Both Sides of the Line Read online

  After our second day of camp, Paul sat down next to me, head in his hands, and said, “Kev, I’m going to the coaches’ cabin, and I’m telling them I’m going home. Hey, maybe they’re right. Maybe I don’t have what it takes to play football.”

  “Paul, this is just part of Currier’s strategy!” I said, knowing we couldn’t lose another star player like Paul without suffering real consequences. “He does this every year. Monday and Tuesday, we can’t do anything right, and then tomorrow we’ll have pit-drills, and, I promise you, he’ll have us all sky-high after practice. Then he’ll spend Thursday and Friday building us up for our scrimmage against Watertown—it’s all a part of his pattern. Just stay one more day. You’re our strongest lineman, Paul—we can’t lose you!”

  “Nah,” he said, though he smiled appreciatively. “I’m done, Kel. But thanks anyway.”

  For the majority of us, football was the top of the food chain in high school athletics, and we grew to accept gridiron conditions that had been around for decades. Coaches had been pushing players too hard for generations, and it didn’t stop at the high school level.

  The legendary running back Jim Brown, who played for the Cleveland Browns during the ’50s and ’60s, once said that he could never have played for Vince Lombardi. “That in-your-face style of coaching would have led to a stand-off between Lombardi and me,” said Brown. His coach, the great Paul Brown, was quiet and businesslike on the field and, though intense, known for not ridiculing players in front of other teammates.

  The great Celtic coach, Red Auerbach, who won eleven world championships in thirteen NBA seasons during the ’50s and ’60s, employed, in my humble opinion, the best style of coaching. He knew who could take a tongue-lashing and who needed a pat on the back. He knew his players’ personalities and how to get the most out of them. Hall of Famer Tommy Heinsohn, who played forward for the Celtics from 1956 to 1965 and helped them win eight world championships in nine years, could take a verbal whipping. But with Bill Russell, voted the greatest defensive basketball center of all time, Auerbach was softer. Heinsohn got inspired when Auerbach was on him, but Russell needed a different kind of motivation and Auerbach knew it.

  Much of the time, Currier lacked this flexibility. He had one approach and it didn’t matter how a player felt about it. Like many of my teammates, I cringed in fear of getting singled out, knowing all the while that, if he went too far, I’d take it out on the guy in front of me on the field (which, of course, was exactly what Currier was banking on). But, in Currier’s defense, his style of coaching never wavered. Year after year, team after team, Currier’s method was consistent.

  His unknown secret, which he never took any public credit for, was the unending number of kids he recruited to Bosco. Thanks to him, many never had to worry about paying one dime towards tuition. For decades, Currier pulled kids off the streets and gave them the opportunity to receive a top-flight Catholic education along with learning a trade; many went on to college or became independent contractors. Currier was just as committed to his boys as Dempsey, but it came across differently. To this day, there are hundreds of alumni who keep in touch with Coach Currier, who continues to coach football at the age of 80! “Some people my age like to simply retire, travel, relax, or play golf. I like to coach,” Currier said.

  But during the 1970s and 1980s, all three Kelly boys were targets of his wrath.

  Once when my brother Tom was a senior, Currier, thoroughly upset that the team couldn’t run a particular play correctly, noticed that Tom had stopped hustling up to the line of scrimmage after the offense broke the huddle. Also, Tom was dragging his feet and keeping his head down as he made his way back to the huddle after the play was completed. He was exhausted and didn’t realize that his sluggishness was costing everyone more and more runs of the play. Finally, Currier blew a gasket. He grabbed Tom by the face mask and started beating on it while chewing him out for not hustling.

  Playing tight end two years later, I had a similar experience. When the quarterback said “Hit,” I was supposed to come out of my stance, move six yards to my right, and stand up like a split end. But I didn’t move. I heard the whistle blow and, out of nowhere, Currier kicked me right in the ass, screaming, “RUN THE PLAY!” Well, of course, nothing changed on the next play because I still didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to be doing. So, he kicked me again.

