head coach gives me, be great at it, and put in the time.”

But he knows that being a head coach makes him less of a family man. “I’m a better husband, a better father as an assistant,” he said, adding he’s learned from all the coaches he’s worked for: business like approach from Kreick, organization from Nimblett, delegation from Laurendi. He learned basketball at Nashua Catholic from AD there Bob Boissoneault, and enjoys teaching fundamentals with middle school softball.

How did New York Tave become New Hampshire Tave? After student teaching in New York, he and a friend were looking for a permanent gig, within a four-hour radius of New York. His friend got a job in Maryland, and he told Tave he heard Nashua might be a good spot.

Tave tried to get in touch with the school district – and couldn’t get through or get a response. So he started calling the Catholic schools one by one, and Nashua Catholic beckoned.

And here he came. Then he went from Nashua Catholic, then the Hudson school district, and now he’s at Elm Street.

“I couldn’t be happier where I am,” he said. “I love these kids in Nashua, I love the kids at BG too. Best of both worlds. And I get to coach softball (at Elm Street).

“They say don’t mess with happiness, right?”

And Tave and his Titan defense hopes to be as happy as can be on Saturday.

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