Honesty, strategy, talent built soccer success

GROTON -- For an idea of just how large an impact Dick Nyman has had on boys' soccer at Groton Dunstable Regional High School, look at the Chenelle family of Dunstable.

Twenty-five years ago, Kevin Chenelle played for Nyman when the school's soccer program was in its infancy. This season, Kevin's son Chris is the Crusaders' leading scorer.

"My dad can relate to all the things that he says," Chris said. "He still has a lot of the same sayings and everything, a lot of the same feedback after the games."

That's because Dick Nyman essentially is Groton Dunstable soccer.

The program was only four years old when he took over in 1977, and he has coached all 30 seasons since, taking the squad to 25 postseason tournaments and raising the game from what he called "a vague resemblance to soccer" to a Division 1 program that was bumped to the top ranks because of the strength of the program , not the size of the school .

"He's kind of guided us through that whole process, and he's always had successful teams through those years," said Groton Dunstable's athletic director, Dan Twomey.

"The stability with the program, and the expectation of success that he had, we'll miss that."

Nyman figured his career was going to be over last Sunday. The eighth-seeded Crusaders, who struggled through an up-and-down regular season at 10-7-1, had beaten No. 9 Milford, 2-1, in the Division 1 Central first round. But that set them up as heavy underdogs in a quarterfinal matchup with top-seeded Tantasqua, which went 15-1-2 during the regular season.

"Basically, what we looked at was if we put the best product we have out on the field, we're going to give them a good game," Nyman said. "The first half and a quarter of the second half, we played the best soccer we played all year. And it showed."

Groton Dunstable won, 2-1, extending Nyman's career for at least one more game. The Crusaders were set to face Algonquin -- the two-time defending Division 1 state champion -- Thursday , hoping to extend the magic a little bit further.

But in truth, Nyman's career could have ended long ago. The 73-year-old retired from teaching science at Groton Dunstable a full decade ago, and said he just assumed he would hang up his coaching whistle, too. He ended up deciding to stay for one more year.

"Here I am, 10 years later," said Nyman, who got into soccer while at Fitchburg State College, where he played for the first time.

His recipe for success has been one of brutal honesty, cunning strategy, and skilled evaluation of talent. His players say he's rarely willing to sugar coat his feelings on how they played. If you've played well, you'll get his praise. If not?

"He'll definitely not hesitate to tell us," said current co captain Nick Cardone. "It's definitely a good thing, because we don't want people to dance around what we're doing wrong. We want to know what we're doing so we can improve as a team."

That's been happening steadily since Nyman took over the team.

In the late 1970s, Nyman said, many of his players were new to the game. But since a youth program has developed in town, he said, the players now come in well-coached and prepared.

Twomey, 26, who played for Nyman in the mid-1990s, said the coach also has a knack for knowing where to position his players, as well as how to motivate them. Nyman moved Twomey from what he had thought was his natural position (forward) to defense, where he had great success.

Nyman has also given out a Player of the Week award for years, one of his many ways to motivate his players, who say they have a profound respect for his experience.

Chenelle said Nyman has a number of one-liners he constantly barks at his players, and they're most frequently chided for "ball-watching," or being too much of a spectator and not enough of a player on the field.

"The beauty of soccer is that of all the team sports, it's the most player-oriented sport," Nyman said. "The coach has to do his job before the game starts, because once the game starts, he's an irrelevant force.

"I was convinced when I started coaching that I could be a force during the game. I could direct where that game was going. Now I know better," he continued. "I think I'm more patient now than I used to be. I used to throw clipboards. Of course, I'm too old now -- I can't throw it too far, anyway."

If Nyman had retired from coaching when he stopped teaching, he would have missed his best years. Groton-Dunstable won state championships in 1999 (Division 3 ) and 2001 (Division 2 ), and has been a steady force in the tournament in the last decade.

His best players during the championship years were twin brothers Nick and Tony Tornaritis, who went on to play together at Harvard.

Last year, the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association bumped the Crusaders up to Division 1. With about 800 students, Groton Dunstable is among the smallest Division 1 schools, and its only Division 1 sports are boys' soccer, golf, and boys' cross-country.

"I have no explanation for how they came to this, except that they used our strength of program as the determining criteria," Nyman said, "but that's not fair."

Nyman might have a point. But after missing the tournament last year, the Crusaders quickly proved they belong this fall by beating the top seed in the Division 1 Central tournament.

The coach said this year's team has been a Jekyll-and-Hyde bunch. When the team has brought its best game, it could play with anyone. But when something was out of sync, G-D lost games by ugly scores, like a 6-0 defeat to Nipmuc. "That was awful," Nyman said.

But the team has come together at the right time. With freshman goalie T.J. Van Riper manning the net, Chenelle (20 goals, 5 assists going into the Algonquin game) providing a bulk of the offense, and a solid core of midfielders led by freshman Derek McCaffrey , the young Crusaders have showed plenty of promise.

Co captains Cardone and Dan Callahan anchor the defense, and also have fostered cozy team chemistry -- the players all decided to bleach their hair blond when they qualified for the postseason.

They have also provided their coach with one last tournament memory, which Nyman said will be sweet no matter how the season ends.

"We've got some new coaches coming into the system now that are younger than my grandchildren," Nyman said. "I'm tired. . . . It's time."

Mike Lipka can be reached at mlipka@globe.com.