Paul Landau has taken a winding road through the sports world. He’s gone from player, to journalist, to coach and now, in his latest step, to athletic director at Belmont High.

Landau, 33, spent the last five years teaching and coaching at ConVal Regional High, where he’s been the head football coach for the last the last four seasons. It was a dream job for Landau, but it also came with a long commute to his home in Barrington.

“It just felt like I was being pulled a lot in two different directions, and I didn’t want to do that to my team or my family, so that’s part of why I was looking, and becoming an athletic director was a new challenge I wanted,” Landau said. “And Belmont, I think, it was just the perfect fit at the right time for me … and I was fortunate enough to be offered the job.”

Landau grew up playing football and baseball in Bedford and at Manchester West. He went to the University of New Hampshire as a defensive tackle and was part of the same recruiting class that brought future stars like Corey Graham, David Ball and Ricky Santos to Durham. But a back injury during his freshman year cut Landau’s UNH career short.

“I took about a year away from sports after that because it was just so hard to be around it and not be able to play,” Landau said. “But I really felt that void and wanted to get back into it, and I thought a good way to do that would be as a journalist.”

It would have been, except finding work as a sports writer was difficult. Landau was still trying to make it as a journalist when he got a chance to coach American Legion baseball in Bedford. He loved the experience and decided to change direction on his sports course, moving from newspapers to schools.

He went back to UNH to get a graduate degree in health and physical education. He became an assistant football coach and JV baseball coach at Souhegan. In the fall of 2012 he landed his first teaching job at ConVal. By 2014, he was the school’s head football coach.

Taking on the challenge and responsibilities of being an athletic director, and cutting his commute in half, drew Landau to Belmont. But it wasn’t easy saying goodbye to ConVal and the Peterborough community.

“I told my team it was probably the hardest decision I’ve ever made. It’s tough, I’m going to miss those kids and everyone else,” Landau said. “For me coaching and teaching has always been about relationships, and you do everything you can to build those relationships with your athletes and your students and the community, so saying goodbye to a lot of those was tough.”

Landau doesn’t have any personal connections to Belmont or the Lakes Region. But he’s looking forward to immersing himself in the community and getting a feel for things before he tries to make his own mark on the athletic department.

“I know that a lot of their teams are really successful. Last year I remember during the basketball season Belmont knocking off Mascenic, which was a big deal out in the western part of the state,” Landau said. “I know the Belmont softball team was just in the championship game and their soccer teams have always done pretty well. So I know there’s a pretty proud athletic tradition at Belmont and for me it’s just going in there and really getting a sense of the community and getting a sense of where we’re at athletically and then go from there.”

There is one area at Belmont Landau may look to upgrade sooner rather than later.

“I know in conversations I’ve had with some people one thing maybe to look at is trying to improve the weight program at the school, which I’m a big believer in as far as helping athletes improve,” Landau said.

A bulked-up weight program would certainly benefit the Belmont-Gilford football team, which finished 1-7 last year. But Landau won’t be providing any direct help as a football coach … at least not yet.

“When I took this job I knew I would be saying goodbye to coaching for a little bit. I think there’s so much to do as a new athletic director, so I’m going to really focus on the community, the coaches and all the sports teams, especially where this job is for both the high school and middle school,” Landau said. “Eventually I’d love to get back into coaching, it’s one of my main passions, but not right now.”

(Tim O’Sullivan can be reached at 369-3341, tosullivan@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @timosullivan20.)

]]>