Telegraph file photo by TOM KING Legendary Nashua girls basketball coach John Fagula passed away on Friday, leaving a legacy of success that will likely never be matached.

NASHUA – Stephanie Kane introduced her son, Nate, currently a basketball standout at Nashua High School North, to legendary girls basketball coach John Fagula.

“All those plays we would run and things I would teach you over the years? This is the guy I learned them from, this is my mentor,” Kane, who has coached at the AAU and youth level, said to Nate at the time.

And that’s how Fagula, who basically brought girls basketball to the forefront in New Hampshire at the youth, high school and AAU levels, will be remembered by many after his passing on Friday due to complications from a long illness.

“It’s a sad day,” said Fagula’s good friend, former Nashua High boys basketball coach George Noucas, who grew up with Fagula in Laconia and rejoined him years later at Nashua. “He developed talent, he made full use of the AAU programs and junior high programs to get kids playing year-round, and he changed the style of game the kids were playing. … And as you know, when you win, everybody wants to play. He was willing to do the extra work and it paid off.”

Fagula basically put girls basketball on the map in not only Nashua but also the state. He took over a floundering Panthers program in its early stages and won 11 state championships in an illustrious 432-72 20-year coaching career at Nashua High School, including 1987, when his Purple Panthers team was declared the top high school girls basketball team in the nation by USA Today. During a stretch in the mid to late 1980s, his Nashua team won 108 straight games (120 against New Hampshire teams).

And he also helped begin and develop the AAU girls program in New Hampshire, with a desire to give players more exposure.

“He started AAU in New Hampshire,” Kane said. “There was no AAU in New Hampshire (before then). He talked to Celeste (Lavoie), Becky (Shrigley) and myself (three stars from that team) and said ‘Hey, you guys have the potential to go to college on a basketball scholarship, and you have to be seen.’ He took us down to Boston and they said, ‘You guys are good, you need to start something in New Hampshire. And that’s how it began. … He made sure he got kids from different levels, not just Nashua. I give him a lot of credit for that.”

After 20 years at Nashua, Fagula retired and took a four-year break, and then took the head job at Londonderry in 2003 – the Lancers were Nashua’s chief rival when he coached the Panthers – where he won title No. 12 in 2014 in his final game. He retired for good on top with 624 career wins.

His succsessor at Nashua as coach, Kara Leary, also played for him and has become a key AAU figure as well.

“It’s a sad day for sure, but he’s certainly someone who left an impact,” Leary said. “He put the work in. He put the work in year round. … He said, ‘You have to work to be good.’

“It’s not just winning state championships and competing nationally. Those kids (including Leary, who went to Notre Dame) were able to go on to the collegiate level and compete, a lot of them at the higher Division I and II levels.”

Fagula was inducted into the Nashua High School Hall of Fame in 1996, and is also in the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association Hall of Fame. Just last October, he was also inducted into the New Hampshire Basketball Coaches Organization (NHBO) with Noucas as his presenter.

What separated Fagula from everyone else?

“It was definitely his dedication to us at an early age,” said Kane, who was a key player on that 1987 team and went on to play at Boston College and also coach. “I remember, he used to come and watch our games when we were at Elm Street, Fairgrounds and Pennichuck (junior highs). He would come to my games and he would encourage me to go to certain camps, etc.

Fagula coached other sports as well. He was the JV baseball coach for a while at Nashua and also, with a background of being a former assistant football coach as well, coached the Panthers varsity on an interim basis in 1989, for just one season.

And his attention to detail was prevalent in those other sports as well.

“I enjoyed playing baseball for him,” Nashua native and current Dodgers broadcaster Tim Neverett said on social media. “He sat me after my first at-bat playing for him because I took strike three. That was his rule.

“I thought he was kidding and I started to run out to may position. I never took strike three again that season.”

But basketball was his claim to fame.

“He put women’s athletics (in Nashua) on the map,” Kane said. “Think of all the girls he got into college. He went over and above what a high school coach would do. … And even when we went to college, he would bring the (Nashua) team down to see us play.”

As for playing for him, Kane said the simple approach was what Fagula loved.

“He kept the game simple,” she said. “He didn’t get in to fancy plays or fancy presses. It was the basics. He drilled into us the basics. We were solid with foul shots, solid in the basics. It just grew.”

In fact, Fagula in October recounted that his 1987 team took just one 3-point shot that entire season. “It was off an inbounds play,” he said, “and we missed it.”

Fagula won Class L (now known as Division I ) titles at Nashua in 1982, ’85, ’86, ’87, ’88, ’89, ’92, ’93, ’95, ’96, and ’99. But the 1987 team will be considered his greatest.

“That’s a moment in time that’s never going to be surpassed by anybody,” Noucas said back in October. “Not in this state.

“John got in on the bottom floor, was able to turn it around, with the right kids at the right time.”

Fagula had also been seriously ill around the holidays in late December, and several of his former players would visit him daily.

“It was kind of nice, everyone kind of rallied around him,” Kane said. “Then as he got better, we were all able to go visit him. It was a blessing to be able to reconnect with him, talk about some fun times, some stories and just make him laugh and smile again.

“I’m grateful I had that moment to do that with him this year.”

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It was also a tough week for the Nashua hockey community as the first Nashua High School varsity hockey coach ever, George “Gig” Marineau, also passed away suddenly.

Marineau started the program at the high school in 1964, and stayed as the Panthers head coach until 1981. He also was an avid player for the Nashua Royals hockey team, and will be remembered a true pioneer for the Panthers program, setting the table for seasons to come.

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