When it comes to Somersworth, you’d be hard pressed to find a bigger and more passionate supporter than the late Gordon S. "Gordie" Hilliard.
By Mike Whaley / mwhaley@seacoastonline.com
SOMERSWORTH — When it comes to Somersworth, you’d be hard pressed to find a bigger and more passionate supporter than Gordon S. "Gordie" Hilliard.
That’s a fact.
Gordie spent most of his life devoted to the city he loved in many capacities, particularly as a youth coach who always put his players first.
After a period of failing health, Gordie died on June 12 at the age of 79.
"He was a ball of energy," said his son, Dana Hilliard, the city’s mayor and Somersworth Middle School principal. "He was always in the midst of something. There was never a time when he wasn’t involved in something athletic or helping someone out."
Gordie was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, but when he was young his family moved to South Berwick, Maine. He attended Berwick Academy and Dover High School, where he was a three-sport star.
After a stint in the U.S. Navy, Gordie settled in Somersworth where he married Joanne, his wife of 54 years. They raised four children — Kim, Danny, Dana and Kerri.
Gordie worked at Kidder Press in Dover, the Somersworth Housing Authority, Somersworth Recreation Department, and the Strafford Place in Durham, before taking on duties at Somersworth's Middle School as athletic director. He also served as a volunteer firefighter with the Somersworth Fire Department. He retired in 2014.
Coaching was a passion. Gordie guided the Somersworth Middle School girls basketball team for 37 years, while also coaching middle school boys hoop teams at St. Martins and Somersworth Catholic in the 1970s. He coached, at various times, youth football, recreation girls softball and ran popular summer hoop camps in the city from the 1980s until well into the new millennium.
"Even when I was a kid I can never recall my father not being a coach, other than the years when he retired," Dana said.
Local radio personality Greg Kretschmar chuckles about his experience playing for Gordie on St. Martin’s seventh- and eighth-grade boys basketball team in the 1970s. "I was not good," he said. "As a coach, Gordie could be tough."
Kretschmar recalls at the end of one season, riding in the way back of Gordie’s station wagon. "He called out my name — ‘Kretschmar, you know I was hard on you. To be honest with you, I wasn’t sure you were going to make it. I thought you would quit. But you didn’t. You hung in there. I’m proud of you.’"
At the time, Kretschmar felt it was the best compliment he had ever received.
"Back then, he was all about discipline," Kretschmar said. "He made you toe the line. If you screwed up, you got told you screwed up. He was tough on me and I hung in there. That was a valuable lesson for me as a kid. Don’t quit. Don’t give up. Even when it’s difficult. That compliment at the end of the season made everything worthwhile."
Katelyn (Rideout) Carrington was fortunate to play for Gordie, work with him, coach with him, and then call him a friend at the end of the day.
"One would say that Gordie was a very vocal coach on the sidelines," she said. "There was no pretending you couldn’t hear what he was yelling out to you."
Carrington said that when it came time for you to go into the game: "I don’t remember my name being called. It was a tug on your uniform and you just hoped you could find your mouth guard."
There were few coaches as animated on the sidelines as Gordie.
"He was a yeller," Carrington said. "I know he was a bit scary as seventh-graders at first. But he really was the biggest teddy bear. Away from the intensity of the game, he was a caring guy. You quickly realized he was all bark and no bite."
Having played for and coached with Gordie, Carrington said: "He was a stubborn guy, and it was easy to get frustrated with him sometimes. He was a colorful guy, but any discussions always ended with a smile or a laugh. He could drive you nuts one minute, and then (get you) laughing the next. He was just that type of guy and coach."
Crusty, funny, irritating, stubborn, caring. There was never any doubt when Gordie was in the house.
There are plenty of Gordie stories, but the one that is most repeated took place in the early 1990s.
Dana was still an undergraduate at Keene State College when he received a call from his older brother, Danny, who was laughing to the point of crying as he tried to relay a story about their dad coaching. "So my dad was yelling at his players, trying to motivate them," recalls Dana. "While yelling at the refs at the same time. In one of his boisterous screaming episodes, his (false) teeth came flying out of his mouth onto center court. Of course, keeping with Gordie values, he walks out to center court, dusts them off and puts them right back into his mouth and keeps coaching."
Dana paused for a second. "That story in itself summarizes my father right there," he said. "Pure comedy. At the same time he had a hyper level of focus, he wouldn’t miss a beat going out on the court to get his teeth. And no shame. And then to continue to coach because nothing was going to stop him."
Carrington tells the story about when Gordie was an assistant coach when she coached the Somersworth High School softball team earlier this century. She laughed at the memory. "He would do first base and I’d be over at third base," Carrington said. "He could never really remember the signs for stealing or bunting and would just point to the girls to look at me. And he’d make up some movements and start laughing. I really cherished that time we had together."
