Molea’s English football coaching tenure ends

LYNN – Gary Molea will not be coaching football at English High next year, but principal Andy Fila wants to stress that the decision to post his job casts no aspersions on the job he did on the gridiron for 18 seasons, nor any about his dedication to the school itself.Fila Thursday confirmed what just about everyone in and around Lynn had known since the Monday after Thanksgiving: that he was replacing Molea. The move is over a year coming, Fila said.”I’d actually wanted to do this last year,” he said, “but then we had all the difficulties with the basketball situation (Jack O’Brien abruptly pulling out the day practice began), so it got postponed for a year.”Fila also said that the decision to replace Molea was not made final until Wednesday, when he met with School Superintendent Nicholas Kostan (personnel decisions must be cleared through him).Molea will keep his job as athletic director at English, and therein lay the conflict, Fila said. It’s getting increasingly difficult to do justice to both jobs, he said.”I feel that athletics is the weakest part of our curriculum,” he said. “I just thought it was time for Gary – as athletic director – to focus on the whole program.”Molea, who led English to the Division 3 Super Bowl in his first season (1990), won 100 games even in his 18 years with the Bulldogs. His best season recently was in 2005, when a senior-laden team finished with an 8-2 record without having played a game at home due to the reconstruction of Manning Field. In the last two years, the Bulldogs were 2-6 and 4-7.Fila shot down reports that former Peabody coach Ed Nizwantowski would be approached as Molea’s replacement, saying, “I have a couple of people in mind, but he’s not one of them.”Molea admitted that this is a bittersweet time for him. On one hand, he said, all three of his children are athletes, yet he couldn’t spend the time watching them play – especially in the fall. In fact, he said, he preferred that his two sons not play Pop Warner the past few years because he knew he wouldn’t be around to watch.”Now, next year, if they choose to play, maybe I’ll coach them,” he said. “My passion has been this (coaching football) for a long time. Now, my passion is my family.”Molea’s daughter, Madison, was on the Wyoma Little League softball team that went to Albany and fell a few games short of going to the World Series.”That was probably the most exciting time I’ve ever had, athletically,” he said.Yet, he said, one of his sons ran track at Pickering and his daughter played softball “and I couldn’t watch them. So in a way, this is all right.”I knew it was going to end sometime,” he said. “Did I want it to end right now? No.”Fila said he took all of that into consideration when he made the decision to replace Molea as football coach.”If we’d won the Super Bowl this season, it wouldn’t have been any different,” he said.Fila pointed out that Molea played a big role in organizing the merger of the Classical and English boys hockey teams, and played just as big a role in getting the girls hockey program off the ground.”Plus,” Fila said, “he’s a hockey parent himself.”As if to prove Fila’s point, Molea conducted his interview with The Item in his car, en route to Connery Rink to watch his daughter play in a scrimmage.Molea is proud of the work he did at English.”I have no regrets,” he said. “We had a lot of participation this year, but there can always be more.”I don’t measure success by wins and losses,” he said. “I measure it by how many people participate, and how many of the kids get into college.”I’m sure (Fila) wants to see more participation,” Molea said, “and maybe he feels we could have won a little bit more, too. If that’s how he feels, then that’s how he feels.”Maybe, after 18 years, it’s time to bring some new blood in here,” Molea said. “But I’m not done coaching. And I’m not done with these kids, either. I’ll be with them all the way.”