The fall tournament season left several impressions, but here’s one that really stands out over the last two weeks:

He was watching, you could feel it.

Somewhere, high in the clouds, late former Campbell High School boys soccer coach Bill Miller was guiding the ball to the foot of Cougar Luke Delia nearly two weeks ago on a chilly night in Laconia.

Miller, for those familiar with Campbell boys soccer, guided the Cougars along wih his sons to back-to-back titles in 2018-19.

He was colorful. He was outspoken. He was different. He left Campbell a few years ago to return to NHTI where he had once coached for 13 years, but word from his family came in late August that he had passed away. Very sad news. Campbell has been blessed with coaches who have taught valuable lessons to their players – most prominently former baseball coach Jim Gorham and Miller. Sadly, both have passed but left their mark. There were a few players on the current Cougar roster who knew Miller, but some alums were also there watching who played for the late popular coach whose reputation preceeded him.

“I never met him,” current Cougar coach Brian Henderson said. “There are some who knew him, they told me about him. They just said practice was a lot different.”

Henderson was smiling when said it. To call Miller unorthodox was to call summer hot or November a blah month. But he was the opposite of blah. However, his spot in school history, as Henderson said, should be well noted.

“Hey, he got Litchfield its first soccer title, I like it,” Henderson said. “It started this whole injection in this town, with the youth kids. Litchfield has good youth soccer.”

“Bill was something,” former Cougar A.J. Mangiafico, who watched the title game last weekend and was celebrating with the Campbell throng, said. “He was funny, I’ll say that. He had some odd training techniques, but he made practice fun. He made the game enjoyable.”

Of course, that works when you win, and the Cougars certainly did that.

“I won a championship my freshman year with him,” Mangiafico said. “It was a surreal feeling, just like this right now. It’s something special. Bill was an unorthodox coach but he knew what he was doing and he knew his stuff. He’d convey his message to us and he helped us win.”

It’s funny how things work. Henderson, a tactician, who certainly has his players attention, almost got the Campbell job by chance in 2021.

“I actually moved to Litchfield, I moved to the town because I like the house,” Henderson said. “I didn’t even know they were good at soccer. It’s (the school) right behind my house.

“So I happened to move in and saw the soccer (job) was open.”

How about that? And it’s funny, Miller and his sons showed up at the last minute when the school desperately needed a boys soccer coach as preseason practice was starting back a couple of years before those two titles.

“Back then it was the love of the game,” Mangiafico said. “That’s what Bill definitely focused on, the more you possess the ball, the more you win.”

Pretty simple concept. Its one thing to be different, but if you could be different and successful at the same time, getting your players to buy in, that’s pretty darn good.

“He made the game fun for a lot of us, and a lot of us had that drive to win,” Mangiafico said. “It was just go out there, have fun, and be at the best of your game.”

Mangiafico could feel Miller’s presence last week.

“I think he was definitely looking down on the same field where we won four years ago,” he said. “He would say, ‘Well done boys, now let’s go and have some fun after.’

“Bill was a very spirited man, definitely kept things fun. He got into the game sometimes a bit too much, but he made sure everybody left with a smile on their face.”

Just like all the Cougar fans did last weekend. Congrats to Brian Henderson. And here’s to you, Bill Miller. Gone but certainly not forgotten.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on twitter @Telegraph _TomK.

Newsletter