Longtime Nashua school athletic trainers Jerry and Michele Holland, owners of Performance Rehbab, Inc., have a lot of memories as the wall behind them shows. The pair are ending their school duties to lighten their work while their clinic will still remain in business. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – The walls in some respect turn the offices/clinic at Performance Rehab, Inc. into a Nashua High and Nashua North-South museum.

If you have the time, trainer Gerry Holland and his wife Michele will take you through each framed photo, autographed memorabilia, framed newspaper article, etc.

It’s a lifetime of memories.

That made the decision for the pair to end their contract as the athletic training provider to the Nashua school district, mainly Nashua High School North and South, a difficult one. Their offices and clinic are located right across Riverside Drive from Nashua South, and don’t be confused, they are still seeing patients for physical therapy, etc. But the Hollands and their staff have been on school job since 1989, and now it’s time to slow down and leave the sidelines behind.

But what they’ve seen and experienced from the sidelines of high school events for 35-plus years is, well, history.

“The people in town kind of took to us right from the jump,” Jerry Holland said. “I used to always say the players were like my kids before we had our own – especially the Ayi brothers (former Nashua High standouts Kole and Femi). Those guys. I got a tremendous text from Femi when he found out we were going to retire from the high school (work), it was awesome.

“Some of the memories, the great teams – Bobby Aylward (former Nashua football coach) for five years was tremendous, we’re still good friends with Bob, we see him in Maine all the time. Bob had some great teams, didn’t get over the hump, unfortunately, because Pinkerton got in the way. Billy Hardy then took over – the greatest pregame and halftime talks.”

That’s the thing. The Hollands have seen and heard it all, being in the locker rooms and on the sidelines before, during and after games. Practices. Meetings. Everything.

“(Hardy) gave one of the greatest talks after Londonderry in ’96 (in the Division I title game),” Jerry Holland said. “Tremendous game. The talk he gave the kids was amazing. Then we came back and won it the following year. I can’t tell you his exact words – you probably couldn’t print them all – but just the way he conveyed his message to the kids when they were hurting. We missed the late field goal, but he rallied the troops. It was impressive. I made it a point to always be there for the pregame and halftime talks with Billy.”

One of the craziest talks that Holland heard was from Femi Ayi, who came back as an alum for a North-South Thanksgiving game and was asked by south coach Scott Knight to address the team at halftime.

“He gave, let’s just say, a spirited halftime talk,” Holland said with a chuckle. “If you were to ask (former Panther) Max Osgood, he was probably never spoken to like that ever before.

“It was a close game and he was, let’s just say, a little disgruntled with what was happening on the field.”

Holland also enjoyed working with former North coach Jason Robie and listening to his talks – “Never met a microphone he didn’t like, he’s a good friend” and some others by late famous Hall of Fame track coach Pauline Albert.

“Bobby Aylward used to say Pauline could coach football, and he meant that as a compliment,” Jerry Holland said. “Her famous line: ‘We do not rebuild, we reload.’ Never forget it.”

All lifelong friends. Holland gets silent and understandably emotional when he thinks of late South head boys lacrosse and assistant football coach Bill Monsen, who coached the Hollands’ son, Sean, in both sports. Monsen passed away due to complications from a sudden heart attack nearly two years ago. Holland will never forget the outpouring of support the night the Belanger Gym was filled to memorialize Monsen in December of 2022.

HOLLAND’S ARRIVAL

Former Nashua athletic director Al Harrington hired Holland back in 1989, and Holland remembers Harrington fondly.

“I still remember going into his office Day One,” Holland said. “I always joke I think he hired me because I was Irish from Massachusetts like him. He was great to me. Al was good. Obviously the position has changed tenfold since then, what Lisa (current longtime AD Gingras) does with two schools is incredible.

“But Al was old school, and he was loyal. I think the first time I was ever at a private country club was the day he interviewed me over at Nashua Country Club on the deck overlooking the pool. I thought, ‘Hey, this is kinda nice.'” It was great. I was a blue collar kid from the South Shore.”

That was the year the now late legendary Nashua girls basketball coach John Fagula took over the Nashua football program on an interim basis for just that one season. And then the Hollands worked with Fagula during girls basketball season. In fact, Michele would scrimmage at practice as she had been a standout high school player in Lawrence, Mass.

“I can’t tell you how many times the girls program had won since I came around,” Jerry Holland said. “John would approach (talks) a little bit differently. He was such a tactitician.”

One of the greatest things Holland remembers about Fagula was when one of his daughters was playing middle school basketball in Londonderry – Fagula had left Nashua to take over Londonderry. The team was playing in a state middle school championship at Pinkerton.

