Shrewsbury High coach to retire from education, not coaching

Coach Nick DiPilato Shrewsbury - Followers of the Shrewsbury High School boys and girls cross country and track and field programs worried that the athletic landscape as they know it was about to change because of the impending retirement of the Colonials' longtime coach Nick DiPilato can breathe easy.

DiPilato is retiring from his position as director of Shrewsbury High School's Guidance Department, but he plans to continue coaching the Colonials' winter and spring track programs.

"I've got to do something or I'll go crazy," DiPilato said. "I was asked to stay on, which is a very nice gesture on the school's part, but it's probably more because the people that know me know you can't take someone with a Type-A personality like I have - someone who is constantly going at 120 miles an hour - and drop them to zero without something bad happening."

From a teaching and coaching aspect, not many bad things have happened in DiPilato's life. A Shrewsbury product, he spent his first 17 years as an educator as a social studies teacher, leaving the classroom in the mid-1980s to become a guidance counselor. He was promoted to director of guidance in the late 1990s.

As a coach, DiPilato served as an assistant boys track coach for two years before beginning the Colonials' indoor track program in 1977. While his teams won in all the sports he coached, DiPilato made his mark as a Hall of Fame coach while directing Shrewsbury High's girls outdoor track program.

From 1977 to 2000, DiPilato and the Colonials won more than 200 consecutive dual meets, a feat that attracted national attention. In addition, teams coached by DiPilato won four indoor state track championship and three outdoor track titles.

More noteworthy than DiPilato's success at winning track meets, however, was his ability to get the members of his girls track teams to believe that track and field, while largely individual, was a team sport.

"My background was team sports - basketball and baseball," DiPilato said. "I believed in doing things for one another: picking up a teammate who was having a tough day, having him pick up me when I was struggling."

DiPilato believes the concept of team was successful with the Colonials because it redistributed the pressure.

"I think the girls on my track teams responded to the team concept because it took the pressure off of them as individuals," DiPilato explained. "They were still the ones competing, to be sure, but they were doing it for the team, for their teammates, for their extended family."

Wendy Fenner, DiPilato's longtime assistant coach, who was a standout track athlete at Chelmsford High and UMass- Amherst, always marveled at his ability to get athletes to perform far, far above their abilities.

"Nick has always been able to get average athletes to maximize their potential for teammates," Fenner said. "He was able to get them to instantly understand that they were not soaring to unexpected heights for themselves, but rather for their teammates and their team."

DiPilato will be the focus of a retirement party/roast Saturday June 20 at the Manor Restaurant in West Boylston. For more information or to purchase tickets, contact Shrewsbury High School Athletic Director Jay Costa at 508-841-8840.

Have news about your team or an idea for a sports story? Contact reporter Ken Powers at kpthesportsguy@yahoo.com.