New Nashua South-Pelham hockey coach Jordan Sarracco talks to his players during a practice earlier this week at Conway Arena. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING).

NASHUA — Having a new hockey coach for a lot of New Hampshire high school teams is par for the course.

But even more so when a golf professional is the choice behind the bench.

Introducing, the new Nashua High School South-Pelham Kings coach Jordan Sarracco, who once had a career as an assistant golf teaching pro.

In fact, Sarracco opted not to go to Southern New Hampshire University where he likely could have played hockey to instead attend the Golf Academy of America in Orlando, Fla.

“It was a tossup between getting a business degree at Southern New Hampshire and possibly get a spot on the team there,” Sarracco said. “But at the time I decided I could make more with a career of being a golf professional/teaching professional, so I chose that path.”

Sarracco was an assistant pro at a the Country Club of Barry in Vermont, and then at John’s Island in Vero Beach, Fla. “It was a wonderful experience and I absolutely loved the job itself,” Sarracco said.

But Sarracco discovered the career didn’t pay the bills despite the long hours. Long story short, he’s here because Sarracco’s wife said she had seen a posting for the job a few weeks ago, and brought it to his attention.

“I figured I’d just apply and get the ball rolling from there,” he said. “My wife knows how much I love coaching and how I have a passion for it.”

Sarracco grew up in a small town just outside of Montpelier, Vt. and played hockey in high school at Union 32 and then coached a Bantam level team before he went off to college.

After he opted to move away from the golf career and into construction tool sales, which he still does today. He moved to Boston and a couple of years later he moved up to Nashua. While here, three years ago he coached the junior varsity team at Concord Carlisle Regional High School.

“Coaching at the high school level is night and day from coaching at the youth level,” Sarracco said. “There’s the challenge of age gaps, size gaps, to really focusing more on the student athlete perspective – helping the players focus more on their schooling as well as sports.

“But I’d say I enjoyed coaching at the high school level more because you really get to see the players evolve over the course of the four years they’re with the program. You get to see them become the person they’re going to be, sometimes even beyond sports. I enjoyed that aspect a lot.”

This is Sarracco’s first time in charge of a varsity program. He was pretty much hands on and was allowed to have full say of his JV team at CC, and also filled an assistant’s role and learned a lot.

“I like to be more hands on,” he said. “To be able to be hands on and tweak the program in the direction I think will most benefit the players, that aspect of it is something I’m really looking forward to.”

His team at Concord Carlisle finished just over .500, “but I think our biggest success was we got kids really ready to play at the high school level. I had sophomores and freshmen I would have been confident putting into a high school (varsity) game, knowing they had he IQ for hockey they needed to as well as the skills.”

Sarracco after one season in Concord decided to step away and catch his coaching breath. He waited for a job that really appealed to him to open up.

Presto.

The South-Pelham job was perfect. He lives just about five minutes from Conway Arena.

“So there’s a personal tie to it,” he said. “And where I grew up in Vermont, one of the local schools was a co-op, and I knew players from both schools on the team. So I knew some of the challenges that they faced. With this being a co-op team, yes there are going to be challenges, but part of my job is to overcome those challenges.”

Local and a co-op. Perfect fit for what Sarracco said he was looking for, although he wasn’t hired until about two weeks ago. He held a virtual meeting with the players and parents last weekend and practice began this past Monday. He’ll get some extra practice time – despite a holiday pause – as the season won’t begin until Jan. 16.

“For me, it’s a lot of unknown,” he said.

“Which I think is a good thing. I can come in and evaluate things from scratch to see where we stand, and where I want to bring the team to for where the season goes.”

Sarracco said that his goal for year one is to help the team through the COVID uncertainties, protocols, etc., help it “come together and overcome all of these challenges and still see we can have a pretty successful season.”

He did pause a bit before taking the job due to the pandemic, “as there’s definitely more required of me this year than there would be in a normal season.”

But to be part of giving the players the opportunity to play despite the pitfalls was appealing.

“I know it means a lot to all of the players to be able to get back into sports,” he said.

Just like it means a lot for Sarracco to get back into coaching. But there’s still some golf left in him. He’s in sales, so he still plays a lot and there are some opportunities for him to teach the sport. He was running junior and women’s programs almost every day and he misses that teaching interaction.

“There’s definitely a part of me that misses that teaching aspect,” he said. “But I still get to give some pointers and some lessons here and there.”

Best part of his game?

“Best part of my game was and still is from 60 yards and in,” he said.

Let’s see if the Kings can come up with a few birdies for their coach this winter.

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