Realizing a dream: Scott chosen as new Beverly High boys hockey coach

May 17—It admittedly took Andy Scott 2-to-3 years to start coming out of his funk.

A fall off a balcony in Mexico during April vacation of his senior year of high school left him paralyzed and in a wheelchair. Eighteen grueling months of rehab followed, and his dream of playing college golf at Elon University in North Carolina had vanished. Then in the summer of 2006, his beloved older brother Jimmy was in an auto accident that left him with a brain injury and in a coma.

"It was a really tough time," said Scott, who was hired as the new Beverly High boys varsity hockey coach Monday. "I had to find a way to persevere, dig myself out and set new goals for myself."

Having left the University of New Hampshire after his brother's accident, he returned to the Durham campus as a repeat freshman in the fall of 2008. It turned out to be the best thing that ever could have happened to him mentally, emotionally and even physically.

He lived in a dormitory with many of the UNH hockey players, and an instant bond formed. Scott, a former hockey player who now played sled hockey, felt "a sense of normalcy" being around like-minded friends who lived, ate and breathed the game he loved. As a result, he did much better in school.

It was then that he knew coaching was something he was destined for.

"Those guys, we did everything together," recalled Scott, now 35 and married to Katie with an almost 3-year-old daughter, Norah. "(Philadelphia Flyers forward) James van Riemsdyk, I still talk to him regularly. (Former NHLer) Bobby Butler, Phil DeSimone, Steve Moses, Blake Kessel, Matt DiGirolamo, all those guys are still my best friends. We ate together, worked out together, and they respected me for persevering through. It's like we were all just regular guys; I played sled and they played 'regular' hockey, but to us it was all the same.

"There were times when I'd talk with those guys at the rink who weren't playing, talk about the game and different aspects of it, and that's when I knew I could be a coach. It's what wanted to do: teach and coach."

A vision and a plan

Scott, a math teacher at Beverly High, has been with the Panthers' boys hockey program the last three years, first as a junior varsity coach, then varsity assistant under former coach Greg Fonzi. He served in a similar role at Triton Regional prior to that. He has also been a varsity baseball assistant since 2017 and was part of the staff that reached the Division 2 state championship game in 2018 under Dave Wilbur.

He takes over for interim head coach Jim Sasso, who went 5-4-1 over the final 10 games of the season for Beverly, including a first round Division 2 playoff setback to Silver Lake. The Orange-and-Black finished 8-12-1 overall, with half of those losses by a single goal.

"There are so many things I can still do," said Scott, who grew up in Atkinson, N.H. and played golf, hockey and baseball. "Just because I can't walk doesn't mean there isn't. I still have the use of my arms, and I'm very fortunate. I'm still me."

The fourth head coach since Beverly won the Division 2 state hockey championship in 2014 (with one of his cousins, all-time BHS leading scorer Connor Irving, paving the way), Scott would love nothing more than to bring the Garden City back to those glory days on ice.

"Having seen what it was like first hand when my cousins played (including Colby and Kyle Irving, and second cousin Andrew Irving) and that run we had with the baseball team in '18, you want to get that feeling back because you saw how many people in the community cared about it and were behind you," said Scott.

Andrew Irving, who coached the Beverly JV's and worked with the varsity last winter, will join's Scott staff. He'll coach the offense while Scott focuses on the defense.

The hiring committee put together to choose the new coach obviously agreed with Scott's goal-setting for both the present and future of the program as well as his can-do attitude.

"Andy came in with a vision and a plan. He was very sure of himself and confident," said Beverly High athletic director Dan Keefe. "Having been in the (boys) hockey program the last three seasons, he knows almost all the kids. And as a teacher in our building, he gets what it means not only to be a student-athlete representing yourself and your family, but your school and your city as well.

"He's a positive guy, and that should definitely rub off on the players and the program."

Scott is not the first Beverly High coach to have done so in a wheelchair; the late, great Al DiPaolo, who taught in Beverly schools for 36 years, was a beloved assistant varsity football coach and junior varsity baseball coach in the 1980s and '90s.

Doing things the right way

Yes, if you're wondering, Scott is on the ice during hockey practices. Stick in hand, he sits in his chair and not only coaches his players up, but also throws pucks into the corners for defensemen to do battle drills, and even stands in front of one of the nets tipping shots.

"They think I'm crazy," Scott said, "but in all seriousness if I can do it, they should be able to, too."

He's cognizant that the Panthers are graduating 13 seniors from this past winter's club, who accounted for 46 of their 56 total goals. When he first meets with his returning players this week, accountability will be high on his list of demands.

"I want to set the bar high in terms of what the expectations are for these guys," he said. "What you do when you're not at the rink is equally as important as when you are there, representing yourself, your family, your school, your teachers and administration, and your community. Kids also need to be accountable for everything they do at the rink, on and off the ice."

Fundamentally, he wants all five players on the ice at a given time to understand that working together to keep the puck out of their net is paramount. That's not just the goalie, two defensemen and center down low, but also the two wingers.

To say that he's yearning for the chance to run his own program for the first time would be an understatement.

"There might be some people worried about how I'll do from a physical standpoint," said Scott, "but I've always said if you do things the right way, those things are put away pretty quickly. It's never hampered me in the classroom or on the playing fields.

"I don't want people to say 'He does a good job for a guy in a wheelchair.' I want to be thought of as a good coach, period."

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