Worcester Telegram & Gazette: "Worcester State's Cullen brings continuity"

Worcester State's Cullen Brings Continuity

By Bill Doyle, Staff Writer

August 29, 2010

Worcester, MA ---  A lot has changed since Brien Cullen began coaching Worcester State football in 1983: the competition, his players and even Cullen himself.

Cullen, 56, admits he's far less vocal.

"A lot of the kids now, if you get after them in their face like I did 20 years ago, they'd be gone," he said. "It would be like, 'What's this guy doing? He's a crazy man.' Twenty years ago, the kids loved it. They ate it up."

Twenty years ago, Cullen reminded many of his players of their fathers because they'd get in their faces as well.

"Well," Cullen said, "fathers aren't like that with their kids now. They want to be their kids' friends instead of being their fathers."

So Cullen has adjusted.

"I should get a counseling degree," he said.

Cullen coached the Lancers as a club program in 1983 and 1984 and this will be his 26th season coaching them in NCAA Division III. Of the 53 other head football coaches in New England, no one else has coached at the same college for as long. Mike DeLong comes the closest, coaching at Springfield College since 1984.

Cullen had a chance to become an assistant coach at a college in New York several years ago, but he and his wife didn't want to move. Besides, he enjoys what he does — teaching physical education and health at Douglas High for the past 31 years and coaching at Worcester State, his alma mater.

"I'm the boss here," he said.

College football requires a year-long weight-training commitment nowadays.

"Thirty years ago," Cullen said, "some of these guys would get in shape in preseason."

But the weight training helps produce better athletes than Cullen used to coach.

In today's instant gratification society, Cullen finds himself coaching a different kind of player than he did years go.

"It's harder to find the kids to make the effort to work harder and make the commitment to a program," he said. "Kids, as they go through high school and Pop Warner, they get a trophy for just showing up. For the guys who are here, they're great. They could have played on any of the teams that I've had, but it's harder to find those kids."

One reason they're harder to find is that many more colleges have started football programs and they're recruiting the same high school athletes. In Worcester County alone, Assumption, Fitchburg State, Anna Maria and Becker have added varsity football programs since the Lancers jumped to Division III.

The Lancers hope to rebound from a 1-9 season and history is on their side. They posted 1-9 records twice before, in 1992 and 1999, and rebounded to 6-3 in 1993 and 7-2 in 2000. Cullen was voted New England Football Conference Coach of the Year both of those bounce-back years. He's been voted NEFC Coach of the Year four times in all and coached the Lancers to three conference titles.

The return of six starters on offense and nine on defense along with the influx of several talented transfer students and promising freshmen have Cullen excited.

"I've won the conference with less talent than we have this year," he said, "but having the talent and having the attitude and discipline to win, I have no idea about that yet."

Last year, the Lancers were young and Cullen installed a new offense that emphasized the run more. This year, Marcus Price, Nate Starling and Stephen Payen, a freshman from Florida, will lead the ground game.

Mike Quist, a Murdock High graduate who attended Mount Wachusett CC last year, is one of four transfer students who should bolster the offensive line. Ken Russell, who caught 57 passes for 1,057 yards and seven touchdowns for Fitchburg State two years ago, will give junior quarterback Tony Tokarz another target.

Safeties Paul Lewis and Andrew Tokarz, Tony's brother, lead a defensive backfield that allowed the fewest passing yards in the conference last fall.

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