When Tim LaTorra found out he would be taking over the Concord High boys’ basketball program, one of the first things he did was call Dave Chase.
“I answered the phone, and he said: ‘I’ll see ya Dec.20,’ and then he hung up the phone,” Chase said. “I think that was his way of telling me he’s ready to go.”
Chase is now the head coach of Pinkerton Academy boys’ basketball, and his Astros took down the Tide, 69-50, last Tuesday night. And while LaTorra surely wanted his team to pick up the win, it was an opportunity for him to reflect on how impactful Chase has been in his basketball coaching career.
In 2006, after LaTorra graduated from New England College, where he played on the men’s basketball team, he was working as a student-teacher in Hopkinton. He’d played basketball since he was 5 years old, and he wanted to find a way to stay involved in the game.
That’s when Chase, who — as LaTorra put it — didn’t know him from a hole in the wall, approached him about joining his coaching staff for Hopkinton boys’ basketball.
“Twenty-two years old, got nothing else going on, so I’m like, ‘Of course. Let’s do it,’ ” LaTorra said. “He’s been a mentor to me every step of the way since that moment.”
After taking the job, he remembers standing in the locker room with the rest of the team feeling like he was about to go play for Chase himself. Once a basketball player, always a basketball player.
“He’s a massive motivator,” LaTorra said. “I’m in the locker room with the guys, he’s giving the pregame talk to the players, and I’m ready to run through a brick wall as an assistant coach. His team would feed off that as well.”
LaTorra spent one season working with Chase and then found himself facing off against his mentor a couple of years later. He’d taken over as the head coach for Sunapee, and it was a chance to show off all that he’d learned from his time at Hopkinton.
The mentee and his team were victorious.
“He has never let me forget that he beat me that night,” Chase said.
Although Chase got revenge last Tuesday, it certainly doesn’t take away from all the work he’s seen LaTorra put into his basketball programs over the years.
“He’s what you’re looking for in a coach,” he said. “He’s invested, not so much just invested in the moment but in the process. He knows the importance of getting down with the youth leagues and the youth kids and developing a program from the bottom up. Even when he first came to Concord with the girls’ program, he was doing the morning programs and getting his players involved as mentors for the younger kids.”
Chase has experience in LaTorra’s shoes. He coached Concord boys’ basketball for three years before he resigned in Oct. 2019. He took over a program that had gone 13-60 from 2013 through 2016 and brought forth improvement every year, culminating with a playoff appearance in the 2018-19 season after the team went 11-7.
It was during Chase’s time at Concord when the girls’ basketball head coaching job opened up. He thought LaTorra could be a good fit.
At Sunapee, LaTorra’s teams had just won three state championships and 72 games in a row. He was ready for a new challenge. Now, after leading Concord girls’ basketball to great success, he’s taken over the boys’ program that – aside from the one year Chase took them to the playoffs – has fallen on hard times over the last 15 or so years.
“He does his homework,” Chase said. “He’s gonna scout, he’s gonna come up with practice plans and scouting plans, he’s gonna give his kids every opportunity to be successful. You get a lot of guys who want to coach but maybe not so much as to go all in 100%. Tim will go in 100% and has. I think they’re gonna get better quicker than maybe they would’ve if somebody didn’t do that stuff.”
So far, the Tide are off to an 0-3 start, but they’ve faced three of the best teams in Division I, including Chase’s Pinkerton Astros who were 0-18 the year before he came in and turned them around. If the Astros are any indication, LaTorra and Concord will have a shot at seeing improvement sooner than later. Not only does LaTorra have a team he can point to as a model, he has a coach.
“His reputation speaks for itself,” LaTorra said. “Everybody wants to throw out the line, ‘One of the best coaches in the state,’ but I think you look at what he’s done over his entire career, his body of work, Hopkinton’s known as a soccer town, and he was able to build that up and be competitive consistently. … I don’t think it’s a coincidence that everything he touches turns to gold.”
Before the start of Tuesday’s game, LaTorra anticipated that the game would have a little extra meaning.
“Obviously, when the ball goes up, the two of us are gonna be competitive maniacs,” he said. “But I think afterwards, I’m just gonna be thankful that I got the opportunity to share the gym with him.”