New Bishop Guertin head football coach Anthony Nalen goes over some summer activity details with his players. Official practices begin next Friday, Aug. 11. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – He’s had a career educating youths, but Anthony Nalen has been resourceful enough over the years to know every year is a learning experience for him, too.

Call it the education of a football coach.

“You look back now,” Nalen says, talking about the beginnings of a 17-year career “and you realize you didn’t know as much as you thought you knew.”

So he took thing step by step, and the next step in Nalen’s career officially comes next Friday when New Hampshire high school football teams are allowed to begin practice and he blows the whistle on Elliott Field as the new Bishop Guertin football coach.

“Those first two or three years it was more of a learning curve than getting it down pat,” he said. “As I got older, I figured out what things worked, and what didn’t.”

And now he feels he’s a different coach.

“I think what I put my energy towards is a lot different than what it was before,” he said. “And (knowing) to fight certain battles and not fight other battles. Whether that’s a kid missing a lift because he’s going to summer baseball.”

That used to drive Nalen nuts. But now, he’s a father of four and his own kids miss things in favor of others. “Putting myself in the parents’ shoes is something I’ve done more than the last five years. That’s a little big of a change.

“But even on the football field, some of things I did and how I carried myself before, are different now.”

FAMILY AFFAIR

Nalen first became interested in football when his uncle, John Shea, was a high school coach for Catholic Memorial back in the 1990s.

“I remember sitting in his office, watching him prepare to go up against guys like Matt Hasselback, Brian St. Pierre, it was a cool experience.”

Nalen went on to play high school football in Everett at the now-closed Pope John High School. He was a three-sport captain, and four-year starter at quarterback, and then chose football and played at Springfield (Mass.) College.

“I enjoyed it so jumping into coaching sounded like a good fit,” he said. “I thought that was a good transition in my life, being able to educate young student athletes was what I found my passion in.

“When you’re on the field, it’s either wrong or it’s right, and it definitely felt right.”

After graduating Springfield in 2010, Nalen followed his connections. He got his first coaching opportunity when his old high school coach, Paul Sobolewski, had moved on to coach at Winchester and brought Nalen on to his staff as the freshmen coach.

“It was an awesome experience,” he said. “I had no idea what I was doing, trying to figure it all out and learn from him.”

He then went to join Shea at Cambridge Rindge & Latin for two years as his offensive coordinator. There, Nalen says he learned a lot, and was a sponge, trying to absorb all the knowledge he could.

His first head job came when he was 24 at Matignon High School in Cambridge, which sadly just shut its doors this spring.

Again, he was learining on the fly.

“Just a ton of energy,” he said. “but it was focused on some of the little things that maybe in the bigger picture didn’t matter as much as some of the other things I focus on now.

“I think a lot of it had to do with focusing more on the kids than maybe having that open line of communication with the parents or seeing that vision down the road. It was like that moment, that time, that’s what I was in.”

Nalen coached Matignon for two years, and a program that had one win the year before he arrived had five the year prior to his departure.

It was sad for Nalen to see Matignon close, as his high school, Pope John, had long since closed as well.

“It’s everywhere now,” he said. “It’s tough. I talked to a lot of the players I coached to lend an ear if they were upset. It was a great experience being there.”

Nalen than moved on to a bigger Catholic School, Bishop Connelly in Fall River, Mass. A bigger division, more numbers in the program. Nalen guided the team to a 9-2 record, got Mayflower Conference Coach of the Year honor (a 5-0 league mark) but was knocked out in the playoffs by eventual champ Mashpee.

But this was just another step. Nalen realized as a head coach just how easier life as an assistant was.

“There was a lot of behind the scenes stuff (for a head coach),” he said. “As an assistant, you’re focused on the day to day stuff. You get your practice plan ready to go, you’ve got your seven or eight kids in that one position you’re coaching. Or as offensive coordinator you’ve got to get ready for the opponent’s defense. But that’s it. There wasn’t that conversation after practice with a parent, or that booster club fundraiser we’re going to be doing. There are things that come up as a head coach that you don’t see as an assistant.”