“Our daughter Maeve went over to him, because he came into the huddle, they kind of broke down something, they were talking,” Holland said. “I wish I had the video. It was amazing. They go back on the court, and they shut down (the opposition) and won the game. Just the conversations he was having with our daughter. He knew the game inside and out. Never got really crazy on sideline. He did all his work in practice, as the great coaches all do. He knew the Xs and Os.”

THE BIG GAMES

Holland still goes back to that 1996 title game in Londonderry. It was televised live on WMUR, there were TV timeouts, a helicopter flying over. “It was a beautiful day, a phenomenal atmosphere,” he said. “But another game that jumps out to me was a championship game vs. Pinkerton at Stellos (2007), my son Sean was on the sidelines with us. We (South) were favored, Billy Ferriter was the quarterback, and we lose a heartbreaker.

“At the end of the game, I always remember, Coach Knight had a party planned at his house, and everyone was obviously disappointed,” Holland said. “And Sean said, ‘Dad, we’re going home, right?’ And I said ‘No we’re not, Coach Knight is having a party, we’re supposed to go.”

Sean Holland told his father that well, since the team lost, he didn’t think there’d be a party.

“We had a great year, it was disappointing,” Holland said. “We go, there was great food and drink, as always at Coach Knight’s house.

“Fast forward the following year, now the championship game, we’re back in it, and we’re underdogs at Pinkerton. But we ended up winning in double overtime (33-32, a classic). In one year’s time, my son (experienced) what was like a microcosim of life. The highs, the lows.”

Another game that stands out was in 2001 when the one Nashua beat Alvirne 11-4 in the Class L title game, when current Silver Knights manager and former Red Sox farmhand Kyle Jackson was Broncos stud pitcher and B.J. Neverett – for whom Jackson served as Knights pitching coach – was the Panthers coach. And one of the Fagula tourney games, a rare loss to Alvirne in the tourney, and some Nashua players were ill. The next year, 1995, Nashua faced Alvirne in the Class L finals and won 68-42 led by Mickey Cernuda. “I remember Mickey hitting a shot early, a Caitlyn Clarke type, and that game was over before it started.”

There was the Nashua upset of Pinkerton in the 1998 boys lacrosse finals, coached by the late Gordie Webb. And when Sean played basketball for South, a non-final tourney game at Memorial was a classic win.

So many memories. But did Holland ever think he’d be this connected to a community when he first arrived?

“You know, it’s funny, Michele and I, we met in college, we had a loose goal of let’s have our own clinic in five years,” Holland said. “We didn’t know where it would be. The community took us in, we just kind of rolled. We’re both from extremely large families, we’re used to communicating, and it just rolled.

“We had some great people. I get excited for a big game, it’s fun.”

But what’s it like on the sidelines as a trainer, watching the game but also tending to the injuries?

“I used to always say, if you’re busy early, you’re busy often,” Holland said. “Game day, if the game is at 7, we start getting kids ready around 4. By the time the game starts, we like to say we get all our work done, and hurry up to watch.

“You’re always watching, because you know anything can happen. You’re not in a panic mode by any means, but you watch the game different than you would as a spectator. I thoroughly enjoyed the ability to walk up and down the sideline, know the coaches, the referees, the other medical staff.”

And as Michele said, “The chain gang (in football). … What was always the win for us was the people we met, the relationships on the field, the court, whatever. You take those off the field, and court. A good percentage of the relationships we’ve created over these last 30-plus years they are family to us. They will spend holidays with us. We’ll stay connected. … The ripple effect, once you get away from those games, is incredible. … That’s what I’m proud of. Those long-term relationships.”

One memorable moment for her she was working a game at Pinkerton in 2017 when the grandfather of South football player Derek Downing had a heart episode. Jerry Holland was helping an injured player on the field. Michele was near a someone who was former military, and then another parent was a nurse, etc. Michele Holland and others performed CPR, the emergency calls were made.

“Michelle is being polite,” Jerry said. “She saved a life.”

The Hollands’ network is wide. He was on vacation in March one year at a Red Sox spring training game in Fort Meyers when someone yelled out ‘Jerry!’. It was a referee he got to know from his Nashua sideline time.

The philosophy has always been simple for the Hollands:

“You never want to see anybody hurt,” Jerry said. “But if they do get hurt, you treat them like they’re your own child. I’d like to think they got tremendous care.”

THE SPLIT

Obviously the Hollands’ experiences were doubled when Nashua High became North and South.

