Remembering Marty Ryan, 'one of the builders' of the Narragansett athletic programs

WELLS, MAINE — Marty Ryan bled Warriors Blue for Narragansett Regional, long before Tommy Lasorda made that color a fashion statement for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Ryan is still the only man to coach all three major sports — football, basketball and baseball — at Narragansett, leading one of his teams to a district title while taking another right to the brink.

A 1965 graduate and three-sport athlete at Narragansett, his 1976 Warriors baseball team captured the District III title, after he took the Warriors basketball team to the district semifinals with an unforgettable four-overtime quarterfinal win over rival Oakmont.

Ryan, a 2007 Narragansett Athletic Hall of Fame inductee, was stricken ill at his home in Wells, Maine and passed away suddenly last Friday at the age of 73.

Brought up in Templeton, Ryan was only five years old when his mother died following a long illness. Since his father worked each day at American Fiber in Gardner, he would bring the youngster to stay with Marty’s sister, Elizabeth, the mother of former Gardner High track and cross country coach Ed Kozlowski, at their home on Coleman Street.

Kozlowski, despite being nine-days older than Ryan, was his nephew.

“Marty and I would attend Sacred Heart School together each day from first through eighth grade,” Kozlowski noted. “At the time, students at Sacred Heart were able to play football on the Gardner Junior High team, so Marty played there for (coach) Joe Bishop.”

When it came time to attend high school, Ryan went to Narragansett where he was a three-sport athlete on the soccer and baseball fields, as well as the basketball court under legendary coach Lee Cunningham.

Former Narragansett varsity baseball coach Pete Gallant was a year behind Ryan in high school, but played on all three sports teams with him.

“He was a hard worker in all sports and led the (basketball) team in foul shot accuracy in high school,” Gallant recalled.

Following his 1965 graduation from Narragansett, Ryan went on to American International College, where he played football. He returned to his high school alma mater where he taught in the Business Department and began a coaching career there.

“Marty was one of the building blocks, motivating forces and builders of the athletic programs at Narragansett,” said former Narragansett principal John Jasinski, who coached with Ryan on several levels and nominated him for induction in the Narragansett Athletic Hall of Fame.

Ryan began as an assistant coach of football under John McDonough, basketball under Ken Rice and was the varsity baseball coach.

“Coach Ryan meant a great deal to me as my varsity baseball coach. He took a chance on a freshman and inserted me into the fire,” recalled Alan Evans, a 1974 ’Gansett graduate who was one of Ryan’s big success stories, moving on to pitch for four years at Bentley College.

“His confidence in me had a lasting impact on my development as an athlete and a person. He was truly a player’s coach,” Evans continued.

Ryan’s Warriors baseball teams did the little things to make them successful. If they didn’t have standout hitters, he’d manufacture runs with bunts, stolen bases, or a suicide squeeze. Whatever it took to win.

“I believe that Marty and Mike Dymon (of Quabbin) were in a class by themselves in Central Mass. as far as baseball coaches go,” said Bill Dow, a 1977 Narragansett graduate who played all three sports for Ryan. “We worked hard on fundamentals under Marty and never beat ourselves due to mental errors.”

Dennis Medeiros, who also played three sports for Ryan, recalled getting the starting shortstop berth as a freshman and then making about 10 errors early in the season.

“I went in and I was all set to quit. I told him I couldn’t do it,” Medeiros recalled. “He wasn’t gentle with me, but he was firm. He just knew what to say. Well, I stayed and I don’t think I made another error the rest of the season.”

Gallant, who coached the ’Gansett junior high baseball team for seven years while Ryan was the varsity coach, recalled, “He was a very intense coach who really cared for his players, fellow coaches and the school and towns of Templeton and Phillipston,” he said, noting that he later bought Ryan’s Baldwinville house when Ryan moved to Maine in the late 1970s.

Ryan’s basketball teams also made several Clark Tournament appearances and in 1976 outlasted Oakmont in a classic four-overtime game in the district quarterfinals. It was the fifth time the two local rivals had met that season, with the Warriors winning the big one when it counted.

“That was an unbelievable game,” recalled Medeiros, a co-captain of that team. “I remember Coach Ryan had me bringing up the ball, and I couldn’t dribble to save my life. It was more to get (their big man) Dave Wyman from underneath.

“At the end of the game, it was just elation, finally beating them,” he said. “It would have been tough losing to them a fifth time.”

’Gansett lost in the semifinals to eventual state finalists Notre Dame of Fitchburg.

That spring, Ryan’s Warriors baseball team captured the school’s first-ever district championship with a win over North Brookfield in the finals, 11-3.

From there, they moved on to the state semifinals where they were beaten, 7-5, by St. Joseph’s of Pittsfield.

“We were two evenly-matched teams and Marty had us well-prepared to play,” Dow recalled. “We just came up a bit short.”

“He was a class guy, and maybe ahead of his time,” added Medeiros, also a member of that baseball team. “He felt that you should look sharp, and if you look sharp, you’ll play sharp.”

Medeiros noted that in later years when he and many of his Warrior teammates went on to play for the Red Onion team in the City Softball League, they carried over a lot of what they learned from Ryan.

“With the Onion we used to bunt, move guys over, maybe keep going to second base when you’ve got a guy on third base, on ball four,” he said. “That’s how we would generate runs with Marty. That was his game. You’d make the other team throw the ball away.”

In 1979, Ryan left Narragansett to become the athletic director at Wells High School in Maine, where he served as head football coach, athletic director and the school’s activities director.

Ryan received the 1987 Maine Athletic Director of the Year Award and, in 1994, he was given the State Award of Merit. The following year, he was one of six high school athletic directors to receive the National Federation Citation at the National Conference of High School Directors of Athletics.

“Marty was a giant in terms of his profession. He had skills and talents that he exhibited while he was at Narragansett,” Jasinski said. “When he and Judy and their family moved to Maine, he became a nationally renowned athletic director. He was involved in national pursuits with different athletic organizations that he was a part of.”

Ryan was named president of the Maine Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association in 1990-91 and was executive director for several years, beginning in 1994.

In 2001, he moved to the Kennebunk school system where he became the school’s full-time athletic director.

He also served as president of the National Athletic Directors Association, an organization numbering over 6,000 members.

Three years later, he reached a pinnacle achievement in his athletic career when he was selected National Athletic Director of the Year at a national conference in Chicago.

Following his retirement, the Ryan’s remained in Wells. Their daughter, Amy, who graduated from College of the Holy Cross, is an elementary school teacher in Nashville. Son Tim was a former All-State football and baseball all-star at Wells and captain of the Bowdoin College football team. He returned to Bowdoin where he is currently the school’s athletic director and lives there with his wife Jennifer.

Looking back on his coaching career on the local scene, Ryan once recalled, “I have a lot of great memories from my coaching days at Narragansett.”

Many of his players have equally fond memories of the mentor who helped build them into men for the Warriors.

 Medeiros recalled, “He knew what to do in certain situations. When to yell and when to coddle.”

As Dow remembered, “Growing up in a small town and playing sports literally year-round it’s important to have coaches like Marty that helped mold us into the people we are as adults,” he said. “I will always be thankful for his guidance both on and off the field.”

Evans added, “He was always enthusiastic and enjoyed having fun with his teams, but he was stern when we needed it,” he said. “He was a positive influence on all who had the privilege of playing for him.”

(Comments and suggestions can be sent to Mike Richard at mikerichard0725@gmail.com or in writing Mike Richard, 92 Boardley Rd. Sandwich, MA 02563)