Milford High School football assistant Steve Scannell moves to the next step of practice on Tuesday. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

MILFORD – Steve Scannell smiled on the Milford High School football sideline a couple of weeks ago, feeling right right at home when he saw a familiar play from his previous football life.

“We did the fake reverse against Plymouth,” he said, referring to the Spartans’ quarterfinal win. “We did that three times with (Rob) Millanette (in the 1980s) and scored. We had suggested that a year ago, it was in our little scheme.

“I didn’t know they were running it, I don’t have headphones. It’s the same type of thing where they take one step. Robbie beat BG with that play. That was a play we had run. Couple kick returns we had in the ’80s (the current team used), which is nice.”

Yes, the late 1980s, that’s when Scannell was the Spartans head coach for a three-year span starting in 1987. For the last 13 years or so, he’s returned to be a fixture on the Milford staff and will be on the sidelines when the 8-2 Spartans take on unbeaten Timberlane in the Division II state title game at Pinkerton Academy in Derry.

What does he do?

“What does he not do?” Milford head coach Keith Jones said. “He jokes around that he just does bandages and tape and brings the shrimp to the coaches gatherings.”

Scannell took the Spartans head coaching job after Al Neville – who later became a fixture on the Nashua and Nashua South staffs – coached Milford for a season. But the Spartans had to play much of his tenure in what was then a complete Class L format (like the other sports) and Milford, still pre-Souhegan, was more or less out of its league. Scannell stepped down after three seasons.

But he was still a fixture at the school as a teacher and also helped out with the wrestling program. When Jones came on board in the early 2000s, he knew he had a coach in the building he could rely on – if he could only get him to join the staff.

“I was always around, and Keith would always say, ‘When you coming back?’ We enjoyed talking,” Scannell said.

His son Thomas was a wrestler, but in his eighth grade summer, he said he wanted to play football. That was the push Scannell needed.

“I figured I had to be here to drive him home, so why wouldn’t I be on the field?” Scannell said. “It was the same kids I had in class, so that was fun.”

So he rejoined the staff around 2008 and has been a fixture since.

His value isn’t as much in the Xs and Os as it is the intangibles.

“When he was the health teacher, he was invaluable in getting kids out for football,” Jones said. “He’d get us those hard-nosed kids who were walking the halls but maybe never played sports before.

“And the stuff as an educator he teaches kids, on the field, off the field, it’s just so important. He’s a wealth of knowledge, and the kids love him. He has so much to offer them in life experiences and making them understand about values, morals, and character.

“He’ll tell you his job isn’t X’s and O’s, it’s fundamentals.”

It’s a staff with two other former head coaches, Rick Urda (Merrimack) and Travis Cote (Bishop Guertin). And Cote, who basically is volunteer for a day or two a week, actually played for Scannell. Scannell helps out Urda with special teams, coaches split ends and defensive backs, but many of the things he does off the field make him invaluable. He basically handles a lot of the nitty gritty organizational details. Paperwork. Emergency details.

“He’s the guy who will have the bus packed before anybody gets there,” Jones said. “All the medical stuff when we go to camp. If the trainer’s not around he’s taping ankles and wrists and everything else.”

Now retired after a 40-year teaching career, he is at the practice field early getting things set up and is there when players check in while most of the staff are still tied up in teachers meetings, etc.

“He probably runs practice by himself for 30 minutes every day,” Jones said.

“We start practice at 3, and that’s my job,” Scannell said. “I love it, they know it, and it’s a great group of people to be around.”

Scannell has the eyes of a veteran head coach. He and Jones were sitting while the players were warming up at practice a couple of months ago, and he noticed something he hadn’t seen in a while: Cohesion.

“I said, ‘Look at the kids out on the field,'” Scannell recounted. “They were all interacting, the younger kids, the older kids. Everybody was out running around. I said, ‘We haven’t seen this before.’

“It was in October. There was something about it. We were taking wide receivers, turning them into linemen. Running backs, making them linemen. Then all of a sudden we’re running the ball, doing everything we can. But the kids responded. That’s why it’s been a great group.”

Scannell has seen the game change in some areas. The five wide receiver sets were tough for the Spartans through the recent years to match up with. But he knows running the ball is the way to go to keep opposing offenses off the field.

He’ll throw a suggestion into the game plan here and there, and as he says, “That’s my limit. I’m off my couch, I’m here, get home for dinner. Watch film in the morning with coffee. This (being around the kids) is so enjoyable.”

After he retired, he was substitute teaching a couple of days a week, but not the last couple of years due to the pandemic. “Here we’re out on the field, outside, I’m much more comfortable here,” he said.

Has head coaching changed, as he watches Jones at work?

“I don’t know,” Scannell said. “It’s paperwork, outside pressures, it’s phone calls, it’s injuries, it’s everything. We have it split up a little bit more on this staff where we do our own little thing.

“I try to take some pressure off of Keith with schedules, I check up on grades all the time. I do what I need to do.”

As Jones said, Scannell has also impacted the program off the field in the character end Jones referred to. Seven or eight years ago players on the football team who were in Scannell’s health class started the Young Kasamas, a student volunteer organization, and they would go to local nursing homes and spend time doing activities with the elderly. “It was the best thing,” he said, “but when COVID hit we haven’t been able to get in there to revive it. The kids enjoy doing it, it’s a wakeup call.”

Scannell dots all the i’s and crosses all the t’s. And loves doing it.

“He does a great job, he really does a great job,” Jones said. “If he ever decides he doesn’t want to do it any more, I think I’d be done. I don’t think I’d want to do it without him.”