Paul Bellavance fully recalls when longtime Nashua High School athletic director Buzz Harvey appointed him as the Panthers’ first wrestling coach in 1970.

Harvey gave him a book about the sport, which was relatively new to New Hampshire, and one the new coach had never really experienced.

Bellavance may have completed first chapter, and that was it. He decided to get his knowledge firsthand, from another.

“I began to read it and I felt no relation to what was being taught to me in the book,” Bellavance said. “I felt much better on the mat, learning what a ‘takedown’ was, what a ‘reverse’ was and practicing it with the students.”

Still, Harvey knew the wrestling coach at Lowell High School, George Bossi, and Bellavance went down to see him. And that varied, quick-learning experience led to Bellavance’s 25-year career as the Nashua varsity wrestling coach, with six state championships, six runners-up, a New England title (1978), and a dual meet record of 246-15-5.

Now, the 77-year-old Bellavance, who retired from coaching in 1995 and from teaching soon after, will be inducted on Sunday into the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association’s Hall of Fame.

“I didn’t even know it existed,” said Bellevance, a lifelong Nashuan who was an exceptional athlete at the University of New Hampshire and also coached three sports at Fairgrounds Junior High and was also an assistant football coach at Nashua High School, a job he gave up a few years into his wrestling tenure. “I was totally surprised.”

Bellavance is, in fact, a pioneer. His name became synonymous with the sport of high school wrestling in the area, and that was certainly something he never really expected.

When Harvey asked him to coach a sport he knew nothing about, it didn’t matter. He was looking to run his own varsity program.

“I wanted to be a (head) coach,” he said. “I was coaching under Buzz. I had never heard of wrestling. I knew there was wrestling in Massachusetts, Maine and I think Vermont had it.”

Bellavance started with intramurals for a year at Nashua and also began building for the future by teaching a month of wrestling for his physical education classes at Fairgrounds. When it came time for competition, his team was ready. Starting from scratch wasn’t as tedious as it could have been.

“It wasn’t difficult because I was into the physical aspects of the game,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do to bring somebody down, turn somebody on their back. But it was interesting getting the kids to be in excellent shape, and getting them to compete right up to the final second of a match.”

That was Bellavance’s trademark as a head coach – conditioning. Every two-hour practice would end with 10 minutes where simulated it was the third period of a match, with one minute to go.

“Tired or not tired,” Bellavance said. “They learned to compete all the way through. I always coached that a match was one that started with the first second and ended in the last second. And I’ve had a couple of state champions win in the last two or three seconds, because they were conditioned to do it.”

It all paid off in 1978, when Bellavance’s Panthers won the coveted New England championship a week or two after losing the state title to Keene by half a point. That was the most disappointing loss Bellavance said he ever had, trumped soon by his best victory.

“Very much so,” he said. “But that particular year I had four state champions – Kris Rowlette, Doug McAllister, Tommy Senator and Kurt Rowlette.”

He went to the New Englands with those four and all four made the finals (both Rowlettes won), assuring Nashua of the title by points. The Panthers scored the highest total ever for the New Englands at the time.

“That was the most exciting,” Bellavance said, adding the Panthers came close a couple of other times, taking a second in 1992 and third in 1982. “It was challenging in our own sport, and we just wanted to be recognized as a good program.”

“He had high expectations, on and off the mat,” current Nashua High School North coach Jeff Arbogast said. “That’s what it’s all about, that third period.

“I liked his ideas about conditioning, and I try to make sure my guys can do the same thing.”

Why did wrestling become so popular in New Hampshire at the high school level?

“(Kids) found it to be very entertaining,” he said. “It’s a one-on-one competition. Even though you’re a member of a team, you step on the mat by yourself. That was not an aspect of any sport Nashua had had.”

What if Bellavance had decided wrestling wasn’t for him? He actually had an eye on the Nashua head football job when Harvey was preparing to retire, “but I hadn’t had enough experience to do it.”

He knew the late Ken Parady and thought he’d be a perfect fit so he stayed out of it, and worked under Parady as an assistant. He missed it a little bit after 12 years but wrestling practice began about a month before football season would end and his wrestling practices were at 7 at night. “Ken understood where I was conflicting,” Bellavance said.

It was a family affair for Bellavance as well. Three daughters – Diana, Deborah, and Danielle – served as scorekeepers/managers. Bellavance took pride in the fact their help and organization allowed the Panthers to host the New Englands a half dozen times. His nephew, Mark Thibault, was a four-time state champion from 1986-89.

Bellavance saw lot in his career.

“I don’t think coaching is any different today,” he said. “The splitting of the school (into North and South) has made a difference.”

Bellavance marvels at the job done by Timberlane coach Barry Chooljian, who was competing as a student athlete when the longtime mentor began coaching but who has won 10 straight state titles with the Owls. He goes to one or two matches a year at North to see Arbogast’s Titans.

This Hall of Fame induction – he is also in the Nashua High Hall of Fame – has made him reflect on his career. It meant a lot for him to accomplish a lot working in his hometown after starting his coaching and teaching career in New Bedford, Mass. and continuing on to Burlington, Vt. before he wanted to raise his family at home.

“I’m very pleased about (his career),” he said. “It was good, I enjoyed it. I was always more of a jock (Nashua High Athlete of the Year in 1955) than a student.”

So never mind learning from the printed word. You could say that over time, jock/coach Paul Bellavance wrote a book of his own on Nashua wrestling.