WALPOLE, N.H.-On Aug. 3, several hundred people gathered in the Walpole Elementary School gymnasium to celebrate the life of longtime Bellows Falls Union High School coach Russell Pickering.
By all accounts, Pickering was an extraordinary and highly admired man, teaching, coaching, and mentoring thousands of students, peers and, at times, total strangers, beginning in his teens and lasting right up to his death on July 17 at age 84.
As person after person spoke at his celebration of life, one theme repeatedly emerged: As a coach and teacher, Pickering demanded the best from his students and athletes, and he always gave the best of himself.
What inspired them most to try to improve, speakers said, is that Pickering lived his life at the very pinnacle of the ideals he taught others.
While he demanded the best from others, he was also absolutely committed to giving the best of himself everyday.
One example is that early in life he decided he'd never smoke or drink. Despite pressure from peers, it was a decision he never veered from.
Early career
The Walpole School was a fitting setting to review and celebrate the life of Pickering, who had gone to high school in the building, leading his school's basketball team to state championship finals in that very gym.
A scholar as well as an athlete, Pickering was named class valedictorian when he graduated in 1957.
The Walpole School was also where he met his future wife, Phyllis Adams, a cheerleader. They would marry in 1960, and stay married for 62 years until her death in 2022.
An outstanding athlete in several sports, Pickering's No. 1 love was basketball. He was famed as a deadly outside shooter all his life.
Though he played basketball in college, Pickering lacked the size to pursue a career in the sport. His compact body was more suited to long-distance running, the sport in which he would compete all his adult life.
After high school, Pickering received a bachelor's degree from Plymouth State Teachers College in 1962. A lifelong learner, he would go on to earn a master's degree from the University of Oregon in 1988.
His teaching and coaching career began at Orford High School in New Hampshire in 1961 and continued at Mount Greylock Regional High School in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
He came to the newly built Bellows Falls Union High School in 1971, where he would make his most lasting mark. There, Pickering taught physical education for 34 years, until he retired in 2005.
Russell and Phyllis Pickering would buy a home a short walk from BFUHS and its athletic fields and trails. There they would raise their three sons, Tony, Tom, and Tyler, and their daughter, Terry - the "four Ts," as they're known.
In addition to his teaching at BFUHS, Pickering coached baseball, basketball, soccer, cross country, track and field, and tennis - all sports at which he personally excelled. He was inducted into the Vermont Principals' Association Hall of Fame in 2014.
Even after he retired from teaching, he spent many years coaching at Fall Mountain Regional High School in Langdon, New Hampshire, and Monadnock Regional High School in Swanzey, New Hampshire.
Over his lifetime, Pickering volunteered to help coach numerous teams at various schools in different sports in addition to the teams he coached as part of his job.
As a result, it is impossible to get an accurate list of championship sports teams he was involved with. The list is in the dozens.
A few statistics are certain: While at BFUHS as the varsity coach in cross country and track and field, he would lead his athletes to 13 Vermont state championships, including a run of six state boys' Division I cross country titles in seven years in the 1970s.
As an assistant coach in track and field at Monadnock Regional, over 10 seasons the girls' team won five state championships and the boys' team won two.
During the time he was an assistant to BFUHS girls' basketball coach Jayne Barber, the teams won several state basketball championships. For some time, he served as an assistant coach during the 28-year coaching career of Tim Eno, whose cross country and track and field teams won 18 state titles.
His home - first in Bellows Falls and, later, in Drewsville, New Hampshire - was always open for students to come and shoot baskets. He would run basketball skills camps at his home for many years.
Personal integrity and leading by example
The list of former students and peers who spoke at Pickering's memorial celebration reads like a Who's Who of area athletes and coaches.
Speaking were his daughter, Terry; and his sons Tom, former head coach for Keene State College's cross country and track teams and currently coaching back at Monadnock; and Tony, a college professor and research scientist in sports psychology.
