After having three head football coaches in the last three years, and a 6-19 record to show for it, Pembroke Academy was looking for someone who knows how to end the losing. Enter Larry McElreavy, the man who helped end the most infamous losing streak in college football.
McElreavy, 70, was the head coach at Columbia University when the Lions ended their 44-game losing streak in 1988. He left the Ivies after that season and had several college coaching jobs before returning home to his native New Hampshire.
For the last two years, McElreavy has been the head coach at Newport High, leading the Tigers to a 20-2 mark in that time. Newport went 11-0 last year and won the Division III title. But McElreavy needed to move further south for personal reasons and it just so happened the Pembroke job opened at the perfect time, for both the coach and the school.
“He has a lot of quality experience with college and high school, so we are thrilled to bring (McElreavy) in,” Pembroke athletic director Suzanne Klink said. “It was quite evident right away that he was going to be a good philosophical match for our program. He has created success stories wherever he’s been and we think he can come in here and instill confidence in our kids.”
That’s exactly what McElreavy plans to do.
“Probably the biggest challenge is just making football players believe that they can be successful,” McElreavy said. “There’s a fine line between winning and losing and a lot of it is that mentality that, ‘I’m going to win this football game,’ and not, ‘Maybe I can win it.’ You have to teach the players that you do little things right and the big things will happen. There’s a process there, but the most important thing, I believe, is making them believe in themselves.
“But there’s no magic answer to making a successful football program. If there was I’d just write a book and give it to everyone and let them be automatic winners.”
McElreavy’s first head coaching job was at the University of New Haven, where he posted a 12-18 record from 1983-85. He was at Columbia from 1986-88, going 2-28. But one of those two wins was the famous streak buster, a 16-13 decision over Princeton on Oct. 8 1988. The quarterback for Princeton that day was Jason Garrett, who would go on to play in the NFL and is currently the Dallas Cowboys head coach. The quarterback for Columbia was Concord High graduate Bruce Mayhew.
“I remember Mayhew as being a decent passer, but a very aggressive, very tough football player, that’s why I liked him,” McElreavy said. “I thought if I had to put the ball in the quarterback’s arms and he had to run with it, he’d be an ideal candidate for that.”
After his stint at Columbia, McElreavy spent a year at Toledo and a year at UMass, coaching tight ends at both places, before working at the NFL combine for a year. He was then the offensive coordinator at the University of Richmond from 1995- 1999.
McElreavy returned to his hometown of Claremont in 2000 to care for ailing father. He dabbled in several professions in the Claremont area, most recently selling real estate. With that market drying up, McElreavy began looking for other professional opportunities and he found one in Manchester, which is what led him to Pembroke.
“It was an economic decision. Newport was a great experience and it was one of the hardest things I ever had to do was tell my team (Tuesday) that I was leaving,” McElreavy said. “They were wonderful to me, but it’s one of those life decisions I had to make.”
As much as McElreavy hated leaving Newport, the school hated seeing him go, too.
“He knows his Xs and Os, he’s organized, his team was totally disciplined,” Newport AD Jeff Miller said. “They completed a perfect season by winning the Division III championship and they got the sportsmanship award from the officials. It really was a perfect season.
“When he came in the kids immediately respected him. So what Pembroke is getting is one heck of a football coach.”
McElreavy won’t install any new systems for the Spartans next year. Instead, he’ll take what they’ve been using and modify it to his standards.
“I always felt that at the high school level it’s a lot easier for me to learn what they’re doing than for me to put a system in and make 40 or 45 players adjust to it,” McElreavy said. “Football is what I do, so it should be easier for me learn a new system.”
One of the major football issues at Pembroke has been stability. Bringing in a coach of McElreavy’s age may not seem like the best way to find a long-term solution, but McElreavy is full of surprises.
“If you give him a little time he’ll definitely change the culture,” Miller said. “He’s 70, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s doing the same thing when he’s 85. Last year on the first day of practice he made the kids do 100 push ups and he got right down and did them, too, and he did more than most of the kids on the team. That opened their eyes.”
-McElreavy won’t be the only new local football coach this fall. Josh Marzahl, 25, will take over Gilford-Belmont’s new co-op team this fall.
Gilford was in D-III last season, but with the addition of the Belmont players to the varsity level (they played JV last year), the new team will move up to D-II. Marzahl, who was Gilford’s JV coach the last two years, spoke to nhfootballreport.com about his team moving up a division.
“I think the merger with Belmont was worth the move to Division II,” Marzahl said. “It sets us up for more success. We have a better chance to win with Belmont in Division II than we would as just Gilford in Division III.”