Coach, Teacher, Mentor, Guide: A Fond Farewell to Tom Parr

Preview one of our lead stories from the Spring 2015 issue of Views from the Hill, which profiles retiring Athletic Director Thomas A. Parr Jr. and his 33-year career at Hopkins.

Story by Cindy Wolfe Boynton

His accomplishments on the football field are well known: 206 wins, four undefeated seasons, seven League Championships and four New England Championships. But when Tom Parr retires from Hopkins in June, he’d rather his 33 years as head football coach not be remembered by scores or statistics.

“I’ve coached all kinds of sports over the years—track, baseball, basketball, intramurals. And when it comes down to the reason why, it’s pretty simple. I love the kids. Being a coach isn’t a hobby for me. It’s my job. I became a teacher and coach because I wanted to make a difference, and I’ve always put a lot of thought into my actions and decisions. So down the road, when people talk about ‘that Tom Parr guy,’ the plays or wins I achieved don’t matter. What I hope people remember is that I was someone who helped young people become and achieve their best.”

It’s not easy to get Parr, 63, to talk about himself. Soft-spoken and modest, Parr would much rather talk about his players, past and present. Before taking over Hopkins’ fledgling program in 1982, Parr served six years as head coach at Jonathan Law High School in Milford and two years as an assistant at his alma mater Colgate University in upstate New York.

But where Parr stays silent, his players and colleagues do not. Jason Lichtenstein ’86, a freshman on Parr’s first Hopkins team, credits Parr for giving him not just the chance to succeed, but the chance to fail and learn from his mistakes.

“Coach Parr had an intensity, delivered by whisper more often than a shout, that urged you to dig deeper and do better,” said Lichtenstein, now a corporate attorney living in New Hampshire. “There was a fire in his eyes that never went out, and from it came sparks that set many of us ablaze for the first time.”

The fire Parr set in Lichtenstein led to his becoming an All-League kicker and being recruited by Dartmouth College, where he played all four years. His football career there “wasn’t stellar,” he said, but advancing to the NFL wasn’t part of Lichtenstein’s reason for attending an Ivy League school.

“I wanted to do what Tom said, which was to ‘soar with the eagles’; to be everything I could become,” Lichtenstein said. “He taught us that we could achieve anything if we prepared well, made good decisions and took care of business, whether on the field or in life. Thirty years later, I can still hear his voice and see him, deliberately moving from player to player, making a connection with each one of us, telling us whatever it was we needed to hear to be more confident, more mature, to better trust our teammates and to believe in ourselves.”

Each of the 13 seniors who spoke at Hopkins’ January 2015 football banquet shared similar sentiments, crediting Parr with teaching them not just how to be better football players, but to be better men. Several admitted they would have enjoyed winning more than one game this past season. But what dominated the speeches were the “Parrisms”: the manifestations of Parr’s sideline and locker room speeches that resulted in students seeing themselves, and those around them, in a different way.

For nose guard Noah Gelles ’15, who played his first football game as a junior, that included the realization that “as part of a team, I was part of something bigger than myself.” For wide receiver Alex McMahon ’15, it was to always remember “what you do today matters more than what you did yesterday.”

Co-Captain Walker Schneider ’15, named to the 2014 FAA All-League Team, spoke about the future of Hopkins football without Parr. “I think about all the ways other players will not get to play and learn from him, and how they won’t get the chance to have their lives impacted by him, as he has so deeply impacted mine.”

Current fellow coach, Assistant Athletic Director and Hopkins alum Rocco DeMaio ’86 described Parr more simply, but no less powerfully: “He’s always been a mentor.” Parr’s legacy is, and always will be, “huge,” DeMaio added.

To comments like this, Parr smiles and nods. He claps the shoulder of those he shakes hands with and looks into their eyes. Both gratitude and humility are audible in his thank yous. But standing at the podium at the January football banquet was a man who clearly values being part of team. As he likes to tell, he’s spent every one of the past 51 years on a football field, and not always as a coach.

