COURTESY PHOTO
Brian Vaughan has been tabbed as Classical’s new football coach.
By STEVE KRAUSE
LYNN — Brian Vaughan’s goal has always been to return to Lynn, the city in which he excelled as a high school football player, as a head coach.
Wednesday he got his wish.
Vaughan, a former Lynn English running back, has been named the head football coach at Classical High School. He replaces Tim Phelps, who had held the position for the previous nine seasons.
“He was one of 10 tremendous applicants,” said principal Gene Constantino Wednesday. “And after the interviews, he was the unanimous choice of the committee.
“We think he’ll be a good fit for Classical,” Constantino said.
Vaughan thinks he will too, primarily because this is what he’s always wanted.
“I’m honored to have this position. This has always been my ultimate goal,” said Vaughan. “When I started coaching, I had it in my mind to be a head coach in Lynn.
“Over the years, I took some challenging positions at a few schools, and the whole point was to prepare me for a Lynn job somewhere down the line. Fortunately it worked out the way I wanted it to work out.”
Vaughan was an assistant football and girls basketball coach at English (his daughter, Brianna was on the team at the time) when he was chosen to coach at Pope John in Everett. He almost immediately turned the Tigers’ program around, and they eventually played in a High School Super Bowl.
From there, he went to Boston English, where, in his second year, his team defeated Boston Latin for the first time in 15 years. It was also at English where Vaughan was a New England Patriots Coach of the Week.
Though he left English for personal reasons, he stayed busy coaching Everett Pop Warner and assisting John DiBiaso coaching defensive backs.
Last year, he took over at South Boston High (Excel).
“Every day,” he said, “there was a different type of adversity, and most of the time it had nothing to do with Xs and Os. These are young men from the city, and they’re dealing with a lot of things you don’t deal with anywhere else. Being in that situation made me a better coach.
“In Boston, you’re more than a coach,” he said. “You’re sometimes a social worker. You’re sometimes a counselor, and even sometimes a dad. And you’re always a coach.”
Vaughan was the featured running back on English’s 1990 Northeastern Conference-winning team that went to the Division 3 Eastern Mass. Super Bowl at Foxboro Stadium, where the Bulldogs fell to Case. Classical assistant principal Chris Warren was a quarterback on that team.
“Chris and I go back to before high school, playing basketball together at Kiley Park,” said Vaughan.
Vaughan played at Northeastern for Swampscott native Barry Gallup, where he set a school career rushing record of 2,663 yards, a mark that was broken by Saugus’ L.J. McKanas when he played there.
In addition to his head coaching stints, Vaughan also served as an assistant at English, Winthrop, as well as for Everett and the city’s Pop Warner program.
He says he’s taken something from every coach he’s ever played for and worked with.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked for some great coaches,” he said, “guys like Gary Molea, Matt Durgin, Barry Gallup, Tom Lamb, John DiBiaso … two coaches I worked with ended up in the NFL (Doug Marrone and Joe Philbin). I try to emulate how they treated me, and my teammates.”
Vaughan says his philosophy when it comes to coaching is simple.
“The skill level dictates the style you play,” he said. “You have to put your best athletes on the field, and put them in the best positions where they can make plays and be successful.”
Though he was busy coaching the Eastie-Southie game this past Thanksgiving, he saw the play that provided the shocking climax to the Classical-English game “a bunch of times on ESPN.
“That seemed like a fun game on both sides,” he said. “Unfortunately only one team could win. I thought it was a real good game for the city, though. It really put us on the map for a few days all over the world.”
Steve Krause can be reached at [email protected].
