From grids to the gridiron

Maimaron thrives as teacher, coach, by using similar approach in both

By Trevor Hass, Sports Editor/Reporter

sports@duxburyclipper.com
Twitter: @DuxburySports

It’s just after 9 o’clock on a typical Wednesday at Duxbury High School. A middle-aged, sharply dressed math teacher paces the room, making sure his students are fully engaged.

When he spots one surfing the web, on the 13-inch MacBook Air given to everyone from seventh grade up, he politely asks him to focus on the material. A few minutes later, the same student pops in some headphones, and the teacher reminds him why they’re there, this time a little more sternly.

“It’s like the equivalent of being on a diet and having someone put a hot plate of brownies in front of you,” he says, referring to the benefits and the drawbacks of the sleek computer.

It’s clear he runs a tight ship when necessary, but for the most part he doesn’t have to. His students are largely engaged, and it quickly becomes evident they respect both him and his co-teacher. When he explains a concept, they’re listening, answering the questions he poses and jotting down notes.

The man, sporting a spiffy blue and white button-down, tan slacks, gray Under Armour shoes and a red, white and blue belt with the American flag on it, eventually meanders back to the front of the classroom and scans the attentive audience of 23. He takes off his glasses momentarily, pauses for a sip of Aquafina and then rests those glasses back on his nose.

“See how you have a grid here?” he inquires. “X intercept at 3 is right there. The X intercept is a point. Once you have two points, you can count the slope.”

He has a knack for explaining the issues at hand, and his students swiftly latch on and grasp what he’s saying.

During the school day, this is what the teacher does, and he loves it. After school, the teaching doesn’t stop. In fact, it continues in an extremely similar manner, only now the subject matter is something different. Football.

From intercepts to interceptions, grids to gridirons and MacBooks to playbooks, Dave Maimaron is always teaching. Perhaps the most recognizable high school sports figure on the South Shore, and one of the most successful, Maimaron is rightfully known for his acumen on the football field.

But what about his day job? What’s he like as a teacher? As he’ll tell you, the two are inextricably intertwined. His approach as a teacher funnels into his mindset as a coach, and he uses the same methods in both disciplines.

As someone who was a lost and often confused high school student himself, Maimaron knows how to relate to his students and players, and he prides himself on bringing out the best in them.

“They’re the same in my eyes,” Maimaron said. “You’re teaching in the classroom or you’re teaching on the field. You’re still teaching.”

“Football kind of saved me”

Plenty of the kids Maimaron grew up with in Quincy went down the wrong path. He knows that could have easily been him. Truthfully, he admits, it almost was.

When he was 14, his older sister, Nancy, died. Two years later, his older brother, Bobby, died. It shook the Maimaron family to its core, and he started asking more philosophical questions about life than any teenager should have to.

He’ll always cherish the memory of Nancy, who was six years older, teaching him how to ride a horse. She appreciated nature and the arts, and he still enjoys those parts of life to this day.

Bobby was his best friend. He was four years older, but they were inseparable. Dave’s son is Bobby, whose grandfathers are Bob as well.

Time has passed, and the wounds have mostly healed, but there will always be two massive parts of Dave missing.

“It’s a pretty traumatic thing for any family to go through, losing a sibling,” Maimaron said. “Losing two was difficult on everyone.”

Around that same time, as those doubts swirled, Maimaron met a man who would go on to become one of his biggest mentors. Football coach Kevin Macdonald took him under his wing at Archbishop Williams, in Braintree, and molded him into a confident, polished person.

Maimaron earned a spot on the UMass Boston football team and turned a metaphorical corner. He was back in better spirits, and he knew Macdonald was a major reason why.

“I had some challenging times in high school, and football kind of saved me,” Maimaron said. “He kind of saved me. The amount of anger you have, dealing with the grief, football really channeled that for me in a positive direction. If it wasn’t for that, and Kevin Macdonald, it would have gone negatively. My life would probably be a mess.”

He graduated with a sociology degree and spent his time bartending at Clarke’s at Faneuil Hall. The tips were nice, but he still didn’t feel satisfied. Something was missing.

He knew he didn’t go to school to bartend. There was more he wanted to do.

One day, he got a chance to substitute teach in the Boston Public School System, and he pounced on the opportunity.

“I loved it right from my very first day,” Maimaron said. “I’ve been teaching ever since.”

