Tuppers miss out on final season
Father-son duo hoped to lead Broncos this spring
BURRILLVILLE – Aidan Tupper knew deep down he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t ignore the attraction. He felt like he was being pulled in by a mammoth magnet.
When a couple of Burrillville High friends suggested they spend a Monday afternoon out dirt biking about five weeks ago, the senior standout two-sport athlete figured, “Why not?” After all, he didn’t have to report to school in person due to the COVID-19 outbreak, he didn’t have any classes on Zoom and his boys lacrosse team, of which he would serve as a pivotal senior point-getter, couldn’t practice.
Social distancing, you know. In addition, he didn’t think his squad would end up having a season anyway, so he told his buds, “I’m in.”
“We were having fun; I hit a hill with about a 30-35 foot gap before the landing on the other side, and I cleared it fine,” he said of the trail. “I landed just where I wanted to, but not how. I hit some sand, the wheel stuck and I flew over the handlebars. Unfortunately, the bike, weighing about 250 pounds, decided to come down right on top of me.
“I got up, and thought I popped my shoulder out again, so I popped it back in (he did that often playing varsity football for his godfather and head coach, Gennaro Ferraro),” he added. “I was still in pain, so I tried it again, but then I heard some things moving around in there. That’s when I realized, ‘Uh-oh, this isn’t good.’”
Tupper had shattered his collarbone, had to be taken to the hospital for surgery and now has a plate and seven pins in his shoulder.
“I wouldn’t have been out there in the first place if we weren’t out of school, and if the lacrosse team was still practicing,” he admitted. “I went anyway because I had a feeling all along the season wasn’t to be. After the announcement that it had been canceled, I thought, ‘Well, at least I wasn’t going to play anyway.”
Tupper managed to keep his sense of humor despite the extreme emotional pain he felt at such a loss – not use of his shoulder and arm for a spell but having to close an illustrious career in such anticlimactic fashion.
He had such high hopes: First and foremost, he and the Broncos wanted to avenge a Division III Tournament semifinal loss to eventual champion Westerly last season
Second, they were hellbent on returning to the final – that after a disastrous stint in D-II the two years before – because Tupper’s father, Eric, would be their mentor. They wanted to win him one more championship, as the elder Tupper had decided to hang it up at campaign’s end.
And, third, this would be Aidan’s final sports season ever. He won’t be attending college but instead begin training to become a lineman for National Grid upon his graduation.
“The fact I injured my collarbone, that still doesn’t make it any easier to deal with,” Aidan noted. “I didn’t play hockey this winter for assorted reasons, and then the lacrosse season was kind of stolen from us. Little did I know when Mount Pleasant scored that final touchdown in the state (D-II grid) semifinal (last fall) that it would be the final play of my career.
“What hurts most was we had so much going for us as far as talent and preparation,” he continued. “We had meetings back in January, went over game film, and then we started Captains’ practice in February. Everyone was buying in. It was going to be a great season; we could feel it. We had so much enthusiasm; we were going to bring it to a new level.
“Then it just disappeared.”
As for conversations between Aidan and father and coach about the cancellation, the younger claimed they were few and far between.
“We don’t operate that way, never have; we didn’t say much about it,” he said. “It’s the elephant in the room. What could we say to each other? We both know how we feel – rotten.”
Offered Coach Tupper: “I sent out a group text that Friday (April 24), after the Interscholastic League sent out that notice, ‘No season;’ I don’t think the kids wanted me to do a Zoom conference call, and I can say I didn’t get many responses. I think the kids expected it; I knew they were bummed out.
“They had been working for this season since early February, actually, since right after that semifinal loss; the kids had captains’ practices off school property, and they actually took attendance. I usually keep 26 kids for varsity, and we had 26-27 show up.
“They knew they had to spend time conditioning, doing drills, walking through offensive plays. The seniors let me know; they were chomping at the bit to get this thing going, especially after the semifinal loss last spring.
“They were crushed; they knew we were going to have a great season because of how far we made it last year,” he continued. “I can’t blame the kids for how they feel. Even before the news came out, back when we were in that holding pattern but couldn’t practice, I would come home and turn college lacrosse on TV.
“I’d watch it for a bit, but then I’d see us on the screen running those plays. I’d get so distraught I had to turn it off, and I never did that before. It hurts too much.”
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Ask Eric Tupper now, and he’s still amazed how he became the Broncos’ boys varsity lacrosse chief.
