LEBANON — The Lebanon High boys lacrosse team has played a man down all season. That’s because third-year head coach Rob Fett has been hospitalized for more than a month while battling lung cancer.
The Raiders (2-10) haven’t posted a winning record during the last seven years, but they were in caring hands with the 66-year old Fett, who played at Roanoke (Va.) College and later became a Wall Street bond analyst. He guided Lebanon through the preseason despite medical treatments, but his condition worsened around the time of its first game, and he’s been at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center since.
“It’s been a hectic month,” Fett said on Saturday evening with a wry smile.
A nurse poked her head around a curtain in his fourth-floor room and announced she’d be back in a moment to check his vital signs. Lying on his back and wrapped in blankets, Fett moved his left arm and the tubes running into it and frowned slightly.
“I really have no memories from most of the last month,” he said, noting that while further treatments await, his doctors are hopeful that the toughest days are behind him. “Sometimes I meditate about it late at night.”
It’s likely because of Fett’s zest for living that he’s still here.
Known for fitness and for demanding it from his players, the Garden City, N.Y., native was still running more than 30 minutes per day with Herbie, his 5-year-old Labrador retriever, when his cancer worsened and required surgery. Fett would also perform situps, pushups and other calisthenics after his jaunts, so staying still gnaws at him.
“I’ve got to get some decent footwear,” he fretted, glancing towards his feet. “I don’t want to be slipping all over the place when I can finally work out.”
Fett worked hard and prospered during his financial career. He became disenchanted with the profession by 2010, however, moving to Grafton and beginning substitute teaching in the Lebanon schools and volunteering to coach a Hanover middle school lacrosse team. Upbeat, funny and a wonderful listener, the new guy quickly became a favorite of kids throughout both towns.
“It was a great day at school when Mr. Fett was your substitute teacher, that’s for sure,” Raiders goaltender Caiden Skakalski said. “He’s real old-school and makes you smile and laugh. If he’s got a problem with something, he’ll tell you, and I really like that relationship and dynamic.”
Fett would be up and awaiting a possible substitute call early each morning. If one didn’t materialize, he and Herbie would be off for a run. He served as a Lebanon High girls lacrosse assistant for five seasons, developing a close friendship with Raiders coach Sara Ecker, which whom he shares a empathetic, teaching philosophy.
“I liked how Mr. Fett explained things so well,” Skakalski said. “He was always positive and a game was never over until it was over, and I liked that.
“He’s such a big part of Lebanon lacrosse, and not having him has affected us all.”
The Raiders are 27-85 the last eight seasons and last made the NHIAA Division III playoffs in 2015. The lack of a strong youth program and the draw of baseball, track and crew all work against the team, which isn’t as athletic or as well-drilled on fundamentals as the likes of Hanover, Hartford and Woodstock. On Friday, during a 10-3 loss to visiting InterLakes-Moultonborough, the Lakers capitalized on frequent turnovers and claimed the vast majority of ground balls.
Nick Wood is the Raiders’ interim coach after spending the past two years as an assistant. A program director at a local nature center who played high school lacrosse in the Baltimore area, the Gettysburg (Pa.) College graduate has a team with 14 seniors but only one sophomore. Nearly 20 eighth-graders played the sport in town last spring, but only eight of them are on Lebanon’s current roster.
“We haven’t put together the full 48 minutes,” Wood said. “An injury here, a rained-out practice there, and you don’t quite get everything clicking. Our guys play out every minute, but we give up one run to the other team and go down seven or eight goals and never make it back after that.”
Said Skakalski: “I don’t really know what the problem is. It’s hard to get everybody to take this sport seriously in the spring.”
Fett, who said he smoked as a teenager but never on a day-to-day basis, received his lung cancer diagnosis on Dec. 29 and convinced his doctors to implement treatment dates that worked around his lacrosse commitment. He went into the hospital for what was expected to be a short stay in early April and never returned.
“I gave the guys scrimmage vests to use and told them I wanted to get them back washed,” Fett said. “But then I wasn’t around to collect them.”
Wood said once it became apparent that Fett was out for the season, athletic director Mike Stone moved quickly to bring in former Raiders coach Rob Crutchfield and onetime Sharon Academy coach Cole Fowler.
Crutchfield, who declined to be interviewed after the InterLakes-Moultonborough game, tends to work with players one-on-one, while Fowler has taken over the defense.
“Being able to break up into three groups and not have me running back and forth between them has been great,” Wood said. “It’s made everything settle down after the chaos of not knowing what the next step was with Rob.”
Fett hopes to recover as quickly as possible. His care is being overseen via frequent conference calls between his three brothers, three sisters and two daughters, one of whom is housing Herbie. His brother Bert, one of the best players in the history of the University of North Carolina lacrosse, lives in the Upper Valley.
On Saturday, Rob Fett looked markedly better and was much more alert than he’d been just a few days earlier.
His trademark self-deprecating humor was back, which he used to describe his legs as “little sticks” because of his recent inactivity.
“I’ve gotta get going,” he said, describing his eagerness to be moved to a skilled nursing facility where physical therapy will be available. “I can’t do anything here, and I’m just atrophying. I need to get my strength back for my life.”
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com.