McGowan took the field for the final time
By Caitlyn Kelleher JOURNAL REPORTER

Bob McGowan, who talks to the girls during summer practices, coached the Oakmont Field Hockey teams for 30 years. FILE PHOTO

Thirty years ago, Bob McGowan sat in the office of Oakmont Regional High School's Athletic Director David LaRoche and accepted the job of the junior varsity field hockey coach under then-varsity coach Paula Wollanski.

"He said, 'Mac,' that's my nickname, 'what do you know about field hockey?' and I said 'absolutely nothing.'"

From there McGowan accepted the coaching job knowing he had played ice hockey and lacrosse.

"Paula was my head coach for three or four years," he said. "She was very good about helping me out with the game."

McGowan added that he attended clinics, practiced and said he read "everything I could get my hands on at the beginning."

McGowan has since learned that field hockey is much more like lacrosse, which he played in college, than ice hockey, which he also played, and LaRoche originally compared it, too.

"The ice hockey and the field hockey, I couldn't put those together," he said.

McGowan is also a coach for the track and field team.

He said it is hard to imagine 30 years down the road with any accuracy, but he didn't expect to still be coaching field hockey today.

"It is something I've always enjoyed and I have always had fun doing," he said.

This year the team made it to the first round of District play.

"That was a goal we set in the first few days of practice this summer," he said. "More than anything I was pleased for the girls that played."

McGowan, an Ashburnham resident, is teaching his 34th year at Oakmont this year. The social studies teacher who started out teaching seventh grade when Oakmont was a middle and high school has worked his way to teaching juniors and senior level courses.

This year he is teaching eleventh-grade U.S. history and a senior-level local law and economic course. The course he and Dennis Driscoll developed in the late 1970s has more than 100 students take it every year.

"I am still really developing it," he said. "If something new or different comes along I incorporate it in."

McGowan plans to retire in June.

One of his classroom walls is his Wall of Fame, featuring pictures from the last 20 years of his coaching career.

"I'll see kids that played for me 10, 20, 25 years ago and they'll still say 'hi, coach,' it's great," he said.

McGowan has also coached and taught the children of this former students and players.

"It's actually enjoyable having athletes of athletes that you've had in school," he said.