Carrington has a picture in her office from her first year coaching in 2008. It was taken on senior night when the team had seven seniors that year. The girls talked Gordie into laying down in front of them on a softball emblem Eric Mommsen had painted. Always a good sport, Gordie did just that. "But then he started laughing so hard because he wasn’t sure how he’d get back up," Carrington said. "We all just laughed and laughed. The picture captured the laughing perfectly (included here with the story). It always brings a smile to my face."
Just like Gordie.
While Gordie was a bigger-than-life figure on the basketball sidelines and in life, he was also a thoughtful person behind the scenes who cared about people.
Carrington recalls him being a tireless fundraiser for middle school sports. Gordie not only made sure the teams were suitably equipped, he also was sensitive about funding new athletic shoes or a trip to a sports camp for kids who could not afford it. "He did everything he could to take away barriers that would stop a kid from playing," said Carrington, who works in the Somersworth School District as the Dean of School Operations & Career Technical Center.
Gordie also made sure kids who couldn’t get a ride to practice got one, whether it be from another family or from him. "He really kept an eye out for kids who needed some of the extra support," Carrington said.
Maureen Jackman worked with Gordie for more than 20 years at the Recreation Department and the Somersworth Youth Connection (SYC). She was always impressed with how he coached.
"He was always fair," she said. "He didn’t put up with any crap from anyone. He’d tell you that. He didn’t put up with any phony baloney. He was there for the kids. He wasn’t there for the parents. … He was in it to coach those kids to their fullest potential."
"He had that old-school coaching style," Dana said. "Athletes knew of his high standards. They knew of his inability to compromise. But at the same time they knew that Gordie would do anything under the sun for them. He would continue to push and push. The stories I have heard, other than the pure comedy, was how hard he would push them and how grateful at the end they were."
Jackman recalls Gordie running co-ed basketball twice a week through the winter with SYC. It was for kids who didn’t make the basketball teams or didn’t necessarily play any other sports. "He had a full house of kids," Jackman said. "They came to play basketball or hang out with him because he was there."
Gordie was a go-to guy for Jackman with both the rec department and SYC.
At the wheel of his red pick-up truck, Gordie was a common sight over the years buzzing around Somersworth. Jackman remembers him delivering Thanksgiving baskets from the food pantry; or bringing Stuff a Stocking gifts for needy kids to the Fire Department; or collecting trash or delivering water to volunteers during clean-up day.
"He did so much," Jackman said. "He had a heart of gold. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for anyone. He gave tirelessly."
Jackman recalled when she was able to get funding for a snack/dinner program for kids through the USDA in 2016, it was Gordie who helped her make sure the program ran smoothly.
"I had nobody to get the meals," she said. "They told us they would feed kids K-8, but you have to come to Milton to pick up the meals."
Jackman had no idea how she was going to do that, since the program would serve over 200 meals a day for over 350 kids during the course of the year.
"Gordie drove up to Milton for two years in a row so the program could be successful and get off the ground," Jackman said.
Gordie was also a funny guy, who loved a good laugh, even at his own expense.
"He was a dear, dear friend," Jackman said. "He was witty. He always had a comeback. He was funny. He had a big heart. He had a truckful of bubblegum (Dubble Bubble) 24/7. Any kid in the community who wanted bubblegum they knew where it was."
"We had a fun, comical relationship," said Dana of his and his family’s relationship with Gordie. "It was just constant fooling around, just having fun. We were constantly kidding each other, having pranks on each other with our dad always trying to get the leg up on us."
Dana laughs. "My poor mother," he said. "It wasn’t like having a father and two kids in the house. It was like having three brothers. It was wrestling matches, us constantly throwing stuff at each other and putting each other in headlocks. It was just great."
Gordie was many things, but subtle wasn’t one of them. "You knew when he was present," Dana said. "He would never enter or leave a room quietly. I look at myself and for years my mother said I was a cookie cutter (image) of my father. I have inherited a lot of his attributes. I’m a lucky guy for doing so."
Gordie was an excellent dancer. "He was so light on his feet and had great rhythm," Carrington said. "(Joanne and he) were fun to watch glide around the dance floor. And it surprised people when they saw him doing it."
Jackman agreed. "He could shake a rug," she said. "He came across as a rough guy, but if you watched him dance, he was like twinkle toes. Him and Joanne were the cutest couple."
Gordie did so much, sometimes Jackman thinks at the expense of his family. "Dana’s my best friend," she said. "We joke about it, but Gordie would be out helping everybody else when he could be with his own kids."
"My father wasn’t a rich man, but he was a millionaire when it came to social capital," Dana said. "He just loved people. He loved this community."
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