In 1969, as a senior quarterback at Ithaca High School in New York, he made headlines for achieving 1,437 total yards in an eight-game season. The post-graduate year he spent at the now-closed Manlius School in New York was supposed to prepare him to enter the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to become an Army officer. But when the Manlius football team played a game at Colgate University, Parr began to have second thoughts about his future. Like many in the country, he was unsure whether the United States should be involved in the Vietnam War and Cambodian conflict, and the possibilities of Colgate enticed him. He could earn a degree there in history, a subject he loved, as well as play Division I football.

“If I’m going to be totally honest, I went to college to play football,” Parr admitted. “My grades were not stellar, but the coach took a chance on me, and I worked to make sure I didn’t let him down. Our freshman team had the first undefeated season in Colgate history, including beating Syracuse, which was our big rival.”

The following year, as quarterback, Parr was named Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Sophomore of the Year and, as a senior, to The New York Times, Associated Press and ECAC All-East teams. The latter designation put him in the company of players like Heisman Trophy winners John Cappelletti from Penn State University and Tony Dorsett from the University of Pittsburgh.

Despite his accomplishments, professional football was not an option for Parr: “At 5' 9¾" and 190 pounds, I was too small. I wasn’t big enough for the NFL. But at the end of my senior year, Colgate’s athletic director said I could stay and coach as long as I used the opportunity to get a master’s degree, so I did. I became an assistant coach and got a Master’s of Arts in Teaching. It gave me the chance to stay with the game I loved.”

This January, standing in front of the players, parents, coaches and staff who braved freezing temperatures and snow threats to celebrate the Hilltopper’s 2014–15 season, Head of School Barbara Riley paid tribute to Parr for “happily, doggedly and successfully raising up more hopeful youths than any of us can count.”

Originally hired to teach history and coach football, Parr’s responsibilities since then have included serving as an adviser, Head Adviser, Summer School teacher, Summer School Director, and coach of girls’ varsity track, varsity baseball, girls’ varsity basketball, junior varsity baseball and junior school boys’ basketball. In 1987, he was named Director of Athletics, which Riley said gave him the opportunity to mentor not just hundreds of students from throughout the school, but “legions” of fellow coaches and athletic directors from throughout New England.

“Tom has always epitomized Hopkins’ goal to develop scholar athletes who understand that the sum of a successful team, or community, is generally greater than each of its individual parts,” said long-time Hopkins Committee of Trustees President Vince Calarco, who along with his wife, Linda, has given to Hopkins for more than 25 years, on many levels. Their sons David ’93 and Christopher ’96 are also alums of Hopkins and its football, baseball and basketball programs.

“So many of us are saddened to see Tom go—he’s given so much of himself to the school and its sports programs,” Calarco continued. “He’s been such a force, as well as a person of integrity, balance and standards. One of the things that stands out most to me is his magical ability to connect; to create a sense of family and develop a mutual commitment between people. He’s a very special person.”

Parr uses his dry, trademark humor to respond to these kinds of compliments: “A very wise man and fellow coach at Colgate told me, ‘Tommy, most legends die before the man.’ General Douglas MacArthur said pretty much the same thing in his farewell to Congress. And to paraphrase him, I say that old coaches never die, they just fade away. So as this year ends and a new one begins, I’ll become a fading memory, too.”

However, what Parr will do with his new-found free time has yet to be determined.

Spending time with his wife, Debbie, and children, Gary ’01, Dana ’04, Andrew ’05 and Lexi '11, is definitely on the agenda. But one of the most exciting aspects, Parr said, is actually not yet knowing what might be ahead: “Rest is something I’m looking forward to, but I’m also eager to discover what could be the next thing for me.”

Yet wherever that “next thing” takes him, Parr is sure that at least in spirit, he will be a Hilltopper forever. “In 33 years,” Parr said, “I never once thought about pretending to be sick, because I loved coming to work, and seeing the kids, every day. Hopkins kids are special, and it’s been a joy to be around them. But everything comes to an end.”