ITEM FILE PHOTO
Mike Carr and his wife, Gemma, attended a fund raiser last July at the Hibernian Hall in Lynn.
By STEVE KRAUSE
LYNN — Tom Grassa had known Mike Carr since the latter was a teenager who showed up at Lynn youth basketball clinics.
Little did either of them know that, years later, they’d be coaching against one another.
“I loved Mike,” said Grassa, who is the longtime boys basketball coach at Lynn Classical. “He was a super, super outstanding person who had a lot of class. I never heard anyone speak poorly about him.”
Carr, 52, died Friday night after an almost-yearlong illness. Since Carr was hired in 2010 as the Lynn English basketball coach, Grassa, as the director of the Bulldogs’ rival school, went up against him twice a year.
“It’s really sad,” Grassa said. “He’s going to be missed by the teaching community. He was a terrific coach, and just a great guy.”
Carr lived in Lynn with his wife, Gemma. He had two children, Rachael and Michael, both students at Peabody High.
Aside from coaching, Grassa had worked in both the Lynn and Salem school systems, as a bartender at Tony’s Pub and Grill in Lynn, and, in the summer, and worked in summer painting houses as part of the “King Crab Painting Company,” which was a nickname given to his father, Mike Sr.
Carr, who first found out he was sick with a serious virus last March, was admitted to the hospital two weeks ago. Steve Stranahan, his close friend and assistant, had been coaching the Bulldogs in his absence.
“This is a very, very sad day for English High,” said Thomas Strangie, the school’s principal. “He was totally devoted to English.
“He knew what he was fighting,” said Strangie. “But he wanted to be there for his players. He was devoted to them, too.”
“The school is saddened by his death,” said athletic director Dick Newton. “He was a dedicated English guy. He gave his heart and soul to the school.”
Carr came from a coaching family. His father, the late Mike Carr Sr., was a longtime football coach and athletic director at Lynn Tech.
Carr began coaching at English in 2008 as an assistant to Buzzy Barton, who is now a Lynn councilor-at-large.
“When I knew my other assistant coach was going to step down, (referee Bob) “Moona” Mullins told me about him. He’d been an assistant coach at Stoneham High for 19 years,” Barton said. “So I went over to see him at a game, and he told me coaching at English had been his dream job.
“We complemented each other very well,” Barton said. “I have a bad back so I couldn’t get around too well, so he’d be the one who went out onto the court in practice to teach kids.”
The combination worked. In their first year together, Barton and Carr guided the Bulldogs to the Division 1 state final. Two years later, after Barton stepped down, he became the head coach, and in 2013, he coached the Bulldogs to a spot in the Division 1 North final.
“The kids loved him,” said Barton. “They played hard for him.”
Carr endured 14 surgeries as the result of the virus he had, but he withstood it. However, while being treated for it, it was discovered he had cancer too.
By July, however, Carr was well enough to attend a fundraiser at the Hibernian Hall that he hoped would defray some of the medical costs he’d accumulated while being treated.
Despite his medical uncertainties, Newton said Carr was determined to coach this winter.
“I asked him,” Newton said. “And he said he really wanted to keep going as long as he could.”
Carr’s assistants, led by Stranahan, will continue to coach the team through the end of the season, Newton said.
