SANFORD — To see Mike Fallon walk “down the hill” to Cobb Stadium and then pace the sidelines, conferring with coaches, encouraging players, is to see a man who loves his job.

“It’s in his blood,” said his wife, Gayle.

But then there was the Mike Fallon after Sanford High’s 2013 season.

“I was just tired,” he said. It’s not that the Spartans had a bad year – they went 5-5 and reached the Western Class A semifinals – but Fallon felt himself dragging.

“I kept thinking that in the offseason I would shake it off. I was just a little burnt out. My energy was down,” Fallon said.

“But in the back of my mind, I’m thinking that maybe I need to hang it up and call it a career.”

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The internal debate was on:

“There was a piece of me that said you love this game and you’re passionate about it. How could you ever contemplate giving it up? But there was another piece in me that just felt exhausted.”

Fallon came up with a unique compromise for a coach – a leave of absence.

Fallon walked away before the 2014 season, as his assistants continued coaching the Spartans.

And now Fallon, 49, is back.

“I feel like I’m renewed,” he said. “I feel energized.”

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Fallon returns to the sidelines Friday night when the Spartans open their season at defending Class A state champion Thornton Academy.

“Mike is very good, a real plus for our kids,” said Athletic Director Gordon Salls, who began at Sanford High the same year as Fallon did, in 1989.

Back then, Fallon was fresh out of graduate school at the University of Lowell (now UMass-Lowell) and looking for a teaching and coaching job in his native Massachusetts. None could be found, but a one-year offer came from Sanford.

“I didn’t know where it was,” Fallon said. “A guy was taking a sabbatical and they needed a social studies teacher for a year. After a year, I figured I would go back home.”

Of course, Fallon stayed. After one year, another teaching position opened up. Meanwhile, he continued as an assistant football coach.

One more event cemented his stay in Maine.

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“I met a Wells girl,” he said. He and Gayle married and raised two daughters, Brittany and Alissa. Gayle is now a social worker at Sanford High.

Fallon became Sanford’s head football coach in 1994. In 1998, the Spartans won the state championship.

“Someone told me to cherish every minute of this because you never know if it will happen again,” Fallon said. “At that time, our program was really strong. I thought we would just keep rolling.”

Sanford has not won a state title since. The Spartans have had good seasons and trying ones, including 0-8 in 2008.

“We’ve hit great cycles, bad cycles, been through middle-of-the road cycles,” Fallon said. “You just keep doing what you’re doing, keep grinding.”

And the Sanford community continued to support its football team, making Cobb Stadium – and its unique field at the base of a small hill – the place to be on Friday nights.

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“The topography is pretty unique. It’s a natural bowl that adds to the aura,” he said. “Coming down that hill on a Friday night makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. It’s an adrenaline rush.”

But the years took a toll on Fallon. Along with the rush of Friday night came the fatigue of devoting so much to his passion.

“He just needed to sit back and regroup,” Gayle said. “He needed, what we say in my world, a little checkup from the neck up.”

Teachers occasionally take sabbaticals. But coaches usually just leave. Fallon talked to Salls, asking about a one-year leave of absence from coaching (he would still teach).

“If I didn’t give it to him, I’d have to hire a new coach. We love Mike and that would be a real loss for our kids,” Salls said. “Mike is a high-character guy, respected in his craft. He works extremely hard. But most of all, he cares deeply about every kid in the program.

“But (if the sabbatical was allowed), I had to ensure the stability of the program.”

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Keith Noel, one of Fallon’s assistants, provided that stability, taking over as interim head coach.

So Fallon was permitted to walk away for the 2014 season. It sounded simple, but fall has always meant football for Mike Fallon. He grew up in Boylston, Massachusetts, the son of a sports writer – his father, also Mike, covered events for the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, bringing his son along.

Fallon’s uncle, Owen Kilcoyne was a high school coaching legend in central Massachusetts.

“He and my dad were clearly my role models,” said Fallon, who played high school football as a 5-foot-6 fullback and linebacker. While at the University of Lowell, he played semipro ball. From there, he moved to Sanford to coach.

Suddenly, in August 2014, Fallon was idle.

“That was interesting,” Fallon said. “Jokes were being thrown around about me going to the beach.

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“Those first couple of weeks, it was nice; it was relaxing. But when the games started, that weird thing in the belly started.”

Fallon attended all the road games – “found a place to hide and took it all in” – but he stayed away from Cobb Stadium.

“I couldn’t bring myself to go,” Fallon said. “It may sound corny, but I don’t know if I could have handled it emotionally.”

Instead, he and Gayle would go to the movies or out to dinner. But at home, she would catch her husband watching game film on the computer.

“I’d say, ‘I don’t think you’re done coaching.’ He’d laugh and say he was just curious,” Gayle said. “But I could tell. He was going back.”

Sanford finished 4-5 last year, losing a 42-35 quarterfinal to Scarborough. Fallon praised “my fantastic staff,” including Noel. But he was ready to return.

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“I knew probably half/three-quarters into the season where my heart was. I was getting those pangs again,” Fallon said.

So the old coach is the renewed coach. It’s Friday night in the fall, and Mike Fallon will be pacing the sidelines.

“It’s fun to watch him back,” Gayle said. “I can see the excitement in his face again.”

 


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