ORANGE — When the Mahar football team takes the field on Thanksgiving against Athol, there will be a familiar face on the sidelines.
Scott Woodward, the son of Mahar coach Jim Woodward, will patrol the sidelines this turkey day, giving the Senators another perspective on what is unfolding during the game against the Red Raiders.
Scott is a tight ends coach at UMass and his schedule will allow him to come back to the area to be with his family and take in a football game with his father. Scott spends long hours at the UMass Football Performance Center, breaking down film and planning for the Minutemen’s latest opponent.
“I haven’t seen him coach this year,” Scott said. “I went to his first practice. Being in this profession doesn’t allow me to catch Mahar and my dad a lot. It’s going to be good to go home and see him back in action.”
The Red Raiders have won four straight meetings on Thanksgiving.
“I might chime in every now and then,” Scott said. “My full heart will be into it.”
The Senators lost 16-0 to the Red Raiders earlier this season and usually after a game Jim will call his son.
The Senators have won three straight after starting 0-7.
“I can tell if he won or lost after the first word,” Scott said.
Early on in Jim’s coaching career at Mahar Regional, he needed help to stop being such an “ogre” after a loss. That is what his wife would call him after a defeat.
“Thanksgivings were always tough,” Jim said. “We’d either go to my family or her family and they would hold dinner because we couldn’t get there on time. I had to learn to stop being an ogre, as she used to say.”
Scott experiences the same moods after a loss.
“It’s tough after a loss especially here at UMass,” Scott said. “This is my livelihood. The reason you have a job is your wins and losses.”
Jim eased up after a loss when there were children in the house and he is hoping his son will stop taking losses on the gridiron so hard.
“I try to tell him, you gotta let it go son,” Jim said. “It will eat you up. But when I had kids, I had to come home and be civil because they didn’t know any different.”
The Woodward household had a separate place for all things football related. Jim had a room in his barn with a large table with his football related coaching materials.
“I would sit there and do all my football stuff,” Jim said.
Young Scott would follow his father out to the barn.
“He used to come out and sit with me,” Jim said. “He had his own playbook.”
Growing up around football, Scott’s interest in the sport grew and grew with age.
“It set the pathway for who I am today,” Scott said. “As a kid I wanted to be just like my dad. I can remember being as little as I can be running around with his team and looking up to those guys.”
As a child, Scott would draw up plays in hopes that his father would use them in the following week’s game plan for an opponent.
“That’s how it all started,” Scott said. “Those were the good old days.”
Scott coached at Fairleigh Dickinson (2013-15) and Westfield State (2010-13) before his return to the Minutemen. He was a four-year letterman with UMass and was a member of the 2006 squad that reached the Division I-AA national championship.
Scott and Jim won back-to-back Division 3 Super Bowl titles with the Senators. Scott was the quarterback and Jim coached.
The Woodward family would prefer to eat turkey with all the fixings after a victory over rival Athol for one simple reason.
“As my father would say,” Scott said. “It’s better to eat turkey than to eat crow.”
