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# Wins record more about Pinkerton football teams of the past
- URL: https://www.nh-highschoolsports.com/wins-record-more-about-pinkerton-football-teams-of-the-past/
- Published: 2024-12-03T23:30:36.000Z
- Updated: 2024-12-03T23:30:36.000Z
- Description: EXETER - Life can sometimes get in the way, even for high school coaches. Brian O'Reilly saw it firsthand more than 40 years ago and it gave him the opportunity to become the football coach at Pinkerton Academy. The year was 1978, the Astros were a Division II program at the time, and getting ready
- Author: Joe Marchilena
- Tags: Division I, championship, football, Londonderry, NH High School Sports Insider, Pinkerton, playoffs, slider, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-08-18 04:44

EXETER - Life can sometimes get in the way, even for high school coaches.

Brian O'Reilly saw it firsthand more than 40 years ago and it gave him the opportunity to become the football coach at Pinkerton Academy.

The year was 1978, the Astros were a Division II program at the time, and getting ready to play their next-to-last game of the regular season against Laconia. The day before the game, then-head coach Roger Dube made a stunning move.

"He bought a variety store on the Alton Bay circle," O'Reilly said. "He was going to buy it at the end of the year, and the guy called him and said you either get it now or you’re not getting it. He just dropped everything, left Pinkerton Academy. He left on a Thursday before we played Laconia on a Friday night."

O'Reilly remembers the Astros lost to Laconia and legendary Sachems coach Jim Fitzgerald, and the following week, he began installing the Wing-T offense that Pinkerton still runs. The Astros were taking on Dover, which had played in the Division I title game the year before, to end the regular season and came out with a win.

"I stuck the Wing-T in for like four days and we beat them in overtime 14-7," O'Reilly said. "Even though I was 25-years-old, the powers that be at the school said ‘give the kid a chance, he did OK.’"

That was the longtime Pinkerton coach's first win, and with Saturday's 42-7 win over Londonderry in the Division I championship game, O'Reilly now has more than any other coach in New Hampshire high school football.

Not only did the Astros capture their 12th title under O'Reilly, they also got the coach his 357th win, breaking a tie held with Plymouth's Chuck Lenahan following Pinkerton's win in the semifinals. O'Reilly also coached the Astros boys lacrosse team for 38 years, winning 12 titles before stepping down after the 2019 season.

While this year's version of the Astros won the title to get the record, it's more about all of the teams and players that have put on a Pinkerton uniform over all those years.

"The record is about all the other teams," O'Reilly said. "When I got here (to Exeter on Saturday), there were kids lined up on the fence who I haven’t seen in 20 or 30 years. They had their jackets on. That’s what that record is about. That record is about longevity, but you’ve got to have teams, so this championship is for this team. I’ll take that record and tell you that it’s for all the other teams that we’ve had."

Pinkerton first made it to a championship game under O'Reilly in 1981, where the Astros fell to Somersworth in the D2 title game. Four years later, they were up in D1 and won the first of back-to-back titles, beating Salem and Keene, respectively.

Then, from 1991-94, Pinkerton won four titles in a row, becoming just the third program in the state at that time accomplish that feat. Nashua from 1952-55 and Milford from 1976-79 were the others, and Plymouth (2000-03, 2005-09), Manchester Central (2001-04), Bishop Guertin (2008-11) and Pelham (2020-23) have since joined them.

The Astros won three more titles from 2005-07 and won again in 2010 and 2014, part of a run that saw Pinkerton reach the D1 title game 10 times in 11 years. Pinkerton also reached the title game in 2017-18, falling to Winnacunnet and Bedford, respectively.

"You can’t just coach for a long time," O'Reilly said. "You have to have great teams to get those kind of victories. It just kept going. I made a big deal about it being 10 years since we won a championship, but we weren’t bad in those 10 years. We weren’t as good as everyone else. It’s for all the Pinkerton football players from the past."