Image courtesy of NEC Athletics

When visiting New England College in little Henniker, New Hampshire, the main direction you can give people is “at the blinking light, go here.”

The small campus provides some gorgeous scenic views. If you’re a skier or snowboarder, then you can live at Pat’s Peak. If not, you can make the half hour drive and find some fun in Concord. It’s also widely been considered a ‘hockey school’ for the majority of its existence, but not any more.

Soon, Henniker will be buzzing with football tailgates on Saturday morning like the majority of the country.

It was recently announced that NEC will have a football program for the first time in 50 years starting next season and going full varsity at the D3 level in 2025. The man tasked with building the program from the ground up is head coach Kevin Kelly, who is extremely familiar with the area and a name synonymous with winning too.

Kelly has had coaching stops at Northeastern, Tulane, Georgetown (Patriot League Coach of the Year in 2011), Ball State, Marshall (FCS national champs in 1996 with Randy Moss on the team), Navy (three Commander-in-Chief trophies), Dartmouth, Bryant, Salve Regina and even in the XFL. Kelly also attended Springfield College.

“I have two grandsons who are in Cohasset. I’ve done a lot of moving around in my career,” Kelly said in a recent phone interview when asked how this all came to fruition. “What happened was, the job opened late. I think I applied June 20th on a whim to be quite honest with you. I wasn’t sure what the commitment was, that kind of thing. So, I sent my resumé, cover letter, all that and then I got a call from David DeCew the Athletic Director. I knew about the call ahead of time and I had several questions. I know what it takes to run a football program, I was the head coach at Georgetown for eight years.

“At the end of that phone call, I really was impressed with the blueprint they had. They had done tremendous research and I said to my wife after the call, ‘this is a big deal. This thing is a big time position for D3…when I did the on-campus interview I was really impressed with President (Wayne) Lesperance because he’s the one that started this thing. After five months as president, he starts football. That’s like a fourth down call so-to-speak. It checked all the boxes for me. Personal, wanting to stay in New England and the blueprint really impressed me with what they did. This is a big undertaking that needs a lot of support and we’re getting it from the top down.”

Kelly was part of the Dartmouth staff under the late Buddy Teevens who won an Ivy League title and gives all the credit to Teevens for ultimately boosting his football career.

“I was there in 1991. I had just been at Northeastern and I’ve always owed it to Buddy that I was able to get up to the Division 1 level. I didn’t have a job. He hired me in ’91, we won the Ivy League in ’91 and then when he got the Tulane job, I went to Tulane with him. The thing I learned from Buddy was how to coach on the field. Energetic, but not just on the field. Energetic in recruiting. I used to listen to him in home visits and I always thought he was excellent at that because he had such enthusiasm. I still kind of structure my conversations with young men wen I’m talking to their families like Buddy did. He talked academics, his culture, he did a great job with that and it was always with enthusiasm.

“I really owe him a lot of gratitude for letting me coach at Dartmouth and then taking me to the next level. That helped me to go to all these places I’ve been. My heart was broken when I heard about the accident and then obviously when he passed.”

Kelly plans on making this his final coaching stop, but this isn’t going to be some half-assed job. The idea is to build NEC into a football school and that starts with recruiting first and foremost. Kelly has the support of anyone and everyone at the school and believes the town can become one kids want to flock to in order to pursue their dream of playing college football.

“There’s two aspects,” said Kelly. “There’s the business aspect. We want to try and get 50 kids the first year and then we’ll get the 120’s, 130’s around New England. That was the first aspect. The second aspect is wanting to keep kids on campus in the fall…in two years, we’ll have a homecoming game and we’re envisioning tailgating, galvanizing the community, all those things that football does.”

While some may scoff at the idea, Kelly’s stops at Dartmouth, Salve and Bryant have shown him that high school football and therefore recruiting should be taken very seriously around here. The talent is there and if you haven’t noticed, major D1 programs as well as very good programs at the D2 and D3 levels have been stepping up their games when it comes to finding legit ‘dudes’ in New England over the last decade or so, but especially the last three or four years.

Not only that, but this is also an opportunity for new rivalries to be created and new memories to be made.

“I think people care,” Kelly said when asked about the reputation New England has as a “pro sports only” place. “In the last three weeks I’ve been through almost all the schools in New Hampshire. Everybody’s excited about high school football and college football…we’re going to start a rivalry with Plymouth (State). That’s going to be our first varsity game. We’re going to have up to six what I’m calling ‘pre-varsity games’ next fall, but then in 2025, we’re starting with Plymouth State and they’re trotting down here and we’ll have a game against them.

“It’s a high school football town and region. The thing I always loved about New England is they have their playoff system with the Super Bowls – which I think is terrific – but they also have the best tradition going, the Thanksgiving Day games with longtime rivals, some of them playing for over 100 years. I think high school football is big here.”

The recruiting process when you aren’t “officially” playing for another year or so is tough, but then again, it’s also an opportunity for kids who may not want to ride the bench to immediately start and play true D3 college football. That particular scenario is the one Kelly hopes attracts kids to the program early.

“Right now, I’m on the promotion tour,” Kelly said with a laugh. “What I’m doing is going to the high schools and first of all, talking with the coaches. I want to let them know what we’re doing here. What’s the plan? I want them to be able to articulate that to other coaches and their kids. And then I’m letting them know what I’m all about. I want kids doing well academically. I want kids looking at careers and I want to help them with professional development. I want them to have a positive football experience and positive experience overall at NEC. We want to make sure kids reach their potential, it’s not just all about football.

“The other sell is playing early. A lot of these D3 programs – I just came from one – they have 130, 140 guys. I always say to a coach, ‘how many guys are on a field? There’s 11.’ The core of most of these teams is probably 50, 60 guys. We have the ability to have young guys come in and they’ll come in first and second team instead of fourth or fifth team.”

Being ‘the first’ of something is an intriguing draw as well. Whoever is on that first NEC football roster will forever be a part of history.

“There’s always those guys that want to be part of something different,” Kelly continued. “They want to be part of growing something like I’m doing. I’m going to tell those kids ‘I’m doing the same thing that I hope you want to do.’ There’s going to be guys that say ‘heck no’ and I understand that. I’m sure there were coaches that saw this position and said ‘heck no, I ain’t doing that.’ I view this as my last position where I can build a legacy. To me, it’s an exciting thing to build this from the ground up. There’s going to be kids that want to do that, and I’m going to tell the kids that don’t want to do it ‘that’s fine, but when we play you we’re going to kick your butt.”

As an alum myself, I know how special of a place Henniker is. It’s also very clear that Kelly understands how special of a place it is and how much more special it can be as a football town.

So, what does he think future recruits need to know before making the drive up to start their college football careers?

“Henniker is your quintessential New England town,” he added. “The thing that’s really impressed me here is the people. Here in Henniker, when you’re a student, people are going to know you. They’re going to help you through the process here. There’s great support here from everyone and the enthusiasm here has been terrific. It starts from President Lesperance. From him down, everybody’s excited about having football.

“In terms of having success, we’re going to recruit, recruit, recruit and we’re going to get the best players that we can. Our first priority is the state of New Hampshire, then obviously, New England. As far as the blueprint and the enthusiasm here at NEC, the sky’s the limit.”