“The one thing I do miss,” Jerry Holland said, “when it was one high school, the whole city was behind the school. It was from border to border. … The rivalries are a little bit different. The North-South rivalry is tremendous, it’s Red-Sox Yankees now. It’s been 20 years. But that (overwhelming fan support) I do miss. Especially some of the big games. Guertin-Nashua, it drew the whole city. But there’s no going back.”

FAMILY

The ironic thing is besides Jerry and Michele, their children —- Sean, Maeve Kaitlyn, and Breda – became sideline fixtures (of course Sean became a South standout while their daughters went to Lononderry). Team photos show these tiny heads in between the players. The kids would go when the football coaches from the two teams used to have Thanksgiving breakfast together at the Pine Street Eatery at 5 a.m.

And, as kids, they’d identify the various school stadiums, their parents said, by the concession stands. And now they’re adults; Breda, a teacher, considers Nashua AD Lisa Gingras her mentor.

“Working with Lisa was an absolute joy,” Jerry Holland said. “She’s been great to all our kids. That (not working with her) will be difficult.

ATHLETES

Who were some of the best? Jerry Holland mentions Aaron Gureckis, Cernuda, Trevor Knight, and so many players from Fagula’s teams. The Ayi brothers. And recently, South basketball standout Josh Caruso and Panther soccer standout Santiago Somorrostro. Basketball/football standout Troy Browen. Track and field standouts.

“The list goes on and on,” Holland said.

Toughest injury? A Nashua hockey player once broke his neck in a game. Holland got him off the ice, and needed surgery. The night just three years ago when Tom Laurendi came down hard during a North basketball game and suffered a horrific broken leg, ending his season.

“We’d go to the hospital with the kids because they were like our own,” Holland said. “You hate to see anybody get devastatingly get hurt.”

There was a night a player at a season football opener in Londonderry, suffered an awkward broken leg, and his father was an adminstrator.

“I think I did this for anyone, you explain the injury in a calm way and explain what’s going to happen,” Holland said. “And I remember this like it was yesterday, I told him exactly what happened, what’s going to happen next, and (the player’s) parents came on the field. That’s imperative, to get that across to somebody. And that young man ended up playing on Thanksgiving Day. He got in for a couple of plays. His Dad knew (he’d play), his Mom didn’t at the time. Things like that, when you run into them.”

These are just a few of the team pictures, etc. on the walls of the Hollands’ Performance Rehab, Inc. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

What was the craziest thing Holland saw? It was after a game at Gill Stadium, when an ineligible Nashua player had something said to him and the late Manchester AD Butch Joseph pleaded with Hardy to calm down.

“Michele was there, we had our kids with us, and I said, ‘Something’s happening, watch this’,” Holland said, smiling. “You could see it like a wave coming. Billy is true to the day is long. He stood up for his players. You weren’t going to disrespect his player that way. It was a grave mistake. I’d never forget that. Butch Joseph, if he wasn’t there….”

As Michele Holland said, Hardy took care of his players off the field as well. “If they needed something, he was there,” she said.

Then there was a streaker, a high school student, at Stellos who ran from one end zone to another. “Great form,” Holland said laughing. “Should have gotten him a uniform.”

The Hollands struck up a friendship with former Londonderry legendary football coach Tom Sawyer, and years ago Michele was to compete in an Iron Man Triathlon, and just was not sure of how to approach it. So she called Sawyer, and said, “Hey, I need a little pregame talk. And he’s like, ‘What are you doing?’ And I told him Iron Man, and he was ‘What is that?'”

So she explained it to him, and Sawyer asked her what the scariest part was. She said a huge Hill in the bike race. “So when you see that Michele, you just attack it,” Holland recalls Sawyer saying. “Just attack it.”

So that’s what she did. “He’d probably never remember that conversation, but I remember it,” Michele said. “And it helped me up the hill.”

There’s one thing that may not be known by everyone that the Hollands discovered.

“What we found,” Jerry said, “was that people are extremely loyal to us. That we weren’t going anywhere, we were thoroughly invested. They would always see us on the sideline or on the court, and they understood we were going to treat those kids like they were our own.”

And Michele Holland says that the work they and their staff did at the high schools inspired others to be athletic trainers. Some Nashua alums have been on staff.

Now the tough part is coming, when mid-August arrives, fall practices begin, and a couple of weeks later, the games.

“It was very bittersweet,” Jerry Holland said of the decision to walk away from the work at the schools. “It was the right decision, it was time. … It will hit me in August. I’ll definitely be around, but I’ll be I guess a civilian on the sidelines.”

A civilian with a lifetime of memories, and a museum of Nashua sports history.