For nearly four decades, Telstar High School teacher and coach Tim O’Connor has told his students and athletes to have a plan. Now O’Connor has one.

When he retires in June, he’ll hunt and fish, and travel to Alaska and the Maritimes with his wife, Terri, who’s also retiring from teaching.

Until then, he’s focused on his football players, their routines and the rules.

“Now that Jillian is on board, (the new athletic trainer) there is somebody to keep track of attendance and you must attend to be eligible for practice,” he told his 25 players at practice Sept. 24.

“Does everybody understand?”

“Yes, Coach”

“Let’s go take a lap.”

O’Connor helped get the football program back after losing it in the early 1980s.

The School Administrative District 44 board of directors voted to discontinue football and go in a different direction, O’Connor said. “From ’82 until 2006 — no football.” That different direction was a soccer program being established around the same time.

In 2005, the O’Connors, of Bethel, and two other local couples, Jody and Doug Wilson of Bethel and Brenda and Brad Wight of Newry, formed a committee to bring football back. They raised $80,000 for equipment, uniforms and goal posts.

They held dances, bottle drives and a dunking booth at Mollyockett Day. A shot in the arm came from an anonymous donor who wrote a check for $20,000. The group made another $6,600 waiting tables, running food and washing dishes at the Gideon Hastings House. Then O’Connor reached out to the New England Patriots ,who sent a check for $5,000 — enough to push them over the goal line.

Twenty years ago, football returned to Bethel beginning with a youth program that eventually built back up to high school play.

A few years into the program O’Connor’s son TJ — now married with a child — played quarterback; it was an undefeated season. “That was pretty memorable,” O’Connor said.

More recently, about four years ago, the team went undefeated in the eight-man small division. “We were stellar,” O’Connor said. But in the playoffs, with players out due to COVID, they lost to a team they’d beaten earlier in the season.

“You learn how to win. You learn how to lose,” he said. “You learn how to make yourself a better player and a better person. A lot of lessons are learned through football. They come to us as boys and when they leave us they are young men.”

The learning is constant. During a home game Oct. 4, with Telstar leading Mount View High School of Thorndike at halftime by 64-0, still not everything was perfect. The coach reminded a player to “keep it (trash talk) on the sidelines.” And more than once, only seven players were on the field instead of eight at the start of a play.

Still, O’Connor’s demeanor remained steady, as when he carefully explained at the end of the first quarter who will be on the field, and reminded them that they’ll line up for the second quarter going in the other direction.

Working with the players every year and seeing their growth is the best part of his job, he said.

“We have one player who is a sophomore,” he said. “Last year he played a little JV. This year has really blossomed into a player. I don’t think I’ve seen growth in a player as much as that. I like that.”

He emphasizes year-round training, urging players to take ownership. “Did you play this season against anybody who was stronger than you? You have the ability to fix that in the fitness room.”

In addition to coaching high school football, O’Connor also leads middle school basketball and baseball. At Telstar, he teaches industrial arts and technology education, and mentors a wide range of students.

“I see the academic kid, (and I see) a kid that needs hands-on training for a trade before they go to Region 9 (vocational school in Mexico),” he said. In the Seven Peaks program, he helps students write college essays, prep for the SATs, and explore trades.

“I’ll miss the kids. I’m not going to lie. I’ve been doing this for 39 years,” O’Connor said.

Earlier this fall, he texted all his former homeroom students from last year to check in. Every one of them responded.

“They all were looking to go forward, to go bigger, better. Go on to the next step,” he said. “Some of them outgrow school and can’t wait to get out of here. But some of them missed the coziness of being all together in my room, checking in with each other every day.”

At the end of the year, on Senior Night, players are honored with a flower and a public announcement of their plans for the future.

It’s a tradition O’Connor will soon be part of himself — heading into retirement with the same quiet confidence he’s instilled in generations of teens.