Maimaron thrives as teacher,
coach, by using similar approach in both
By Trevor Hass, Sports
Editor/Reporter
sports@duxburyclipper.com
Twitter: @DuxburySports
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.”
