Remembering a Leominster Coaching Legend

By Mike Richard
Correspondent

Article courtesy Sentinel & Enterprise
Aug. 25, 1996

LEOMINSTER — It’s hard to imagine that one of the greatest football careers in the history of Central Mass. was borne from a tragedy of the highest magnitude.

Chances are, Leominster football fans may have never even heard of the name Charlie Broderick had former coach Raymond Comerford not unselfishly given his own life to save another, 65 years ago today.

Rushed to save boy

It was Aug. 25, 1931 and Comerford was relaxing one afternoon on Sunset Beach in Marshfield, just a few days prior to the start of the Leominster season.

From the shoreline, Comerford heard the cries of 10-year-old Robert Smith in distress amidst the heavy surf. Without hesitation, he plunged into the water, reached the youth and started toward the shore with him. However, his route back in through the breakers and the added weight of the boy was apparently too much for him.

Two men answered his call for aid, one grabbing the boy and the other the exhausted coach. Suddenly, as a breaker tumbled over them, Comerford’s rescuer lost his hold: The coach was caught by the undertow and did not come up to surface again.

The body of the 30-year-old Comerford was recovered by members of the U.S. Coast Guard at 5:30 a.m. the following day, about a half-mile from where it was last seen. Comerford was a coach at Cushing Academy in Ashburnham in 1927, when he was elected athletic director in Leominster by the school board for a salary of $3,000.

A native of West Roxbury where he attended Boston English High School, he later graduated from Cushing in 1921. There he served as captain of the baseball squad, was a member of one of the best football teams the school ever had, and helped lead the 1920-2 1 bas­ketball team to the New England Prep School Championship.

Upon graduation he attended Dartmouth College and seemed destined to follow his coaching avocation. He served as freshman coach at Dartmouth during his junior and senior years there. Then, while a senior at Dartmouth, he left temporarily to join Cushing as a substitute.

Coached at Cushing

He later taught and .coached at the Abbott School in Farmington, Maine before returning to Cushing in 1926. There he coached football, basketball and track, and also served as director of athletics.

In the year he spent at the Ashburnham prep school, he produced some of the best teams since the days of the legendary Frank Hardy. His football squad posted a 5-3 record, while the basketball team went 16-1.

Initially, he was not even a candidate for the Leominster job to replace Bill Glennon, until several prominent Leominster men, who knew of his ability, convinced him to take the job.

Never one for pretenses, when he arrived in the Comb City in 1927 he stated that his mission was to stress sportsmanship and fundamentals, and to teach the game of football the way he felt it should be taught. The wins, he added, would come in due time.

His first season saw the Blue Devils post a 3-4-1 record which included a 64-0 loss to Fitchburg in the annual Thanksgiving day game, at the time the worst defeat incurred by a Leominster team in that rivalry.

Had support of city

A rabid Leominster fan, enthusiastically praising him, once said that “If Comerford lost every game, every year for the next ten years, he’d still have the solid backing of the entire community.”

The following year saw gradual improvement, a winning record of 5-3-1, and more importantly a 6-3 win in the holiday game with Fitchburg.

In 1929, Comerford had the Blue Devils on the right track with a mark of 8-1-1, their only loss to the Worcester County champion Gardner Wildcats of Coach Phil Tarpey, 7-2. Meantime, Leominster made it two in a row over Fitchburg with a 6-0 victory.

The 1930 season saw another impressive showing with an 8-2 record, including a 13-2 win over Gardner, but was handed a 6-0 defeat at the hands of Fitchburg in what was to become Comerford’s last game.

A total of 60 football candidates awaited the start of the 1931 season, which was slated to begin on Aug. 29, the same day Comerford was laid to rest in the Holy Name Cemetery in West Roxbury.

The entire Leominster grid squad attended the funeral mass at the Holy Name Church. At nearby Gardner High, Coach Tarpey canceled his practice to attend the service, as well.

Said Tarpey of Comerford, “He will be missed by Gardner High School as though he were a member of the local coaching staff.”

Still shaken by the sudden death of their coach, the Leominster football team began practice a few days later under the direction of former Comerford assistant Walter J. Deacon, Jr.

However, the search soon began in earnest to replace Comerford with a coach with proven experience.

Broderick hiring followed

On Sept. 11, 1931, 35-year-old Charles B. Broderick, the director of physical education in Amesbury, was selected out of a total of 93 applicants for the job. Broderick was awarded the same salary of $3,000 that Comerford agreed to four years earlier.

A tribute that appeared in the Fitchburg Sentinel shortly after his death neatly summed up Comerford’s legacy as a Blue Devil coach:

“Leominster can never forget the sight of that sleight, heavy-coated figure standing so erectly among his blanketed substitutes. Napoleonic in stature, he was the ‘little general’ on the field, as well.

“When he came here five years ago, he made it clear that winning was a side issue in comparison to teaching the game, sportsmanship, courage and manhood.”