Newport
Newport, with its 10 NHIAA state championships, has long been one of the pillars in New Hampshire interscholastic football. Despite its enrollment of 330 or so, it always seems to find not only quality coaches, but players who are big in the line, fast in the backfield, always where they are supposed to be on defense and don’t turn the ball over.
When you watch a Newport football team, you will not see many shenanigans. Not a lot of reverses, long pitchouts or deep pass routes. That’s where mistakes are made. It’s not that they can’t do those things, but there is rarely a need. The quarterback is there primarily to hand the ball off to the tailback, who follows the fullback through the hole. Exciting, no. Successful, yes.
While graduation cut deep in some areas and the team has a new head coach in Rich Boone, the 2016 Tigers will just have some new personnel doing the same things all Newport teams have done — run the ball on offense and gang-tackle on defense.
The consistency and success of Newport football is not because of any particular coach’s genius. If there is a back to pat, it lies between the shoulders of Bill Thurlow, who, at 73, is in his 51st year as an assistant coach and has not lost one iota of desire.
“If that were the case, I probably wouldn’t be here,” Thurlow said. “I’ve never lost the desire. I’ve always wanted to do this.”
Newport was devastating last year, with Noah Wade (Upper Valley-best 1,847 rushing yards, 31 TDs) and C.J. Lawrence (793 yards, 15 TDs) carrying the football and Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl selection Stephan Nix (306 receiving yards, five TDs) taking in passes when needed. While those three stars have flipped the tassel, quarterback Dylan McNamara (28-for-47, 418 yards, six TDs) is back, and there is plenty of beef in the line with Jacob Merritt, Riley Clayton, Tyler Hall and Peter Tebo all hitting the 200-pound mark and then some.
“We’re just going to play Newport football,” Merritt said. “We play it with a lot of class, and we play it clean.”
While Wade and Lawrence are gone and will be missed, fullback Tyler Sharron and tailback Ty Richardson would have started for many teams last year.
“I’m really excited about this season,” said Richardson, who, as a defensive back, intercepted two passes in a 14-8 win over Franklin last Oct. 24 and ran one back for a touchdown in the Tigers’ closest game of the campaign.
Newport may have to be wary about the schedule. Monadnock and Kearsarge have dropped down to Division III, and rival Stevens appears to the favorite of many Division III coaches this year. Newport opens with the Cougars, will host the Cardinals in its Sept. 24 homecoming game and will entertain the Huskies on Oct. 22 in its final regular-season home game.
All of which is a bit exciting for Boone, a 1981 Stevens graduate who played on the 1980 Tom Fowler-coached Cardinals team that was co-champion of the long-gone Connecticut Valley League.
Fowler, who coached the defense for departed head coach Larry McElreavy and the undefeated 2015 Tigers, will not be back, but much of the staff has returned. Along with Thurlow, Kevin Tallman and Dennis Borcuk have returned, and Tom Cummings will once again coach the middle school team.
Boone said his biggest concern this season is going to be depth.
“We have 12 seniors and five juniors, and they are all going to play a lot, but we’re thin in certain areas,” he said. “I hope we stay away from a string of injuries. We have some guys with not a lot of experience, We might not have as many skill players as we had last year.”
McElreavy left Newport after last season for work reasons and has been since hired in the same capacity at Pembroke Academy.
“I’m real happy they came back to me when the job opened,” Boone said. “This is something I aspire to do.”