In addition to retired Bellows Falls coaches Barber and Eno, other speakers included Monadnock Coach Curt Dutilley; Nick Athanasopoulos, who has coached at Keene State College and Brandeis University; and Rob Weltz, an outstanding BFUHS athlete who spent 24 years as director of athletics in Georgia and North Carolina and who currently runs an athletic consulting business.
Eno, an outstanding high school and college long-distance runner, was part of a team that Pickering coached to three Division 1 state titles three years in a row in the mid-1970s.
"I modeled my career after Russ," Eno said in an interview. "The day I met him in the early 1970s, he became my friend, even though he was 20 years my senior. He had a huge influence on me."
Legendary New England coach, teacher, broadcaster, and school administrator Bill Murphy has been dealing with health issues and was unable to attend the celebration. Murphy did send a letter that was read at the service.
"I met Russ in 1971 when he came to Bellows Falls," Murphy told The Commons. "He worked for me when I ran the rec center there. He had so many talents, and such commitment and drive. He would do things right, whatever it was. Any task you gave Russ, he would do the best that he could do."
That included more than coaching.
Murphy said that the rec center had no storage for equipment. When he worked there, Pickering took it upon himself to build eight storage cabinets under the bleachers. Murphy said that Pickering built the cabinets as well as any professional cabinetmaker would have.
They remained lifelong friends, and Murphy said that he and Pickering would talk four or five times a week for the over half a century they knew each other.
Weltz credited the prospect of working with Murphy and Pickering as two of the main reasons he would go into coaching.
"Coach Pickering would give of himself to help improve the skills of anyone willing to put in the time and effort to get better," Weltz said.
Speakers painted a portrait of Pickering as a tough coach, but one who was notoriously fair.
"He always worked hard to get the best out of everyone," Murphy said. "No matter who he worked with, no matter what the setting."
Eno echoed the sentiment.
"He was so fair," he said. "It didn't matter if you were his No. 1 athlete or No. 16, he coached you the same way."
And that didn't just apply to his school athletes. He willingly coached anyone who wanted to improve, including recreational athletes.
"I met Russ Pickering as a young mother with two small children," said Lori Weber of Westminster. "I had walked up to the track at the high school and was curious about maybe starting running. Russ was there and agreed to coach me, which he did, all spring, summer, and fall."
That was 37 years ago, and Weber says she is still an avid long-distance runner today.
"Russ was a huge and positive influence on my life," she said.
Weber's example is just one of many in which Pickering influenced the large running community in the region.
"Lori's experience exemplifies the innumerable free hours Russ gave to helping people," Murphy said. "He always gave so much. The free time he gave was just incredible."
Numerous athletes whom Pickering worked with spoke of how he was constantly pushing them beyond their own perceived limits, and that he inspired them not by just talking the talk, but by walking the walk.
Weltz gave one example that was echoed over and over by other athletes.
"When I was a freshman in high school," he said, "Coach Pickering would challenge me after a long practice to play him one-on-one full court to 100, and if I didn't beat him by 10 points, we would have to do it again."
Years later, Weltz said, he realized that Pickering's pushing him further than he thought he was capable of was not just for sports. It was Pickering's way of "helping me prepare for real-world things."
Pickering didn't just ask his athletes to train. He was up early in the morning before school, running with them for miles on the cross country trails around BFUHS, or opening the gym early and playing beside them as they shot baskets and worked on skills.
When Pickering got into serious long-distance running in his 30s, he helped it become part of the culture in the Bellows Falls region from the 1970s onward.
He competed in numerous cross country races and Boston Marathons. He celebrated his 60th birthday by completing a 10-mile run in each of the six New England states on the same day - a feat still spoken of locally with awe.
His son Tony said that his dad "was coaching basketball games on the television until he died," and in one of his last conversations, he asked his son, "When do you think I'll be able to get back to running?"
Pickering remained an athlete, coach, and inspiration until the end.
This News item by Robert F. Smith was written for The Commons.