Trial by fire

Back when he was breaking into the field, the way Maimaron saw it, education was getting hammered and heaps of people were being laid off.

He knew he had to stand out somehow, so he chose to zero in on special education. Maimaron got his masters in special education at Eastern Nazarene College, and his Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies through Fitchburg State,  and he found a job as a teacher in a self-contained, behavioral management classroom that he held for 13 years.

“It was trial by fire,” Maimaron said. “You’re figuring it out on your own.”

He’s still close with a couple students from that program. That’s the way he is. When he builds a relationship, he always tries to keep it, because that’s what means the most to him.

The job, as exhausting and grueling as it was, was satisfying in many ways. He loves a good challenge, and this was no different, but he decided it was time for a change.

“Once I started my own family, I realized I was completely emotionally drained by the time I got home, so it wasn’t going to be fair to my own family,” Maimaron said. “I knew I had to get into a more stable situation.”

Dave, Colleen, Tiernan and Bobby Maimaron moved to Duxbury. Dave found a job in town in the early 2000s, and now his whole life is here.

“It was my goal,” Maimaron said. “Once I realized I wanted to teach and be a high school coach, not a college coach, it was my dream to teach and coach in a town on the South Shore. I don’t think I could have ended up in a better place.”

Parallel lines

In a typical day, Maimaron – who also taught sophomore English and MCAS prep in the past – teaches two co-taught geometry classes and one co-taught algebra course, and he oversees two learning centers with six and 13 kids.

He and his good friend, Tony Fisher, co-teach the math courses – a concept Maimaron was instrumental in bringing to Duxbury years back.

Principal Jim Donovan credited Maimaron for improving the special education model at Duxbury High. He said his versatility makes him stand out.

“He has a way of developing relationships with students that are multi-dimensional,” Donovan said.

He’s a joke-cracker, a hearty laugher and a gregarious guy, but he also demands a lot. He holds everyone he encounters to a high standard, and he strives to get the best out of them.

When a student doesn’t understand an issue, his goal is to help them master the concept.

“Breaking down a complex math assignment is really similar to breaking down a complex play on the field into simple, manageable steps that kids can understand,” Fisher said. “Whether it’s a test or an important game, keeping that same approach and that consistency is important.”

Maimaron echoes what Fisher says, noting that experience goes a long way. When senior Liam Kraemer first moved from Colombia to Duxbury, for example, Maimaron helped him learn English the same way he helped him learn football – through repetition, a variety of strategies and attention to detail.

“At this point, because I’ve been doing it for so long, a lot of times by the look on a kid’s face, or the question they ask, I can understand what they don’t understand,” Maimaron said. “I usually have a tool or a trick to show them a different way to understand that problem. If a play we run doesn’t work, I usually know right away why it didn’t work. I also know we can do this the next time and it will work. It’s no different in the classroom. A lot of that comes from experience. I’ve been doing it almost 30 years now.”

In the classroom, he rarely yells, unless he needs to. On the football field? The approach is essentially the same, but the demeanor can sometimes reach a whole new level – like a tiger let out of its cage. This is what he loves, so it’s only natural.

As senior Jake Quilty discusses Maimaron’s shrewdness in both settings, Maimaron peeps his head in from the hallway.

“I won’t play you again if you bash me,” he jokes.

Quilty chuckles and shakes his head.

“He’s pretty scary when he gets angry.”

Biggest classroom in the school

With his teaching background as a driving force, and plenty of help, Maimaron has built Duxbury football up into the Godzilla of the Patriot League ever since the turn of the millennium.

Duxbury, fresh off a 14-13 victory over Hingham on Saturday, has won the league title 10 straight years, and 14 of the last 17, along with five Super Bowl championships during that span.

To say he’s solely responsible would be inaccurate. He has an experienced coaching staff, a rabid fan base and, of course, supremely talented players year after year.

But to call him the engineer and the visionary behind that success isn’t farfetched at all. He deflects the credit, but frankly he’s the puppeteer behind the entire operation.

He’s a teacher, both in the classroom and on the field, and oftentimes the lines are blurred. Those lines can be viewed as both parallel and perpendicular – always going in the same direction but also forever intersecting. It’s a dizzying nightmare for most math teachers, but a beautiful equation for Maimaron.

“Friday night is like a community event, when the whole town shows up,” Maimaron said. “It doesn’t happen overnight, what we’ve created. It takes a lot of work. The football field is the biggest classroom in the school.”