Nalen remembers doing seven or eight fundraisers just to follow through on all the suggestions given him. As he got older, he figured out what two or three would be successful. “You realize what things work,” he said, “and what things don’t.”

What wasn’t working were long commutes. The ride from where he was living at the time, Saugus, Mass., to Fall River was long, and a chance for a teaching job fell through at Connolly. So he was on the move again, this time to Randolph High School. But “it wasn’t something that was a good fit for me. … A tough experience but something I was able to learn from.”

But the next experience proved to be even more tough, despite the fact it seemed like a perfect fit: Saugus.

A CAREER CROSSROADS

The preseason of 2018 ended up being a period that eventually would have Nalen question his love for coaching football. He eventually in those weeks was fired from his head coaching job at Saugus the administration/school board, thanks to an alleged hazing incident. Nalen took the school district to court, and the father of four despite much-publicized support from players and parents saw his football life flash in front of him.

“It weighed a lot on me, had me question whether I wanted to coach ever again,” he said. “The trust issues, or do I really want to put my family through something like that ever again?”

But one thing Nalen learned from it was that the relationship he built with his players “was life long, I still talk with them. It was a great showing by the kids that they supported and loved me. Parental support, booster support, as bad as it was it was uplifting to have that support from everybody in the community.”

Nalen sat out that year, and even if he had offers to join other staffs he stayed home, needing to examine his future in the game. “I needed that year,” he said.

Nalen went to see some playoff games toward the end of the season, schools his friends were coaching at.

The time off served its purpose. Once he went through the off-season, with the dust settling, Nalen began to feel recharged.

“You kind of lick your wounds and get back on the horse, as they say,” he said. “I felt like I had a lot to offer a program, and as an up-and-coming coach, I could turn a program into a positive one.”

WELCOME TO NEW HAMPSHIRE

That is what he found at Epping, where he coached for one year, going 3-6 but liking every minute of it.

“I didn’t want to take just any job,” Nalen said. “I wanted to take a job that was a good fit. And for that year it was.”

Of course, it was off the Nalen beaten path, in a different state,etc. “It was a culture shock, kind of,” he said. “At Saugus we had 85 kids on the team, Epping was a (Division) IV type program.

“It actually challenged me to do some different stuff in terms of coaching. How do you get the most out of each kid? How do you deal with personnel situations – instead of going to second or third string, you’ve got to move the guy (to another spot). It actually made me a better coach, to be honest with you, in terms of dealing with things you don’t deal with at another school.”

Nalen enjoyed the Epping experience, feeling the parents were open to communication and the culture was positive. “It made things very easy, and I feel at times during my coaching career it always hasn’t been that way,” he said. “The Epping families and communities were very open to me coming in and welcomed me with open arms.”

Still, Nalen was on the move again. The athletic director who hired him at Saugus (and had left before the controversy) was at Lunenberg (Mass.) High School and asked Nalen if he would come and take over his football program.

“I actually planned on staying at Epping for a long time,” Nalen said. “But this was very competitive, in Massachusetts, closer to where I live (Tewksbury, Mass. now).”

Still, Nalen was hesitant. But the school’s administration convinced him Lunenberg was the spot for him, and it turns out they were right.

“I had to think about it, because we were headed in the right direction at Epping,” he said, noting numbers were up, program was dropping down a division,etc. But again, an easier commute made the difference.

At Lunenberg, Nalen went 18-9 in three seasons (one of them the spring pandemic season), winning a Midland Wachusett D League title. The Blue Knights also had a 10-game winning streak, had two straight playoff appearances, beat Oakmont on Thanksgiving for the first time since 1978, and had what had been considered rare wins over rivals West Boylston and Littleton.

So why leave all that behind to come to BG?

“The number one reason is obviously BG is a once-in-a-lifetime type job,” Nalen said. “It’s a school that is well known around the state and New England. It’s strong in academics, they’re very competitive in terms of athletics, and they have a sound administration that I felt like cares. Not just about sports, but the whole student.”

