Boys basketball coach Paul Bilodeau retires
By Ken Powers Community Reporter

Westborough - If they remake the film "It's a Wonderful Life" anytime in the near future and they need someone to play the main character, George Bailey, Westborough's Paul Bilodeau might be just the guy for the role.

Bilodeau announced recently that he is retiring from his position as Westborough High School's (WHS) boys basketball coach, as he is in the process of building a house in Isle of Palms, S.C., where he and his wife, Dee, plan to relocate.

"My wife is from Charleston - we met when I was stationed there when I was in the Navy," Bilodeau said. "She moved up here with me right after we got married, now it's my turn to move down there with her."

An avid golfer, Bilodeau knows he is getting the better end of the deal.

Bilodeau got the better end of a deal back in 1985, too, when he won the state Lottery game Megabucks. He won $8 million for his collection of six numbers. The yearly checks stopped arriving in 2005.

Bilodeau worked for the state Department of Youth Services at the time, at the Robert F. Kennedy Action Corps, but shortly after he won Megabucks, he quit his job.

A short time after that, WHS boys basketball coach Dick LaDuke - for whom Bilodeau played from 1967 to 1970, first on the junior varsity then on the varsity - visited Bilodeau.

"He came to my house and said to me, 'You've got lots of free time on your hands, why don't you come help me coach?'" Bilodeau said. "I started that year."

Bilodeau, who directed the Rangers' varsity basketball team for the past six seasons, coached with and for LaDuke for 17 seasons. In 1987 he and LaDuke switched positions - Bilodeau taking over the varsity, LaDuke the junior varsity - so LaDuke could watch his son, a senior at Grafton High at the time, play during his final high school season.

Bilodeau coached his oldest son, Kevin, for four years, and although his youngest son, Marc, didn't play basketball, Bilodeau coached him in football, serving as an assistant coach for 20 years. Bilodeau would have liked to coach his daughter, Lynn, too, but her extracurricular interests were not sports-related.

Under Bilodeau's direction, the Rangers won Clark Tournament titles in 2005 and 2007 and played in the final in 2006 as well. Westborough advanced to the final of the Central Mass. Division 2 Tournament in 2005, where it lost to Oakmont Regional on an improbable three-pointer late in the game. The following year, after having moved up a division, the Rangers lost to Holy Name in the Central Mass. Division 1 final.

When asked to name the best player he had during his time as head coach at WHS, Bilodeau named four: Chris Banks, Ben Arraya, Tom Henderson and John Orlando. Banks is playing soccer on scholarship at UNH, Arraya is playing at St. Lawrence and Henderson played at Salem State.

Bilodeau said he would like to see Jim Coffey, who has been his varsity assistant for several years, succeed him.

"If I had a say in it, he'd be my choice," Bilodeau said. "He's been helping out for a long time and he's done everything anyone has ever asked of him: scouting, coaching, filming, organizing the summer program. I think he'd do a great job."