Maybe Scott McGilvray’s code, the one that told him to work hard for something, then modestly fade into the background, began more than 30 years ago at Concord High School.
On the football field.
Maybe blocking for those running backs, freeing them to gain yards and earn newspaper headlines, was all part of the mix, all part of the DNA attached to a person like McGilvray.
For sports fans reading this, you know what I mean. It’s the story of the offensive lineman. The football player so vital to a team’s success, yet so often overlooked because statistics and spotlights don’t exist in the world of this slow-footed giant.
McGilvray, the state senator and teacher’s union leader who died Tuesday from an undisclosed illness, took that theme and brought it with him, to schools as a teacher, to football fields as a player and coach, and, most recently, to the State House as a senator.
He graduated from Concord High in 1984, but not before leaving a trail of teammates and friends who wondered how a teen could think in terms of the greater good, think of teamwork and selflessness and honor.
“He was very ethical,” said former teammate Glenn Matthews, who works in classifications at the state prison and was a star receiver for the Tide. “We were high school kids and we would screw off and he wasn’t the kid who was screwing off. He was the guy who kept us grounded and kept us in line or directed us to do the right thing. We really respected him. He was the guy you always wanted to be like.”
Matthews lost touch in recent years with his old friend, but he never lost sight of him as a role model. McGilvray was a big presence around campus, not to mention a big one on the field as well. He stood 6-feet tall and weighed at least 210 pounds, maybe more, those who knew him told me.
“He was a big boy, a big boy,” Matthews said. “We didn’t have enough guys big enough to play (offensive line). He took a lot of pride in everything he did.”
Matthews had an inside look at McGilvray. They played basketball at the former Rundlett Junior High School in seventh- and eighth-grade, and they both got promoted to the Concord High varsity football team as freshmen. Both, as a result, lettered in football four times, and both played college football.
“He cared about everyone and he was not involved in cliques,” Matthew said. “It didn’t matter who you were, you were a person. That’s how he attracted people. Genuinely a good, good man.”
On and on came the reflections, from people who went to school with him, played ball with him, wanted to talk about him. They wanted to remember McGilvray.
They wanted to say how utterly shocked they were, how 51 was way, way too young to die. His death made them sad, and his death made them look in the mirror, altering their perspective.
Former teammate Scott Pike, a carpenter living in Loudon, was one of four captains on the 1983 team. He played on the defensive line and said his friend’s death forced him to think beyond normal boundaries, from family and work on into mortality.
“We’re all 51,” said Pike, who roomed with McGilvray when the two were teammates at Fitchburg State University. “When you’re this age and you’re thinking ahead and you see something like that, maybe I’m thinking ahead too far, or maybe not enough.”
Steve Tirrell, another captain from ’83, had been on the phone with old teammates before I called. They talked about the pre-game pizza parties and post-game gatherings, and they talked about a close-knit group that lost to Spaulding in the ’82 state championship game.
“Unfortunately, a moment like this brings you together, and you reflect on bits and pieces of your life at times like this,” said Tirrell, the head football coach at Dean College in Franklin, Mass. “Passing away at our age is passing away far too young. He has family, and to lose a father and a friend, and with how much he impacted the community, I can only imagine how much the loss being felt there is.”
Flags have been flying at half mast across the state, as order by Gov. Chris Sununu. People have been affected in different areas, in different walks of life.
They felt it at Manchester Memorial High School, where McGilvray coached youth and varsity football and taught social studies. They felt it at the New Hampshire chapter of the National Education Association, the state’s largest teacher’s union, which McGilvray led before illness forced him aside. They felt it at the State House, where McGilvray was early in his first term in office.
And they felt it in Concord and at the local high school. McGilvray grew up on Shawmut Street, a big kid with a big heart and big plans. He dated Suzette Pepin, who in an email said of her former boyfriend, “A fierce protector of those he loved and those who might be left behind. This was Scott as a teenager, when I knew him best.”
Laura Mitchell, who works at the Merrimack Superior Court, lost touch with McGilvray after a tight bond in high school. Her son was born in 1989, years since she had seen him, yet guess who showed up at the hospital for a surprise visit, leather football in hand.
“Totally out of the blue he comes in to see me,” Mitchell said. “So sweet.”
Somewhere along the line, perhaps the offensive line, McGilvray got it, evolving beyond his classmates and teammates, to a place where leaders reside.
He’ll be honored Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m. at Phaneuf Funeral Home on Hanover Street in Manchester. Matthews said he expects at least 30 former teammates to attend.
“We’ll meet at a place and go down together,” Matthews told me. “There could be 40 of us, maybe more. Everybody loved him. He was just that type of guy.”
(Ray Duckler can be reached at 369-3304 or rduckler@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @rayduckler.)