A legendary run for Umile

Special by Bob Snow

Published in the March 9, 2018 edition

MELROSE—It’s the last day in February and Melrose native Dick Umile, retiring after his team’s last game, is in his office – his second office – reflecting. His real office sits below: the frozen sheet of the spiffy Whittemore Center on the campus of the University of New Hampshire. Umile’s day—and night job—the last 28 years is head coach of the Wildcats’ Division I men’s hockey team.

The only clock of concern to Umile is the 60-minute type suspended above the ice surface. He’s lived and breathed the fastest game 24/7 since he first laced them up on the flooded fields of Pine Banks and Ell Pond and the old Hockey Town on Green Street.

All good things come to an end; for Umile, make that great. His thousands of practices in Durham and hundreds of games behind the bench and across the deep rivalries of Hockey East and the other 58 programs put him at No. 13 all time in Division I play with 596 wins, trailing such legendary surnames as York, Parker, and Berenson; he’s No. 1 in UNH history. Add 18 trips to the NCAA Tournament, eight Hockey East regular-season titles and two league tournament titles. He was national coach of the year in 1999 and was recently presented the prestigious Hockey East Founders Medal; only the 12th overall recipient and second coach in league history.

The first weekend in March begins college hockey’s annual playoff action leading to the national championship. Umile and his boys with just 10 total wins but seven ties and 11 one-goal losses this season face a daunting task. Win a best-of-three series against archrival Maine on the road or close two curtains.

“Hope we get past Maine,” Umile said, “and move on to BC next weekend. Great way to go out. “

Not to be as the Black Bears outlawed the Wildcats, 4-1 and 3-2 to end their season – and Umile’s long and storied career.

“Don’t want to think about [the end].” Umile said emotionally before heading to Orono 24 hours later. “It’s a tough one. My wife and I talked about it. We have the grandchildren and some are in hockey. We’re going to put our time and efforts into watching them. We’ll move back toward Beverly [where two daughters live] from Portsmouth to be closer to our family. Rose and I will spend our time with the kids.”

For Dick Umile, it’s only about family across his 68 years. He and Rose raised three daughters; they are expecting a ninth grandchild.

“Melrose is the roots – huge roots,” Umile said. “I put the skates on at 5 or 6, played with my older brother, Jimmy, on Ell Pond. We skated on Pine Banks; we even skated in the foundation along the railroad tracks. My dad was a Melrose police officer and my mom fed everybody in Melrose. So when I say huge roots, Melrose was a big part of my life. I had a great upbringing. I had another brother who died at 40 and an older sister who still lives in the family house.”

That Umile compound on Derby Road produced some serious hockey talent in the 1960’s when Melrose was among the state’s elite programs.

“I played three years at Melrose High from 64-67,” Umile recounted with appreciation. “Jack Turco was one of the great ones my sophomore year. Junior year it was Jerry Healey a good friend of mine – the goalie. My senior year it was the great player of Melrose, Steve Doloff. He was a sophomore. Went on to be an All-America at BU and won a national championship at BU. He and Robbie Ftorek in Needham were the two standouts in high school hockey.

“We never lost a game in high school in the Middlesex League. In 1965 we lost in the tournament to Newton, 2-1. In the junior year we lost the championship game to Needham and my senior year to Malden Catholic.

“I’d say 1965 was one of the best teams Melrose ever had. The best was my brother’s team in 1962 won the whole thing — the Middlesex League, the state tournament and the New England tournament. There were guys on the Melrose JV teams that could have played for any teams in the Middlesex League. Henry Hughes was head coach – tremendous.”

Hockey wasn’t Umile’s only sport and he enjoyed great mentors.

“I played hockey but baseball might have been my best sport when I was younger – then football came good and hockey was hockey. But I followed my brother’s footsteps and he took me everywhere playing with older guys.

“The coaches and teachers I had at Melrose High School I wanted to be like them. I loved coach Hoague in football and Hughes in hockey – legendary guys. And Bob McIntyre was the track coach. The football coach made me run track to be a better football and hockey and baseball player. I could run like hell.”

Lessons learned at home and on the playing fields still show when he gives that handshake and hug that transform a courtesy to a community. “If I learned anything,” Umile said, “it was how to treat and respect people. My parents taught me great values.”

A year in prep school had Umile headed to BU. “I was going to go to BU all along. But came [to Durham] after New Prep which was a hockey factory for local kids in Harvard Square. My older brother went there. but I came here and UNH had its own rink; BU was still playing at the Boston Arena. [Snively Arena] was just packed and I said, ‘I’m coming here.’ Basically it was my decision.”

