Brian Chamberlain steps down as Braintree High football coach to take Southeastern job
The Southeastern Regional High girls soccer team deserves a finder's fee for the school's new football coach.
After all, Brian Chamberlain is exchanging Braintree for Easton in part so he can watch his daughter Catie play soccer for the Hawks.
Chamberlain spent 11 seasons as the head coach at Braintree, guiding the Wamps to three straight winning campaigns at one point. But he announced recently on Twitter that he had stepped down in order to take the Southeastern job.
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"It wasn't easy. It was tough," he said of his decision. "You put all that time and effort in there. I love the school, I love the kids. My daughter is a freshman (at Southeastern) now and my son (T.J.) just graduated from there. You blink your eyes and all of a sudden your kids are getting older. One of the things I was talking to my wife about was that I really want to watch my daughter play soccer. I want to be around her and not miss her four years in high school.
"My daughter played on the varsity team as a freshman. (Soccer and football) practice right next to each other. I'll have a chance to watch her play a little bit more than I would if I had stayed at Braintree."
Earlier this week, Chamberlain, 48, sent out a message to his new players that he would be available to meet with them. Twenty-five Hawks took him up on his offer.
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"They were on the field already, working out on their own, running, conditioning, encouraging each other," Chamberlain said. "I said, 'Wow, these kids already have things going.' We use Hudl (a video/analytics platform) for all our stuff, and kids are already messaging me and following me on Twitter. You get excited about stuff like that."
The Hawks' 4-4 season a year ago was marred by controversy as they had to forfeit a game after superintendent Luis Lopes announced that the players and coaching staff had displayed poor sportsmanship in a 27-0 win over Upper Cape Tech. The players, and several of their parents, disagreed with that characterization of the events and were upset when coach Dominique Williams resigned amid the controversy.
Williams returned to the Southeastern sideline for a season-ending 56-26 Thanksgiving loss at West Bridgewater, although assistant Luis Saavedra appeared to do the coaching in that one.
"Yeah, I don't know much about what happened down there," Chamberlain said. "The AD (Dan Tripp) was trying to explain it to me, but I said, 'I really don't want to know. It's not my call on what happened. I'm there now. I'm the new coach.' I said to the kids yesterday, 'I'm not here to be your old coach. I know you had relationships with him. I'm here to be me and we're here to try to win some football games.'"
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Chamberlain, a history/special education teacher at South Shore Tech in Hanover, said the most important job facing him and his still-evolving staff will be getting a handle on his new roster.
"We have to know who the kids are," said Chamberlain, who is bringing assistant coaches Mike Eakins and Andrew Forte with him from Braintree. "We can run all these different offenses and different defenses, but (you have to first figure out) what can your players do? At Rockland, when I played, we ran the wishbone all the time. If you have different athletes you have to do different things with them. Knowing the kids and learning the kids are going to be real important.
"The other thing is that we're not in the building (as teachers at the school), so being present during the summertime for them in terms of conditioning (is important). I told the kids yesterday, 'Communication is huge with me, guys. The more we talk, the more I get to know you and you get to know me, the better we will be when we hit the field in August.'"
Chamberlain, a towering presence at 6-foot-5, was a two-way lineman for Ken Owen at Rockland, graduating in 1992. He's part of Owen's coaching tree that includes Nick Liquori (the current Bulldogs coach), Tom Ryan (Methuen) and Mark Killinger (Silver Lake).
"Coach has had a few of us" follow him into the profession, Chamberlain said with a laugh. "What I learned from Coach is consistency. He was always very consistent, never too high, never too low. And he always listened. I still talk to him two to three times a week. I've known Coach for all these years and I've never called him by his first name and I never will."
Chamberlain served as an assistant at Hingham, Norwood and Natick before a four-year hitch as Sharon's head coach. He went 49-66 over 11 seasons at Braintree (2011-21), but the Wamps made great strides during his time there. In 2014 they secured their first playoff berth since 1998. In 2016 they fashioned their first winning season since 2004.
Braintree finished above .500 for three straight years – 6-5 in 2016, back-to-back 7-4 records in 2017-18 – and scored a huge upset of No. 2 Wellesley in the first round of the 2015 playoffs.
"That was fun," Chamberlain said of the good times. "We had some good players, the kids worked hard and the town really backed us."
The Wamps slumped to 2-9 in 2019, but that season featured six one-score losses. Braintree was 2-3 in the rescheduled Fall 2 season in the spring of 2021 and finished 4-7 last fall.
Competing in the Bay State Conference is never easy, but Chamberlain's teams cranked out a succession of stars, including All-State running back/linebacker Billy Silvia, linemen Matt Doyle, Greg Wood, Trumayne Guy and James Lannon, and quarterback Mike Tellier.
"Those are the things I'm going to think of, all the positive things," Chamberlain said. "The kids are great kids. Tons of support (from the administration). Being over there was a great time. I'll treasure it for the rest of my life."
Now it's on to a new adventure, one which will get here quickly with practice scheduled to begin in mid-August.
"We're thinking to ourselves, 'Oh, man, we have two months to get a whole staff together and try to get the stuff implemented, update the playbook, get the kids in the weight room, get to know the kids,'" Chamberlain said. "Things are happening fast. My summer will be very, very quick."
Southeastern opens its season in September against Greater New Bedford Voke. That's just one of the new Mayflower Athletic Conference opponents that Chamberlain will have to get used to after a decade-plus in the Bay State Conference.
"I was talking to the athletic director and he was showing me the schedule. I said, 'You need to tell me where some of these places are because I have no idea,'" Chamberlain said with a laugh. "I figured out where Greater New Bedford might be, and I know where Blue Hills is and South Shore Tech. But some of the other places I have no idea where they are. I guess Case is in Swansea. I'm like, 'Where's Swansea?' It'll be different."
This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Ex-Braintree football coach Brian Chamberlain switches to Southeastern