  This lovely pattern continued until, finally, Currier walked up to me and asked, “Kelly, what play are we running?”

  “I’m not sure, Coach,” I admitted.

  “You’re not sure? Only a moron wouldn’t know his plays by mid-October!”

  I didn’t dare disagree.

  At the end of practice, he had us gather around and take a knee. He explained what we needed to do to get ready for the next day’s game, scanning the players and giving instructions when, suddenly, his eyes locked on me.

  “Kelly, two years ago, I almost broke my hand on your brother’s face mask. This year, I have no desire to break my foot on your ass. Learn your plays!”

  Everyone had a good laugh.

  For me, it merely took a simple moment of recognition, encouragement, and support from Currier to turn me around.

  Currier ignored the fact that some kids were only fifteen years old while others were as old as nineteen. For him, as for many coaches, building toughness, motivation, and consistency isn’t always about accommodating personalities and age groups. Most football coaches treat everyone the same in order to weed out the players who are only going to make it so far. Football, like life, is about survival of the fittest. Currier wasn’t the only coach in America who coached with that particular philosophy and style in mind. The iron fist approach is still alive and well today in many schools. However, with mandatory coaching courses, the rise in player concussions, and the number of lawsuits now being filed against coaches for negligence and abuse, the pendulum does seem to be swinging in the other direction.

  In my sophomore year, Bosco’s football team was huge and tough, but we still lost every game but one. We had plenty of talent but no team unity. The players and the coaches turned on one other. Playing for Bosco became a miserable experience. Every day, practice was nothing but mistakes, followed by ridicule and verbal abuse from Currier and the assistant coaches. It led to a time when I and many of my teammates hated going to practice. During rainy days, we would constantly peek out the windows to check if puddles were being splattered by raindrops, all of us hoping practice would be canceled. It was usually just wishful thinking.

  “Hey, Coach, did I hear practice was canceled today?”

  “Now Kelly,” he’d say, “why would we cancel practice because of rain if we don’t cancel games because of rain? Don’t be late!”

  That year, I saw some action during a few varsity games. Often the game was out of reach, and Currier would give some JV players some reps, but it was still a thrill to play at the varsity level, even if we were losing. Although Currier could be tough, I appreciated that he had no problem having fourteen-year-old freshmen and eighteen-year-old seniors play alongside one another. His theory was that performance, ability, and attitude trumped age. As long as a player could contribute, he’d get playing time.

  Playing in JV games was great. We had fun, and the JV level gave us a chance to be introduced slowly to high school football with kids generally our age, size, and ability. But each week of the season, JV players also posed as the Varsity’s upcoming opponents, both on offense and defense. For the Varsity, such game preparation was great. For JV players preparing to eventually be on the Varsity team, it was good too. Of course, it was still often intimidating to play against the Varsity team. Many of the JV players simply could not compete with the Varsity players, a fact which inevitably made practice a miserable experience (especially if the Varsity team wasn’t performing to the coaches’ satisfaction).

  When Coach became frustrated,
he’d shout, “Okay, gentlemen, every play from this point forward is live!”

  This meant full-contact. As a sophomore, whenever practices turned live, I used to pray that the guy lined up against me (years older and at least forty pounds heavier) was in a good mood, uninterested in drive-blocking me into the Charles River!

  The last game of that year was against New Bedford, a team made up of mostly giant, tough, Portuguese-American kids. Toward the end of the game, things started getting rough. With both teams trash-talking and taunting each other, the refs found themselves breaking up a lot of pushing and shoving.

  When the game finally ended (they’d beaten us pretty soundly), a father holding a small child approached our captain, Michael Murphy and, for no apparent reason, shoved him. Michael, weighing in at about two hundred and fifty pounds, spun around and punched the guy right in the face. The father hit the deck as if he’d been blindsided by a linebacker, a move that sent his kid flying out of his arms and onto the field a good ten feet away. I stood fifteen yards behind Michael and watched the whole incident unfold. Within thirty seconds, both teams (fans included!) were brawling. It was a true riot.

