Retiring Nolen put players’ welfare foremost

It was a common thing to see on Friday nights for the past 33 years.

Tom Nolen in a navy blue windbreaker and cap sporting the Lamar High School emblem. He would seem cool and calm, pacing the sidelines with his arms folded across his chest.

Then something would happen. A botched play, a bad call, a missed opportunity and it would begin.

The stomping.

“We’d see it coming,” said Marmion Dambrino, Houston Independent School District director of athletics. “Something would go wrong and Tommy would be over there stomping grapes.”

Dambrino laughed Monday afternoon as she talked about her friend and colleague.

Last week, Nolen paid her a visit at the HISD athletic office. He told her he was calling it a career and retiring.

Less than a month ago, Dambrino announced her own retirement.

“I said, ‘Good for you, Tommy,’ ” she said. “And he just said, ‘Well, thanks,’ and went on talking about something else.”

Nolen has always been a man of few words.

He’s often been described as gruff, intimidating, even grumpy.

But those close to Nolen know that was a facade.

“No one has a heart of gold like Tommy Nolen,” Dambrino said.

On Monday, she looked out her window at Delmar Fieldhouse and could see the football field next door.

“It’s going to be weird that he won’t be on that sideline next

year,” she said. “He won’t be out there stomping around when he gets upset in a game. He won’t be out there leading those kids with such heart and such passion.

“Tommy is going to be missed.”

Nolen, 73, is headed out with quite the résumé.

He coached at Lamar for 33 years and won 307 games there. He coached at Strake Jesuit before that and has an all-time win total of 364.

Lamar won 20 district titles with 31 playoff appearances under Nolen. It played for a state championship once, in 2012. He leaves the Texans on an active streak of eight straight district titles.

He was about as consistent as they come. Predictable even.

His former and current assistant coaches say he was a creature of routine. Whether it was working on crossword puzzles or setting up a game plan, he always stayed busy.

He loves football and his record speaks for itself. He’s a brilliant coach.

No-nonsense approach

While the game has changed over the years, he’s stuck to the same style that got him and kept him in his winning ways.

Hard work, discipline, no nonsense.

“He’s definitely old-school,” Dambrino said. “But it worked for him. And it worked for his kids.”

Nolen did adapt his playbook without having to change the way he approached the game.

As the spread offense took over the high school football scene, Nolen switched to a pistol offense seamlessly.

“He’s a very intelligent person,” said assistant Mike Lindsey, who will replace Nolen as Texans coach. “He does the New York Times crossword every day. He’s a very avid reader. He is up to date on world events. Coach Nolen is a smart guy and certainly smart enough to realize we need to change the offense a little bit.”

The wins are nice. The district titles are to be celebrated. The tradition Nolen built at Lamar should be admired.

But more important than any of it are the relationships he built.

“The kids always came first,” Lamar principal James McSwain said. “He cared so much about each and every one of them. He was a father figure to many of them, an advocate a lot of times. He truly had special relationships with every player who came through the program.”

Nolen spent time getting to know his players. He knew their families, he talked to them about school, about other extracurricular activities, about their goals, their dreams.

Dambrino said she’d often sit with Nolen on a bench at Delmar waiting for the players to come out of the locker room after games.

“He knew something about every one of them,” she said. “He would ask, ‘Hey, did you get that math assignment turned in?’ or ‘How’d that English test go?’ ”

One player’s gratitude

Darrel Colbert Jr. was Nolen’s quarterback for three years, including in 2012 when the team played for a state title. Now a fifth year senior at Lamar University, Colbert said it was bittersweet to hear Nolen was retiring.

“I learned so much from him,” Colbert said. “He knows so much about the game and really took the time to teach us the right way to play it.

“But he also made it clear all the time that he cared more about you than football. That meant a lot to all of us.”

Colbert said he had heard that Nolen was strict and tough and could be difficult. But when he got to Lamar High School and to the program, he had a totally different experience.

“He’s tough because he cares about the program,” Colbert said. “Not just about the winning. He cared about our grades and our families. He cared about us being good people.”

Nolen wanted his players to succeed in everything. Football, school work, life. And he did his part to make sure they did.