Hard work helps Scituate’s Sullivan
TB12 part of long road back
Aidan Sullivan still has flashbacks to the night of Nov. 22 last year. As his teammates walked onto the field at Fenway Park for a Thanksgiving battle with Hingham, he was standing on the sideline, beginning the long process of recovery from a torn meniscus.
A moment he had waited his entire life for was taking place right in front of him, and yet the Scituate quarterback could only watch it pass him by.
“It was definitely very emotional,” Sullivan said. “You put so much time and effort in, especially for that moment, Thanksgiving game. It’s one of the biggest games of the year for you. And especially at Fenway, such a historic park. It was definitely emotional to be out there with my teammates, but not being able to play and watching the offense struggle, knowing that you could have helped your team, but you just can’t.”
Much has changed since then, and now Sullivan has Scituate making its first trip to the Super Bowl since 1979, on the precipice of capturing a state title.
The journey to this point started almost exactly one year ago, and it took countless hours of rehab to get to where Sullivan is now.
During his time off the field, Sullivan decided to put his faith in a legend, and in a term that has become increasingly used around these parts: pliability. He fully embraced Tom Brady and his TB12 method.
“The first time I went there, I actually met with Alex (Guerrero),” Sullivan said. “We were talking about diet, how we were going to strengthen my core. And then pretty much pliability, and mobility, trying to work on that. Then they kind of structured me for pretty much two years.”
He might not necessarily be the biggest proponent of avocado ice cream, but the process did wonders for Sullivan.
Under the watch of TB12 trainer James Castrello at their Foxboro facility, and with help from multiple other local rehab companies, Sullivan was back to athletic activity only a few months later. However, it certainly proved difficult to keep the Suffolk basketball commit from trying to make an early return to the court the following months.
“With a kid like (Sullivan), he’s a perfectionist,” Castrello said. “And I think that’s what makes him so competitive, and makes him such a good patient to have, that he wants to do everything at 100 percent. Sometimes with a kid like that, and especially with a procedure like that, and because it’s a procedure where you don’t necessarily have a ton of symptoms from, it’s almost about preventing him from doing too much too soon.”
By the time the 2018 football season kicked off, he was back at full strength, which opponents were quick to notice.
“You could see as a sopho- more that Aidan had the football IQ to learn the offense and understand the offense,” Scituate coach Herb Devine said. “Then doing 7-on-7’s going into his junior year, the decision-making really went to a whole other level.”
Led by Sullivan, the Sailors coasted to a 6-1 regular-season record, their lone blemish coming at the hands of Duxbury (a 35-23 loss) in Week 2.
However, in the opening week of the Div. 5 state tournament against Dennis-Yarmouth, Sullivan found himself in a do-or-die situation. The senior had just guided his group on a 15 play, 98yard drive down the field before finding teammate Jack Ruble in the end-zone to cut their deficit to 27-26 with 20 seconds to play. He then turned to Devine.
“Coach said at the beginning of the drive that we were going to go for two if we go down and score,” Sullivan said. “Just because I felt that we had momentum.”
With the game, and their season, on the line, time slowed down for Sullivan, as he gazed into the defense and called for the snap. Then he broke left on a keeper, beat the rush to the edge then spun victoriously across the goal line as the Sailors pulled off the improbable, surviving with a 28-27 victory against the same team that ousted them from the Div. 5 tournament just one year earlier.
“It honestly didn’t sink in until probably the next day,” Sullivan said. “I saw everyone going nuts, and I just took a knee, and I just kept saying, ‘Wow,’ for the next three hours because I felt that we were so close to being bounced in the first round of the playoffs. And that’s not how I wanted to end my senior season playing football.”
It was the wakeup call the Sailors needed. Most felt that Holliston, a team that had given Scituate fits in past tournaments, would be too much ... until Sullivan threw for four touchdowns in a 57-34 rout the following week.
Then against one of the best defenses in the Div. 5 ranks, the Sailors cruised, shutting out Canton 21-0 before knocking off Swampscott convincingly in the semifinals, 45-14.
Sullivan has racked up 2,011 passing yards in 2018 while accounting for 28 total touchdowns during the Sailors’ historic run.
Now set to play Nipmuc in their first Super Bowl in nearly four decades, only one question remains for the Sailors.
What does Devine plan to do with players such as Sullivan for the Thanksgiving game against Hingham?
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, but now I really need to think about it,” Devine said. “We’re going to play. We’re going to manage the game and be smart. I don’t think our kids would ever not want to play in a game. I just don’t think my coaching staff and our players are going to be that kind of team, sit on the sidelines and watch. We’re going to go play.”