Chuck Adamopoulos started his highschool head teaching profession in 1997 watching the Longest Yard on an extended street journey to New Bedford.
Twenty-five years later, the Central Catholic coach carved his identify among the many state’s elite.
The Raiders rolled to a 42-21 victory over Haverhill Friday evening, making Adamopoulos the 57th coach in state historical past to succeed in 200 wins. Not one to bask within the glory, the big circles of coaches and pals made it troublesome for the favored Adamopoulos to keep away from the topic.
“It was good to get it done, people were talking about it a lot,” Adamopoulos mentioned. “Obviously, I knew I used to be going for 200 wins, however I actually didn’t deal with it till after the sport after I was getting hugs and congratulations.
“As I tell everyone, this is a program achievement. I tell all my coaches and former players that they are a big part of this. It was nice hearing from a lot of them.”
Like most coaches who wind up within the enterprise for greater than a quarter-century, Adamopoulos by no means envisioned roaming the sidelines in 2022 when he started the sojourn in New Bedford. One of the extra easygoing coaches within the enterprise, Adamopoulos joked along with his employees after escaping the opener with a 21-19 win over the Whalers.
“We had to make a stop on a potential game-tying 2-point play at the end of the game,” mentioned Adamopoulos, whose 1997 group went on to win the primary of back-to-back Super Bowl titles. “When we got on the bus, I told my assistants at least we knew we were not going 0-11.”
Adamopoulos mentioned a lot of his methods come from his father, Arthur Adamopoulos. A training icon in Peabody the place he gained 129 video games in 20 years (1961-1981), Adamopoulos was a no-nonsense kind who wasn’t excited by private glory, preferring to see the credit score given to his gamers.
“I think if my dad were alive and you asked him about me winning 200 games, he’d probably said something like ‘big deal’ or ‘goody goody gumdrops’,” Adamopoulos mentioned with amusing. “I keep in mind when he was chosen for the Hall of Fame, he was in Florida and didn’t need come to again for it. People had been telling me you must get your father to return as a result of he wasn’t coming. We lastly had been capable of get him to return.
“My father’s big thing was discipline. He always said kids responded to discipline if you were consistent with it. That’s something I’ve always tried to do throughout my coaching career.”
There’s no query the Adamopoulos method works. It’s not simply the successful, however the way in which this system has performed itself by means of the years. John DiBiaso butted heads with Adamopoulos a number of occasions in his years at Everett earlier than leaving for Catholic Memorial and talking very extremely of his Central Catholic counterpart.
“Chuck is just a good guy, he’s able to put everything in proper perspective and that probably comes from his father being a coach,” mentioned DiBiaso, whose 348 wins are second on the all-time record. “There are no tricks when you play them, they are always fundamentally sound. They know what they want to do on offense and defense and do it very well.”
Not surprisingly when Adamopoulos reached his milestone, he acquired numerous congratulatory textual content messages from former gamers and coaches. One got here from former Bridgewater-Raynham coach and athletic director Dan Buron.
“Even though we never actually played, I always had a lot of respect for Dan Buron,” Adamopoulos mentioned. “To get a nice text from him and guys I used to coach against like Peter Flynn at Billerica, it was very satisfying.”
SWEET 16
1. Catholic Memorial (6-0): Knights rolled previous a struggling Malden Catholic to increase the win streak to 23.
2. King Philip (7-0): Warriors come off a bye to face a harmful North Attleboro squad.
3. Xaverian (6-1): Hawks get their crack at prime canine Catholic Memorial this week.
4. Andover (7-0): Golden Warriors obtained it executed in opposition to Lowell to clinch the MVC Large title.
5. Central Catholic (5-2): Congrats to longtime head coach Chuck Adamopoulos on his 2 hundredth win.
6. St. John’s Prep (5-2): Eagles pulled away from an upset-minded BC High group within the second half.
7. Reading (7-0): Lexington is all that stands in the way in which of Reading and an undefeated common season.
8. Mansfield (6-1): Trevor Foley jammed in all his stats into one half of labor.
9. Milton (7-0): Back to the gridiron in opposition to an bettering Natick group.
10. Duxbury (6-0): Dragons did what they’ve executed all 12 months and that’s maintain enterprise.
11. Milford (6-1): Nice bounce again effort in opposition to a troublesome Barnstable squad.
12. Peabody (7-0): Dialed it up on either side of the ball in opposition to Gloucester.
13. Everett (6-1): Six straight one-sided wins for the Crimson Tide.
14. Franklin (5-1): Impressive effort in dealing with Attleboro the way in which they did.
15. Billerica (7-0): Indians survived a significant scare in opposition to North Andover to stay unbeaten.
16. Brockton (6-1): Mauricio Powell and Oluwakoleade Osinubi had no bother churning out the yardage in opposition to New Bedford.
Source: www.bostonherald.com