Players, town back Silva

MARSHFIELD — Danny Hickey and many of his teammates gathered in the parking lot of the Marshfield Tavern with “Free Lou” written on their shirts.

Hickey, a junior wide receiver and safety on the Marshfield football team, is without a head coach at the moment after longtime coach Lou Silva was informed by the school last week his position was being opened up.

Several players on the team along with students and community members came together last night in a rally to show support for Silva and try to sway the administration into giving him his job back.

“I know Lou had my back for three years, so I have to have his when he is going through times like this,” Hickey said.

Silva spent 36 years as the head coach of the Rams, compiling a 236144-7 record with five Super Bowl titles and a spot in the Massachusetts High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

The support for Silva was immediate. A petition online already has more than 2,500 signatures

A statement released last night by Marshfield High said in part the school wanted a coach who worked in the building, but that “it is not a mandatory requirement for the position, and it was not the only reason that was shared with Mr. Silva” at a meeting last week.

The action by the administration caught many off guard, including members of the football team.

“I was really just shocked and disappointed that they would let him go without letting us know,” captain Brody Reynolds said. “(It was) out of nowhere. We went to his house last night and tried to help him feel better.”

The large group of supporters wanted Silva, who was not in attendance, to keep coaching and go out on his own terms.

“We just need his job reinstated so he can out the way he deserves to,” rally organizer Christine Robertson said. “He should be taken out on the shoulders of every person in the town.”

“Football is Lou Silva,” said Doreen Giles, who taught alongside Silva and whose two sons play football for him. “He has made Marshfield what it is.”