Has the Nashua sports community ever lost as much rich history as it did this week?

Think about it. First, the man who was the Father of Nashua Hockey, George “Gig” Marineau, passed away earlyin the week.

Then there was word that Bruce Gilbert, a solid athlete from the Buzz Harvey Era left us.

And finally, as bad things tend to come in threes, we lost John Fagula, the man who basically put high school girls basketball on the map in New Hampshire, especially in terms of recognition with college coaches.

Marineau was not only a good coach but a good player, as he played for the Nashua Royals. In fact, he captained them.

“With newly elected captain George ‘Gig’ Marineau leading the pack tonight,” old friend Greg Andruskevich wrote in the Telegraph back the 1960s, “the Royals are confident of gaining their first win of the year against Concord.”

Marineau was also a pretty good competitive tennis player.

“You’re talking about a pretty well-known guy,” said Brad Kreick, who played for Marineau’s successor, Bill Batte, back in the early to mid 1980s.

Kreick, ironically, despite his hockey background, had more of a connection one might say with Fagula. When he was hired as the BG girls basketball coach five years ago, he made two calls right away.

“The first was to Kyle Tave, to be my wing man,” Kreick said. “The second was to John Fagula.”

That’s because Kreick wanted to pick the legendary coach’s brain. Fagula was a year removed from coaching in his final game, so fittingly going out a winner as the Londonderry head coach. He and Kreick would meet every few weeks at a local eatery and talk basketball, coaching, etc. Smart move on the Guertin mentor’s part, as locally he’s produced the most successful girls hoop program since the Nashua days of Fagula and some years that followed up until the split, the last title coming in 2004.

Ah, the memories of John Fagula keep going through yours truly’s mind. There’s that epic 1985 title game vs. Londonderry at the University of New Hampshire’s Lundholm Gym when Fagula had his Panther team, which was trailing late, intentionally foul Lancer center Kristen Daignault. The Panthers squeaked out a 52-51 win title win, and the coach was in many ways the reason.

This scribe, upon coming to Nashua year later, wrote a column about how maybe those who were angry at the lopsided scores the Panthers were producing were justified.

Fagula gently walked over and said, “I’d love to sit down with you and talk, just to let you know what we’re all about.”

He was about winning, but his point was he was also about making sure his players got enough minutes to work on their game, their endurance, and show college coaches what they could do. He was right.

Then, in late 1980s, when Ken Parady surprised all by stepping down at the end of a school year as head football coach, the search for his successor was futile. Nashua was finding out it was behind the times, and qualified candidates who didn’t mind that just weren’t out there.

Then athletic director Al Harrington was asked if there was anyone in the system he thought was qualified. He had an immediate answer.

“My girls basketball coach,” he said.

It was a tough football season as the talent was thin and the transition was tough. Fagula was only an interim – he could have kept the job if he wanted to – but he wanted to focus on his basketball duties. After all, it was just a couple of years prior that Nashua was the No. 1 team in the country.

In the mid 1990s, yours truly was lucky to have Fagula as a radio color man at times to really dress up some spotty play-by-play. The man could see things, without binoculars, that no other coach would notice. It was incredible. It’s sad to have lost now three broadcast partners over the years – Tom McDonald, Norm Burgess and now Fagula.

Fagula was also a JV baseball coach under Charlie Mellen. If you saw the rememberance of Fagula at nashuatelegraph.com on Saturday, Tim Neverett recounted on social media about how his rule was you do not take a called third strike unless you want to sit. That’s on the JV level.

It’s great the man went out a winner in his final game at Londonderry, great that he had that stretch of nearly a dozen years to continue coaching. It’s sad that couldn’t have been at either North or South; some may forget that he was very much interested in returning to coach in Nashua but word was someone high up in administration squelchd the idea. That left a lot of his former players fuming.

But Fagula moved on. He won. He didn’t have the talent he had at Nashua, but he had a program. And one more title.

It’s good that he was inducted in the NHBCO Hall of Fame back in October before he became ill. Because, above all, this was the thing about John Fagula:

“He was a true, true, true, coach in every sense of the word,” Kreick said.

Amen. Tough week, Nashua. Let’s honor the memories and the history that has been created by those we lost.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com., or @Telegraph_TomK.

Newsletter