Sometimes winning just doesn't get better than this
Ben Sherry, Division 1A Player of the Year State Champs: Wayland High School Sometimes winning just doesn’t get better than this Aday in November 1973 was the high point for students that year at Wayland High School in Wayland, Massachusetts. That was the day Tom Hamilton, the bass player of Aerosmith and a graduate of Wayland High, brought the band to play a concert at the school. But now, even that memorable event may have been eclipsed by what happened on December 2, 2006. That’s when the Wayland Warriors football team finished their season unbeaten and were declared Division IA State Champions for the first time in 31 years.
If anyone is an expert on Wayland football, it’s Scott Parseghian. A 1992 alumnus, Parseghian just finished his 11th year at Wayland and his sixth as head football coach, (the previous five he served as an assistant coach). Parseghian is also dean of students, and with 98 percent of the graduates going on to four-year colleges, he certainly has a lot to be proud of academically at Wayland. Athletics, however, have been a different story. When Parseghian joined the coaching staff at Head Coach Scott Parseghian From a zero-win season to undefeated Division 1A state champions –WOW!
Team captions Ben Sherry, Tony Torres, Henry Hastings and Chris Lash.
Ben Wiesman Blocking for Ben Sherry Ben Sherry This year we didn’t post the schedule in the locker room; the only thing that was posted was the scouting report on the next team. Our kids knew it was “one game at a time.” Scott Parseghian, Head Football Coach Wayland, he worked under four different head coaches in five years. Those were frustrating times. The best record their team could produce was 5-5, and there was one year when they had zero wins, one year when they had one win, and…well, you get the idea. Parseghian decided that it was time to change all that, so when that fourth coach stepped down, he stepped up to try to turn things around. Here’s how he did it.
BFS: When you took over the program, what were the things you changed immediately? Parseghian: I hired a brand-new coaching staff. I thought there were some great guys here, but I just wanted to get my own staff in here and build from there. BFS: What was your weightroom like when you took over? Parseghian: We didn’t have a weightroom, but halfway through my first year we did a lot of fundraising and paid for a full weightroom. We raised $150,000 all by ourselves, because the school couldn’t give us a dime. BFS: How did you raise that much money so quickly?
Parseghian: We live in a fairly wealthy community, and since I’m a local kid who’s sort of well known MARCH/APRIL 2007 Brian Harvey Kicking, Brett Mordas Holding around here, I went around and gave my sales pitch. I just talked to people about how Wayland athletes have to become bigger, faster and stronger, and the only way to do that is through a weightroom. BFS: For our readers who are in the same boat as you were, what advice would you give on how to fundraise successfully? Parseghian: First of all you have to have some great selling points, and you have to be passionate when you’re pitching them. Make sure they know it’s for the kids and the program and for the entire town.
I also told them what training does for kids’ self-esteem, how it makes them feel better and helps fight obesity – and people wanted to see it happen. BFS: What was your record the first year? Parseghian: I hate to say it, but it was 1-10. I can remember looking into the stands and seeing just a few parents and some players’ girlfriends who would come out and support the team. After that season I was kind of secondguessing myself and wondering if I was the right guy for the job, since I seemed to be doing what everybody else had done before me.
BFS: When did you start using the BFS program? Parseghian: My second year. That year we went 8-3, and we’ve had winning seasons ever since. It has been a tremendous turnaround, and seeing 3,000 or more fans packing the stands and having the community supporting us – it’s awesome! BFS: Do you believe that having a solid weight-training program – and a weightroom, for that matter – contributed to such a rapid improvement? Parseghian: Absolutely. BFS: So tell me about the playoffs this year and the state championship games. Parseghian: We pretty much dominated both games, and we won our Super Bowl 28-0. The closest game we had all year was against LincolnSudbury, where we won 13-6.
BFS: What type of offense do you run? Parseghian: We run the spread offense – not a lot of people run it up here. Our offensive coordinator, Joe Cincotta, has really done a great job with it. We get a lot of people who touch the ball, and for the past couple of years our offense has been one of the highest scoring in the state. But this year we really wanted to focus on our defense, and we hired a new defensive coordinator, Jim Girard. He did an outstanding job – we only gave up 7.3 points a game, just over a touchdown a game, and had five shutouts. BFS: What was your team slogan this year? Parseghian: “One game at a time.”
The previous year we went 9-2, and we felt we had underestimated a team in the middle of the season, and that loss ended up killing us from going into the playoffs. This year we didn’t post the schedule in the locker room; the only thing that was posted was the scouting report on the next team. Our kids knew it was “one game at a time.” BFS: Is there any concern that your players might slack off next year because your team was so dominant this year? Parseghian: Actually, I think it’s the other way around – these kids definitely want to keep it going.
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From BFS Magazine — March/April 2007. Part of the BFS Magazine Archive (1980–2014).
