Bill Tighe, who coached the Lexington High School football team for 36 years before his retirement in 2010, died Wednesday morning from complications related to the coronavirus at Care One in Wilmington. He was 95.
According to Chuck Shaw, who played and coached under Tighe for more than a decade, Tighe was hospitalized in January with pneumonia, and contracted COVID-19 at the Wilmington facility, testing positive last week. Shaw regularly visited his mentor until the facility restricted visitors in March. Tighe’s son, Kevin, called Shaw with the news.
“Coach Tighe will always be as big in Lexington as the Minuteman statue,” said Shaw, a 1984 Lexington graduate and the school’s press box announcer for the past 20 years. “The part that hurts the most, is after everything he’s done, it’s tragic that a person like this can’t have the sendoff he deserves [because of restrictions on mass gatherings]."
Tighe was recognized as the oldest active high school football coach in the country when he retired in 2010 at age 86.
Tighe also coached baseball and track, and his coaching career in Massachusetts spanned 62 seasons. He coached multiple generations of student-athletes, including many from the same families, and was also a guidance counselor at Lexington High.
Born in Ashland, Tighe played football and baseball at Boston University in the late 1940s, and he served in the Pacific during World War II before launching his coaching career at Wakefield High in 1957.
After a head coaching stint at Malden High, Tighe took over at Lexington in 1974. He revitalized a football program that had recorded just two winning seasons over 60 years, and led the Minutemen to a 186-181-9 record and a trip to the 1984 Super Bowl. He posted a 268-233-19 record throughout his career with multiple titles at his three stops.
In retirement, Tighe lived in Stoneham and often frequented high school football practices, where he served as a mentor to players and coaches.
“I don’t think there’s ever been a finer man in the history of Massachusetts high school football than Bill Tighe,” said Stoneham High’s eight-year coach Bob Almeida. “The example he set, and the way he treated people, is really what his legacy is all about. He had the whole package. He was competitive as could be, and yet always did things the right way. He’s the type of person that young coaches should want to emulate."
Current Lexington coach Michael Hill experienced Tighe’s influence firsthand while coaching the freshman team at Stoneham in 2014. Hill, who became the varsity coach at Lexington in 2019, said Tighe came to nearly every game and could offer precise anecdotes from games that occurred decades ago.
“[Tighe] couldn’t be in a place without coaching. It was just who he was,” said Hill. “Whether it be a kid or younger assistants, he just loved imparting knowledge on the game. One of the coolest things for me about taking over at Lexington is that you’re at a program that was built by Bill Tighe."
Former player Dave DeGuglielmo, who won a Super Bowl as a member of the Patriots’ coaching staff in 2014, has credited Tighe as the reason he coaches football.
Almeida and Shaw recalled an outpouring of support for Tighe when they planned his 90th and 95th birthday parties in Stoneham. In October, Tighe was honored during military appreciation day when Lexington hosted Reading, and Hill said that the excitement in the stands indicated Tighe’s celebrity had hardly waned.
Nate Weitzer can be reached at nweitzer7@gmail.com. Follow him on X @nweitzer7.