“I never envisioned it, never,” he laughed. “The thing is, Lisa Varieur got the whole thing started as a club sport 12 years ago; her son was a terrific player for us. It remained club for about four years, and then I took over a couple of years after that.
“I was surprised, because they came to me one day – I guess they had been looking for a head coach – and said, ‘Eric, will you take it?’ so I said, ‘Sure,’” he added. “I wasn’t planning on it, but I did it because Lisa made the job so easy; she gave us so much support, even developing a Burrillville lacrosse boosters club that rivals the football boosters.
“If we needed equipment, she’d take care of it; at the end of the year, she’d be in charge of the awards banquet. When we came home from an away game, she and the other parents would be ready at school with pizza and drinks for the kids. And, say it was snowing or raining outside, she’d even tell me, ‘You can have practice anyway over at Wide World of Sports (the North Smithfield indoor complex). Get going.’ She’d pay for that, too.
“I’ve never had one complaint in six years as the head coach, not from Lisa or a parent, nobody, which is unheard of. I’m so grateful to each and every one of them.”
Tupper did have to figure out his overall coaching record in those six years at the helm; it took him a while, but came up with 5625. That includes not only a D-III championship (one he captured with son Riley, then a senior captain, in 2016), three D-III finals and – unfortunately – two “horrible” years in D-II.
“The good news is we’ve only lost four times to a D-III team” in his tenure, he said.
Outside of those numbers, only one other means more to him – five. That was to be the amount of senior starters he would’ve watched mature and succeed this spring. It includes Sean Tetreault, Sam DeRotto, Nick Hammond, Steve Ethier and, of course, his youngest son, Aidan.
Coach Tupper never was one to blow his own kid’s horn or play favorites. To him, every one of his players was like a son to him, and he treated each the same. He wanted to help all improve, be a star. The same could be said when he helped Ferraro as a grid assistant in the fall.
That’s why, when asked about how his squad reacted to the terrible news, he wanted to highlight what each Bronco meant to him and their beloved alma mater. Of course, so as not to play favorites, he opened with Tetreault.
“Sean was a kid who, when we were playing last year, I’d put him on (the opponent’s) best attack; he was a long-pole defensive genius, and a four-year varsity starter,” the coach noted. “Last year, we finished 15-2, and our only two losses – ironically, both were at home – came to Westerly. But we did win the regular-season D-III title, finishing 14-1. Narragansett finished with the same record, but we had beaten them head-to-head, so we won it.
“Then there’s our face-off guy, Sam DeRotto. The thing about him, he was a great ‘fogo,’ but he was so good running the offense, we kept him in there. Most fogos come off right off the field. His face-off percentage was phenomenal; he’d win 65-75 percent of them, which made our offense tough to stop.
“Nicky was a soccer player and a middie in lacrosse,” he added. “He’s really fast, is great dodging while possessing the ball, but he also has a fantastic outside shot. He was probably our thirdranked scorer. When he took a shot, it snapped and came out like a frozen rope.”
Ethier played the “X” position, meaning the attack stationed behind the foe’s net trying to look for the open man sliding past defenders and, hopefully, the goalie.
“The thing about Steve, he could also score, and that’s because he sees the entire field so well,” Tupper said. “He has great anticipation, and probably has the best lacrosse IQ of anyone on our team.
“As for Aidan, he led the team in points the last three years, and probably would have again this year; I’m not saying that just because I’m his father, but because it’s fact. When we were in D-II his sophomore year, we took a beating, but he led the team as well.
“The thing about him, when he has the ball, he’s just got that tenacity, that fearlessness; it’s like he’ll charge the net with the ball and think, ‘I don’t care, because nothing’s gonna stop me!’ It’s because he loves contact, and I think some of that stems from playing football – and growing up with older brothers. He doesn’t mind mixing it up inside.”
He sighed, hesitated, then thanked the person questioning him on the other end of the line. For a brief period of time, he had forgotten he and his Broncos aren’t, and will not be, on Gledhill Field this season.
“You know what’s also really sad? Weather-wise, this is the best spring I think we’ve had since I’ve been here,” he said. “The weather’s been unusually warm, we haven’t had any snow and not much rain and the fields are looking fantastic! They’re so green.
“Plus we were going to have a new practice field, as the softball team has moved from the lower field to Hauser Field in town, and the girls were going to have the upper field,” he added. “We were also going to play our home games at (the) Alumni Field (stadium).
“What hurts most was we had so much going for us as far as talent and preparation. We had meetings back in January, WENT OVER GAME FILM, AND THEN WE started Captains’ practice in February.”
— Burrillville senior Aidan Tupper