  Ten-foot high bushes surrounded New Bedford’s field. As we made our mad rush for the bus, we could see New Bedford students chasing after us from behind the bushes. We leapt into the bus for a hasty escape but they began pelting the bus with rocks.

  “Boys, cover your heads!” yelled Currier, rocks ricocheting off the windows.

  We barely got out of town alive. On the way home, the bus was filled with chatter and high energy. For the first time all year, we felt unified. It’d been our fight, and we left feeling as if we’d finally made a statement, the first of the entire season. When we arrived back at Science Park, everyone expected to hear the usual from Currier: “We weren’t tough enough, we didn’t really want it badly enough, we made mental mistakes, we had no pride,” and so on. Not to mention that we deserved a sound verbal-thrashing for engaging in a full-out brawl, with fans and players alike clobbering each other.

  But he had something else to say that night: “Boys,” he said, “to be honest, I wish this game had taken place six games ago. Even though we lost, you fought together as a team, and team unity is a very special component of football. I haven’t seen that level of spirit all year! This season has been difficult for everyone, and I want to thank each and every one of you for being part of it. It’s easy to stay with a winning team. When everyone feels good, it seems effortless; it’s fun. But it takes a tremendous amount of discipline to come to practice every day when you’re losing week in and week out. I especially want to thank the seniors. We all wish your last year at Bosco could have turned out better. For the younger classmen, work hard in the off-season and we’ll see you next year!”

  Though Currier would never know it, that speech is what made me continue to play football at Bosco. Everything made perfect sense to me then. Of course football was going to suck if you lost every week. But we didn’t have to lose anymore.

  I ended my sophomore season with a new sense of purpose. I knew I was athletic, but I hadn’t yet proven to the coaches or to myself that I could be a contributing member of the team. There were still too many demons I needed to overcome, fear being number one: the fear of being hit, the fear of being hurt, the fear of screwing up.

  All of us were still in the early stages of discovering ourselves.

  But somehow we all knew that things were going to be different junior year. And Currier? He knew he had to try another approach.

  In early June 1973, Currier held a mandatory meeting for all football players at Bosco. Morale was low and no one I knew was looking forward to football camp. School had already let out and it was hot. I was sitting in the back of the room half-asleep when Currier walked in and announced that there would be a new face among the coaching staff. “Boys, we have a new line coach, someone I promise you’ll all get to know real well, real soon. I’d like to introduce Coach Jack Dempsey.”

  I sat up as if someone had hit me with an electric current, suddenly wide-eyed and wide-awake. Could this be the same Jack Dempsey my brother had described two years earlier? I wasn’t sure, but I knew I needed to find out.

  What struck me first was how oddly built Dempsey looked. His neck was thick and short, his back was enormously wide, and his chest and shoulders were a single mass of muscle. His legs were so thick he had a sway to his walk, almost an overly exaggerated gait as he moved from left to right and forward all at once. His hands were like Popeye’s, small and thick with wide wrists. To the average person, he might’ve looked dumpy. But to football players, he was a human cinder block with large, square, Coke-bottle glasses. He walked to the podium with an unassuming air, soft-spoken but confident.

  He opened with a speech that was short and to the point. He didn’t guarantee we’d win every game. Instead, he guaranteed we’d be the best-conditioned football team in the league.

  “You boys are going to be a team that earns your opponents’ respect because, on the football field, we will never quit no matter what the score. Never. Mandatory weight-lifting sessions begin next week at Science Park, and there are no excuses for missed workouts.”

