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Peabody finally joins the NEC

Tuesday, September, 04 By Mike Grenier
Staff writer

Peabody High School athletic director Phil Sheridan stood outside the McVann-O'Keefe Rink one night last winter and watched a slightly chaotic scene as the parking lot was overflowing with cars for a Peabody-Beverly hockey game. "The police came to me and said, 'There are too many cars here. We're going to have to get extra policemen (for traffic flow),'" Sheridan recalled.

The point of Sheridan's anecdote was that the Peabody Tanners were playing a very good local team from the Northeastern Conference, and the game had tremendous drawing power on the North Shore. The same thing happened, said Sheridan, when Peabody hosted another NEC hockey team, Danvers High, the following week.

For Sheridan, it was a portent of what he and other people in the city feel are glorious times ahead for a school that already has a strong athletic reputation and tradition. If regular season hockey games against NEC schools could generate that much interest in Peabody, what would it be like when the Tanners played mostly local teams in football? With Peabody finally joining the Northeastern Conference this school year after a mostly successful 33-year run in the Greater Boston League, everyone is about to find out. "This is a wonderful thing for the NEC and a wonderful move for Peabody," said Dick Woodbury, 62, who is in his first season as head coach of the Tanners. "Our kids see guys from the other (local) teams at the mall or the movies | places where kids interact | but we haven't had the opportunity to play them in football until now."

"I love the idea that we're playing seven teams from the NEC, because it still gives us the flexibility to play St. John's Prep and GBL teams in our non-league games. We'd still like to play (GBL powerhouse) Everett in the future. It's a great plan; there'll be less travel for our players. It's going to bring life back to our program."

It already has. Despite an un-Peabody-like 5-15 record the previous two seasons under coach Paul Uva, football sign-ups drew staggering numbers this season, with 162 kids initially indicating they were joining the program. It has left Woodbury in the enviable (and rare) position of overseeing four teams at the high school: varsity, JV, sophomore and freshman.

"It's been an amazing transformation," said Woodbury, who has surrounded himself with assistant coaches who have had long-standing ties to the Peabody program. "Not to cast aspersions on anybody who was here before, but these kids have been going to specialty camps and have been in the weight room all summer. The attitude has been unbelievable."

Welcomed into the NEC

Peabody will be part of a two-tiered, 12-team setup in the newly-aligned Northeastern Conference. The Tanners are technically in the NEC North with Salem, Gloucester, Lynn Classical, Lynn English and Revere, but forget about the geographical nomenclature. The key to all of this is that Peabody is in the large school division while Danvers, Beverly, Marblehead, Swampscott, Winthrop and Saugus are in the small school division.

Two divisions means two distinct first place finishers in the NEC and two spots in the MIAA playoffs, which lead to the Eastern Mass. Super Bowl games. Making it even more appealing this season is that the Super Bowls will be played at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, home of Tom Brady and the Patriots.

"Getting the (second) playoff berth puts us in a good position as a conference," said Danvers High athletic director and head football coach John Sullivan. "That's the number one thing about Peabody coming into the conference. I'm sure they'll be good. They have a wealth of talent over there."

Salem coach Scott Connolly believes that Peabody's inclusion adds prestige to the Northeastern Conference.

"Think about it," said Connolly. "This is going to make the NEC one of the best conferences in the state. As it was, there were no easy games on the schedule. Peabody becomes another really tough opponent for us. But to me, this is what you want as a coach | to play against the best teams."

Peabody will open the season against non-conference foes St. John's Prep, Cambridge and Arlington. After that the Tanners will play seven consecutive NEC teams: Danvers, Beverly, Gloucester, Lynn Classical, Salem, Revere and Lynn English. The last time Peabody played such a local-oriented schedule was in 1973, when it was in the (now defunct) Essex County League and going against the likes of Beverly, Lynn English, Salem, Saugus, St. John's Prep, Lowell and Lawrence.

Natural rivalries

If you're a North Shore football fan, you definitely want to circle Friday, Sept. 28, on your calendar. That's when Peabody plays Danvers for the first time since 1934. As a member of the NEC small school division, Danvers could have opted not to play Peabody, but Sullivan felt it was the right thing to do.

Beverly is the other small school division team that will take on the Tanners this season.

"I didn't think it was fair to Peabody to have them come into the conference and, in their first year, force them to look for a lot of non-league games," said Sullivan. "I felt it was somewhat our duty to play them in all sports."

"People are really enthused about seeing Peabody. It's good for the league and good for Danvers. It's going to be a tough haul for some schools because Peabody has a tremendously strong athletic program, but the Danvers kids are looking forward to it."

"The thought process in not playing Peabody in football is that you don't want your kids to get beat up by such a big school team. Am I worried about it? Sure," admitted Sullivan. "But we'll hopefully be physically fit enough to be able to take whatever happens in that game."

Beverly hasn't played Peabody since 1997 and Panthers coach Dan Bauer was glad to reclaim a football relationship with the Tanners, but the problem was fitting Peabody into the schedule. It took a while to work things out, but Beverly will host Peabody on Oct. 6 at Hurd Stadium in the only day game (2 p.m.) the Tanners will have all season.