It also etched another Melrose connection in UNH history. Umile’s coach was Charlie Holt who played at MHS in the late 40’s and briefly coached Melrose varsity before going the NCAA route.

“I knew the whole Holt family,” Umile said, “and there was an immediate connection when I came here.”

Snively, one of the original whiskey-barrel rinks, was Umile’s playing home from 1969-72. The Whittemore Center became his coaching home when it opened as one college hockey’s premier venues in 1995.

If BU-BC is the big rivalry for Boston bragging rights, it’s UNH-Maine for New England rights, especially in Durham for the annual “White out the Whitt.”

“Nothing like it,” Umile said about that annual war.

After wearing No. 15 in high school and college, Umile hung up his playing skates and began the winding two-decade coaching road from Wakefield High to Melrose High to Watertown High before the NCAA route. “That second year I became the Melrose freshman coach; my brother was JV coach, both of us under coach Hughes. Five in the morning practices in the outdoor Kasabuski Rink then,” Umile said about paying your coaching dues.

“Then after Hockey East got started (1994),” he chronicled, “I went to Providence when Mike McShane became head coach. I played with Mike [at UNH]. Then Bob Kullen succeeded coach Holt here and brought me in as assistant. He got sick with a rare disease that needed a heart transplant. His last year he couldn’t go on the ice. We went to Air Force for a game one Friday night. I get a call late that night he passed away. I got appointed interim that year and permanent the following in 1991.”

In the world of big-time college hockey, it’s all about recruiting and – well – back to family. His basics the past 28 years have been constant.

BU and BC might get the “A” players,” Umile said, “we got the “B+” guys who became the A’s by the junior year and stayed all four.”

His pitch to parents and players to choose UNH?

“There are a lot of people here who care about you as a person not only on the ice but off. I’m here to support you and give every opportunity to develop. We’ll play against the best teams in the country. We care only about hard work and each other.”

Mark Mowers was an early Umile recruit who played in the mid 90’s with Wakefield native Mike Souza, Umile’s successor after serving as associate head coach. Mowers went on to an NHL career with Detroit and Nashville; he now scouts for Buffalo.

“The first thing that comes to mind,” Mowers offered, “is that we had kind of a blue-collar mentality and that’s what we represented. We had high-profile guys that are supposed to put the puck in the net but from the recruiting process to having him behind the bench, we all bought into his blue-collar mentality. You’re going to play hard for each other. Once you get there on campus, he instills this UNH family right away. You play for each other, for coach, for school.”

For school, it’s about competing at the highest level.” You gotta be good and you gotta have puck luck,” Umile said about getting to play in the very last game of each season. “And stay healthy. That’s what it’s all about.”

It was all of that in ‘99 and ’03 when the Widcats twice knocked on the gates of NCAA glory.

“In Anaheim we did everything but win that game,” Umile said about the crushing 3-2 loss in overtime to Maine for the national championship. “That was my highlight here. We had Jason Krog with the Hobey Baker. I’ve always said the best day in college hockey is the Friday, the day before the national championship. They present the Hobey Baker winner that day. And you’re in the champioship game the next. You don’t have a better day than that. And we’re playing [archrival] Maine all the way out in California. It was an awesome game. To this day they say it was one of the best championship games of all time.”

The second shot came in 2003 in Buffalo against Minnesota.

“Thomas Vanek did us in the third period,” Umile said about that 5-1 loss that was tied entering the third period. “Minnesota was a better team and he had a fabulous game.”

The transitions for Umile over the last decade have been challenging.

“I think the type of hockey player and the way the game is played has changed a bit the last 10-15 years since I played for Dick,” Mowers said.

“God bless the guys that have to begin coaching today,” Umile summed. “We’re dealing with agents and social media. The majority of my career I didn’t have to do that. I dealt only with my players. Once they committed, I took care of them as though they were my own.”

What comes next for a local kid who done great?

“We’re taking the whole clan last week in June out to Red Rock Ranch in Wyoming. Ride horses, fly fish, no cell phone, no nothing; there as a family to kick off my retirement.

“I went to UNH and I coached at UNH but I’m from Melrose,” Umile smiled.

Just the way it started 68 years ago on Derby Road for a local kid who took a pair of skates on quite a ride.

(Bob Snow is co-host of MMTV’s “Matters of Interest.” He also covered NCAA hockey for NHL.com and currently covers the Bruins for bruinsdaily.com and boston.com.)