Tilley retiring from coaching lacrosse

The Tech boys lacrosse team provided coach Brad Tilley, who won’t be returning next spring, with a memorable final season.Although the Tigers didn’t qualify for the state tournament, they won six games, the most in the team’s history, providing the veteran teacher and coach with a nice sendoff.Tilley, who teaches physical education at Tech, will be retiring from teaching as of next Thanksgiving Day. He plans to continue coaching the swim team, which had a great season this winter, but he won’t be back for lacrosse in the 2010 season.Tilley said without a lacrosse feeder program in the city, he has to pull together his team by convincing kids in school to come out for the program. That won’t be possible once he’s retired from teaching and not in the school.”We’ve gotten kids to believe in the system,” Tilley said. “They come from hockey, they come out of the gym classes. I’m hoping my assistant, Dick Wall, will be hired to take over. I didn’t want to shortchange the kids. I don’t feel like I can get the kids out not being there.”Tilley, who took over the lacrosse program from Jay Richards four years ago, said the swimming program doesn’t face the same obstacles when it comes to getting students to participate.”Swimming is a well-oiled machine,” he said, citing the hard work of his assistant, John Hogan; Hogan’s two daughters, Katie and Karen, who both swam at Classical and later at Salem State College; and Charlie Rowe.Tilley’s swim team had a banner season, winning the Commonwealth Conference Small title with a 6-0 record (8-4 overall) and the Lynn City Swim Meet for the first time since 1976, which was his first year coaching the team.Tilley said he loved coaching the Tech lacrosse program. He said the team recorded its first win his first year, and won two games the second year, three last year and six this past season.”What I was most thrilled about was that we had 30 kids who stayed with the program,” Tilley said. “I had some great kids. It was just phenomenal. They were so intent on playing, on having a good time. They had so much fun and that’s what coaching is about, as far as I’m concerned.”Although lacrosse is booming in most communities, that isn’t the case in Lynn, Tilley said. There was a youth program several years back, but it folded, and Lynn youngsters who want to play now go to Salem.”You need a feeder program,” Tilley said. “You need young people involved in coaching.”Tilley, who has been teaching for 33 years, also serves as an assistant football coach with Gary Sverker.