  Though his speech itself was unexpected in its simplicity, lacking any “we’ll-win-’em-all” promises, he had everyone’s undivided attention as he spoke. There was something special about him. Immediately drawn to his inner strength, I had a comfortable feeling that he was “in charge” of us all. I could sense that the atmosphere and energy in the room had shifted. Now we players were excited and hopeful for our next season. What we didn’t know at the time was that Dempsey wasn’t just a mild change in the football weather—Dempsey was a tornado.

  Currier knew he needed help with his coaching staff. Although Bosco had six coaches already, none of them could make the commitment or had the ability to forge a team that could truly compete in the Catholic Conference. Dempsey and Currier had known one another for years, both having lived in Brighton. Dempsey had always admired and respected Currier as a coach, and so jumped at the chance to work with him. For the next four years, it would be the ideal coaching combination.

  While taking the train home, I felt a rush of excitement, nervousness, and fear, thinking about our new coach. On the one hand, I could tell by Dempsey’s confidence that he knew football. On the other hand, I liked both of my ears, and wasn’t in any hurry to have either of them bitten off.

  Nature or Nurture

  “I love you and I always will.”

  —Christine Kelly

  Thomas J. Kelly, Sr., poverty-stricken and struggling to survive on his family’s two hundred-year-old farm in Athlone, Ireland, arrived in Boston in May 1914. Three years later, he enlisted in the Navy and served on a U.S. submarine during WWI. Upon his return from the war, he purchased a three-decker home in West Roxbury, a heavily populated Irish community on the outskirts of Boston. His was the American dream come true. He’d had his whole life planned out: work hard, raise a family and, upon retirement, collect a pension along with bonus income from renting out the second and third floors of his new home on LaGrange Street.

  The dream came to an end, however, when the Great Depression hit in 1929. He lost the house, and was forced to move his wife and five children into the loud, cramped Old Colony housing projects in South Boston. No front yard, no backyard, and no privacy.

  My grandfather worked three jobs to provide for his family. His main source of income came from Wonder Bread, where he worked as lead mechanic and shop steward for more than thirty-five years. My grandfather was a tough, independent, hard-working “Mick” who went far beyond paying his dues. Until he reached his seventies, he never had enough time or financial independence to enjoy his life. The experience made him tough, but that toughness came at a great price, leaving him cold and distant even toward his own family. We convinced him at the age of ninety-two to return to Ireland an
d reunite with a brother he hadn’t seen or spoken to in seventy years.

  The visit changed his life. On seeing his mother’s grave, he got down on his knees and said, “Often, my mother would take a pound of butter, place it in a bucket of water to keep from melting, and travel twelve miles by donkey to Banlesloe. She’d spend all day trying to sell that butter for fifty cents.” With tears running down his face, my grandfather looked over his shoulder: “Many a night my mother came home with that butter.”

  After returning to America, he opened up even more, sharing memories of his life and beginning to reconnect with his children. I could sense that he knew his time was running out, and he needed someone to confide in. Whatever the reason, he chose me. “I never got over losing the house. It had been my chance—my chance to make it. But we survived. Many rich people jumped to their deaths knowing they’d lost everything, but somehow we managed to pull through.” As he turned and looked off in the distance, I noticed his skin as if seeing it for the first time. It was weather-worn but beautiful—the skin of a long life lived hard.

  My father, Thomas J. Kelly, Jr., fared much better than his father. In 1953, after following in his father’s footsteps with a tour in the Navy, he graduated from the Boston Police Academy. That same year, he purchased a two-family home in Hyde Park. We lived on Tyler Street with a mix of Irish and Italian neighbors.

  For the most part, my father was an easy-going, good-natured guy. But he also had a cop’s black-and-white sense of morality. To him, family image and reputation were all important. “The worst thing that can ever happen to a policeman is to have one of his sons get arrested,” he once told Tommy and me (I was only seven at the time, an orange popsicle dripping in my hands). “If you ever get arrested, I’ll break every bone in your body. Do you understand me?” I certainly got the message, but Tom must’ve been distracted by something in our yard’s crabapple tree at the time because, over the next few years, he got to know our local police force all too well.