Greenfield High School football coach Mike Kuchieski leaned back against the wall of Mahar Regional School and let out a of sigh of frustration that's usually confined to two types of people—death row inmates and high school football coaches whose teams have hit the skids.
As a group of soaked, weary and freshly defeated Greenfield football players filed onto the bus, their coach contemplated yet another night of coming close to victory, but not close enough.
"We've got to learn how to play football," Kuchieski said."That's all there is to it. It was just a pretty poor performance on our part tonight."
It was surprising to hear Kuchieski's frustration, especially given the fact that the Green Wave had just pushed a tough Mahar team to the limit before losing a disappointing 15-8 decision in a driving rain. But anyone who knows Kuchieski knows that losing is not something he takes lightly.
"I'll take full blame for how we played," Kuchieski said. "It's clearly my fault because they weren't ready to play football tonight."
To a layperson, Kuchieski's reaction might seem strange. This is, after all, only high school football. But to understand the reaction you must understand the mentality of coaching this game at the high school level. Even in small rural areas, high school coaches take their work very seriously. They put in a lot of hours looking at tape, crafting offensive and defensive schemes and working their charges in a way that creates not only good football players but quality people.
Every coach deals with the stress of the job differently. Some are laid back and pragmatic when things don't go their way; others can be more intense, and take losing personally. I put Kuchieski in the second category because, for him, football ceased to be a just a game years ago.
I saw Kuchieski's passion for football long before he ever ended up in the coach's box. In the mid-1980s, while I was in the stands banging a bass drum with the rest of the Greenfield High School marching band, Kuchieski was banging heads with the elite of the Suburban League as the star quarterback for GHS. Backed by a gang of mutant linemen known as the "Eliminator Crew," Kuchieski had moments on the gridiron that were nothing short of electric, igniting a competitive spirit that burns as hotly today as it ever has.
Kuchieski got into coaching shortly after college, spending several years as the head man at Athol High School before heading down to the Gulf Coast region of Florida, where high school football is more than just something to do on Friday nights. Professional ambitions and family ties brought him back to the Franklin County area and eventually to Greenfield, where he now serves as head football coach and athletic director.
Despite being responsible for an entire sports program, Kuchieski's passion clearly remains with football. That passion has been tested in a major way over the past couple of seasons. Injuries, bad breaks, mental mistakes, and, most of all, declining enrollment numbers because of school choice have rendered a once storied, always competitive Greenfield football program a mediocre shell of its former self.
The Wave was unable to muster a single win last year. The inability to compete in the Suburban League—which is traditionally packed with Springfield-area schools of comparable size— resulted in Greenfield's dropping down to the smaller Intercounty League, where they are now competing mostly against Franklin County teams like Mahar, Mohawk, Frontier, and Turners Falls, among others.
I think a lot of people, Kuchieski included, expected Greenfield to fare better than it has in its first IL season. The Green Wave has been competitive and has pulled out a couple of wins, including a squeaker over Belchertown, but it's been far from a dominant force.
Kuchieski's frustration was palpable on this night not only because he believes his team could have beaten Mahar, but because they lost, in his view, for all the wrong reasons.
"I give credit to Mahar because they outplayed us, and I didn't think that was going to happen," Kuchieski said. "I thought we were going to have some kids that were going to step it up, and they didn't."
One guy who did was Kuchieski's main offensive weapon, running back Sean Boyle. Typically an offensive juggernaut, Boyle was largely contained by Mahar on this night, held to just 107 yards rushing and Greenfield's lone touchdown. But Kuchieski clearly felt that, had the entire team brought the kind of heart Boyle did to Orange, the outcome would have been vastly different."
"We know he's a good running back, but he didn't practice all week [because of injuries]," Kuchieski said. "He could barely walk on Monday and he comes out and gets a hundred tonight… You wish some others had the same kind of heart that kid does, and I know we do. We just need to bring it out on game day."
Knowing Kuchieski, I'm sure that some day they will. And when they do, everybody in high school football in Western Massachusetts had better look the hell out.