But there was a bigger reason: Nalen’s kids. While his oldest son is already at Malden Catholic, his other three children could hopefully attend BG in the future, and he could coach them.

“They all go to a Catholic school right now,” he said. “The other two boys, they’re hopefully going to come here. Having that opportunity to coach my kids would be amazing, something I would cherish the rest of my life. Certainly that was appealing.”

And it’s again, location, location, location – a better commute from Tewksbury to Nashua. Still, he felt torn in leaving Lunenberg, and issued an emotional statement to the players and the community. “It would have taken a school like BG,” he said, “to make me leave Lunenberg.”

NOW AT GUERTIN

Nalen’s first day on the job, he had 45 kids in the weight room, including some 14 upperclassmen who hadn’t played football. Compare that to a roster of just 44 at Lunenberg. “It was exciting,” he said.

He’s certainly not taking over a struggling program – the Cardinals have been in the playoffs the last three seasons – but graduation has hit the team hard. But Nalen feels positive.

“If you look from the bottom up, the foundation’s strong here in terms of players,” he said. “John (former coach Trisciani) did a good job of getting the numbers up. … When you look at the program, there’s a ton of potential. Definitely a place you can back up to where it was during the (former coach) Tony Johnson Era (in the early 2000s) where it’s at a high level every single year instead of having those ups and downs.

“I think we did a good job this of getting kids out who didn’t play. Just hassling them (chuckling). And I’ve talked with the other coaches (of other sports) to try to get their best players communicating with me. And we have a core group of players, so how do you get that core group to get other kids to want to play.”

So Nalen brings them in for a weight lifting session, knowing he’s got maybe one or two chances to make an impression. “If you don’t make a good impression, they’re out,” he said. “Obviously for every three or four you get, we lose one or two that might want to play.”

Nalen teaches technology in Chelsea, Mass., so he’s hoping to see if there’s someone in the school in the next year or so he could have on his staff to be his rep in the building during the day.

“You see the difference in the relationship with the kids, I saw that at Saugus,” he said. “You just don’t have them for that two-and-half hours; I had them all day. That is a bit tough for sure.”

He’s been at BG at least four or five nights a week, the team has weight room sessions (open to all), plus outdoor agility drills, and there are the 7 on 7 leagues BG competes in. He knows there are other things and sports pulling at some of the players.

“You have to work with them,” he said. “We want multi-sport players. … So at times the weight room’s booming, at other times it isn’t what you’d hope. But it’s not like they’re on the couch watching TV; they’re at another sporting event.”

Nalen feels a community sense at Guertin, which suits him. At Lunenberg, he and his family were constantly out in the community even though they didn’t live there. Here, if Nalen is in town wearing a BG cap, someone, usually an alum, always comes up to him.

“It’s a prideful community, and they really care about the entire school,not just athletics, but academics and about the kids. It’s definitely a place I felt comfortable coming into.”

He has meshed well with BG athletic director Ryan Brown, himself a former head football coach (most recently St. Thomas of Dover) and the two talk schematics all the time as well as what it takes running the program.

Nalen, as he mentioned, feels he’s a better coach. Rather than the complicated schemes he used early on in his career, he’s simplified things. “You have to pick the most important core part of it, and make sure they understand it,” he said.

He keeps his players active; more reps and drills than having players stand around. Nalen says he’s also learned to build through the sub varsities and pay more attention to what goes on at that level.

“That’s why we were good at Lunenberg,” he said, noting he expects a program of 80-85 players and his sub varsity staff will be key in development.

Nalen sits during a break from the morning activities session at BG very confident he made the right decision not to abandon coaching after the Saugus experience. Plus he hopes he’s finally somewhere for a long time.

“I tell you what,” he said, “after the whole Saugus thing, if you were to tell me five years from now you would have turned around a Lunenberg program that was a playoff team every year, and won a league title, and now we’re sitting here at one of the best schools in New Hampshire, I’d probably have called you crazy.

“I’m very thankful, and very blessed that I’m able to have this opportunity and be able to do something that I love. …

“There’s nothing more compelling than being at BG. You’re here. You either make it or you don’t.”