This was a big week on the Nashua high school coaching front.

It doesn’t get any bigger than hiring a new football coach. So, Nashua athletic director Lisa Gingras and the administration didn’t waste any time in filling the Nashua North football position after the highly respected Dante Laurendi surprisingly – to us on the outside, at least – stepped down.

Of course, it helped when they had a guy like Chad Zibolis waiting in the wings.

It was the perfect fit, the perfect hire, and we’re not talking in wins and losses. We’re talking about the evolution of a local born-and-bred guy, a popular assistant who played on a championship team and then returned after college to begin a coaching career.

Sometimes hiring the popular assistant doesn’t work at any level – high school, pro, or college. The players either consciously or subconsciously take advantage of the sense of comfort with a coach they were familiar with and was a friendly buffer between them and the former head coach.

None of that should happen with Zibolis, who knows how to coach and learned the difference between being an assistant and a head coach when he took over a dying – and we mean dying – North wrestling program. He turned that around, gaining respectability by recruiting football players and other athletes to wrestle, and trying to increase the sport’s popularity in the building. And did it during one of the toughest times for high school athletics – and life in general – with a pandemic. He was an enthusiastic ambassador of the sport, which is what was needed.

But all you had to see was a moment after a loss to Nashua South on the mat back in late January. Dual meets are what they are in wrestling. Without the playoff-type postseason format that we enjoyed back in 2021, they basically don’t have many consequences. But this was different as North was more or less unexpectedly trounced. You could tell the Titans were hanging their heads.

Zibolis quickly gathered the troops into the back room off the medium gym, away from everyone. The message was clear: While it’s only one match, this is what happens when you take things for granted and don’t work hard. He quickly diffused what could have been a morale issue.

It’s too bad he has to give up wrestling, but that’s how all-encompassing being a head coach is. He’ll have a lot of support and resources – the North staff is full of natural coaches, people like Zach Harris and Kyle Tave, and Laurendi is continuing on in his role of North athletics coordinator. Not to mention old friend Bill Hardy, whom Harris played for at Nashua and credits with his development as a coach and a person.

But make no mistake, Zibolis is his own man, with a wealth of experience and will do things his way. “There will be change,” he declared the other day.

If there had to be a change with Laurendi adamant he needed a pause from the head coaching ranks, then Chad Zibolis is a change in the right direction.

Local guy makes good.

North-Souhegan hockey

Here’s a case where change isn’t necessarily good because there’s just been too much of it.

Nashua North-Souhegan hockey will be getting another new head coach next season, the co-op program’s sixth in eight years.

Not good. It’s got to stop.

Former coach Bill Kotsifas was an experienced hockey coach, but this was his first high school job. Hockey is a different animal, so to speak, as there could be pushing and shoving, etc., in a hockey game that doesn’t faze anyone but would cause an uproar on a soccer field or basketball court.

The Saber-Titans this past season had way too many penalties, minor or major, game misconducts, and a couple of ejections. Kotsifas is a good coach, very likable and but was learning the hard way the difference between coaching club or junior hockey and high school. There are different rules that have to be followed and there’s always an administration to answer to.

Ironically, there seemingly wasn’t the parental outrage that took place with a couple of the program’s past coaches. In fact, it appeared any complaints could come with the change. But there were too many other issues, both sides acknowledged. Thus another change.

Simply put, this can’t continue. It just can’t.

Gingras was likely right in saying that the difficulty of coaching a team with two schools involved is tough, and needs an educator to guide it. Ironically, the co-op’s first coach, John Coughlin, had that on his resume.

Here’s the fear: Qualified coaches out there may stay away from taking this thing over because of the high turnover. Is that a fear Gingras and Souhegan AD Kelli Braley may have?

“That’s a hard question to answer,” Gingras said. “I don’t know the answer to that question. I think they may shy away more from the co-op and a team that struggles to make the playoffs.”

It looked like an attractive job years ago. For all the struggles Nashua hockey has had since The Split, North had been a Division I tourney team under then-coach Dan Legro and Souhegan was a program with championship pedigree in Division III.

Perhaps this will attract quality as well as qualified candidates: According to Braley, Souhegan could supply as many as 18 players next season.

Kraft’s subtle

message

Anyone read between the lines of Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s answers to the media the other day at the NFL owners meetings in sunny Florida?

“It bothers me we haven’t been able to win a playoff game in the last three years,” Kraft said.

Or how about this one: “I think we had a great draft last year and it made up for what happened the previous four years or so.”

Clearly a couple of

little nudges to one Bill

Belichick.

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