"It's an expanded league and we want to play everybody (at some point), but that means you have to cut out a team or two," said Bauer. "Looking at the rivalries we have, it's a case of who aren't you going to play? We have a lot of history with Gloucester, so we're not going to drop them. Of course, we're not going to drop Salem (on Thanksgiving Day), and we have a pretty good history with the Lynn schools. But we want to be matched up against the good teams in the league and Peabody is basically next door. It just makes sense."

Changed perceptions

Generations of Peabody players have grown up playing the Walthams, Medfords and Everetts of the world in the GBL, so there will be a period of adjustment this fall. However, it shouldn't take long for Peabody to get up for NEC opponents. Call it the proximity factor.

The NEC looms as a fan-friendly league, with the potential for instant rivalries for the Tanners.

"If you look at it from (Peabody's) perspective, would you rather travel 45 minutes to Waltham or three minutes to Salem?" said Connolly. "The cities border each other. The game makes sense for us geographically and competitively, and the fan appeal should be unbelievable."

Even with Everett becoming the dominant team in Eastern Mass. in recent years, Peabody towered over most of the competition during their time in the GBL. In a stretch from 1994-2004, when the team was coached by Ed Nizwantowski, Peabody went 94-16-2.

Will that kind of Peabody power translate to the Northeastern Conference? That's the question of the year. The perception of Peabody has changed a bit after a 1-9 season under Uva in 2006. Uva has since departed (and is now an assistant coach at St. John's Prep), and the sheer number of kids out for football is a clear indication that Woodbury and his staff are intent on repairing the team's image and reputation.

Yet no one really knows how Peabody will do against the new competition.

The Peabody players are warming up to the idea of playing in the NEC and are cautiously optimistic about a quick revival of the proud program.

"Personally, I'm looking forward to it," Joe Maroney, one of the Peabody captains, said of playing in the NEC. "If you look at the whole conference, there's no bottom feeder there. You can make an assumption about us because we haven't had a lot of wins in the last couple of years, but I think we'll be back.

"There's a buzz in the city (about the Tanners). We now have a coach, Mr. Woodbury, who knows what old-time Peabody football is all about. It's a no-nonsense gig. But it's going to be different and we have to prepare ourselves for it."

Part of that, naturally, is developing new rivalries. "Everett was our rival for decades | we hated them for that one Friday night every year," said Maroney. "Now we're not sure who that (rival) will be. It could be Gloucester or some other team.

"But (overall) I think it's going to be more competitive in the NEC. We're not going to have blowouts in this league. Every game will be a battle."

Happy to be part of it

Another Peabody captain, Scott Diefenbach, pointed out that this year's team will set the tone for the Tanners' future in the NEC. It's a transitional season, but Peabody doesn't have to concede anything to anybody.

"In the long run, I think that (playing in the NEC) will bring back some of the old rivalries and start some new ones," said Diefenbach.

"There's a lot of talk about what we could do this season. Everyone is in the gym every day and everyone is hyped. The coaching change has sparked us a little bit. The players are tired of not seeing Peabody at the top of the list and everyone wants to be a part of (a turnaround). Believe me, we're forgetting about the last two years."

For opposing players, going against Peabody will seem like old home week. Many of them competed against Peabody in youth sports | then wouldn't see the Tanners on a high school football field. It was odd, to say the least.

"When I was younger, I would hear stories about how physical the Peabody football team was and how they were a dominant team on the North Shore," said Pat Hennessey, a Danvers High captain. "Peabody is a real big school and has more kids to choose from, but they're right near us and it feels like we should be playing them."

Added Salem's senior captain, Matt Paine, "The last time I played against Peabody was in the eighth grade, so I welcome this game 100 percent. I know Salem's played them in the past, but now the game will have more meaning (because it'll count in the NEC race). There should be a big crowd when we play them."

Woodbury is wise enough not to issue a concrete win-loss prediction for his first Peabody team, saying it would be "pure bravado" to proclaim the Tanners will go 11-0 or 10-1. No matter what he and his team might think behind closed doors, he's not going to provide bulletin board material in Peabody's inaugural season in the Northeastern Conference. What he will say, however, is that the Tanners will get the most out of their players.

"The kids are going to come out of every game a winner," said Woodbury. "They're going to play to their level of ability and if a team beats them physically, so be it. To say that we didn't play very hard, that's not going to happen. We're really happy to be part of the Northeastern Conference. I think we're going to surprise some people."

Peabody's Greater Boston League legacy

Peabody's overall record in the GBL years (1974-2006): 236-91-6

Super Bowl record: 2-3 (championships wins in 1990 and 1993)

Renewing local ties Peabody's entry into the Northeastern Conference this season means it will be playing more local teams than it has since 1973, when it was a member of the Essex County League. A look at the local teams on the Tanners schedule this fall, the last time they met and the result of that contest: Danvers (Sept. 28 at Peabody): 1934 (Peabody, 20-0) Gloucester (Oct. 12 at Peabody): 1969 (Peabody, 28-7) Beverly (Oct. 6 at Beverly): 1997 (Peabody, 20-6) Lynn Classical (Oct. 19 at Lynn): 1973 (Peabody, 6-0) Lynn English (Nov. 9 at Peabody): 1973 (Peabody, 50-0) Salem (Oct. 28 at Peabody): 2004 (Peabody, 35-12)