HOLYOKE – For former Holyoke High School baseball coach Tom Brassil being inducted into the Massachusetts Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame Class of 2023 isn’t that big of a deal, as he simply put it, “I’m not that guy, I just like coaching the kids.”

Coaching for the love of the game and growth of his student athletes led Brassil to an almost 30-year career of building up kids in Holyoke and being a foundational part of the school and sports community in his hometown. While coaching varsity baseball and varsity girls basketball, Brassil was also a physical education teacher at Holyoke High School for 39 years.

Over the course of his 28-year tenure as baseball head coach, Brassil led the Purple Knights to 19 MIAA postseason tournament appearances, eight Valley League championships and 303 wins. He also coached the Massachusetts All Star games in 1996 and 2000. Many of his players went on to play baseball at the collegiate level and beyond.

Growing up, Brassil said he fell in love with the game thanks to his father, who played and shared his love of the game with his son. Brassil said his father was a great coach to him and his brothers as he didn’t coach teams and just focused on behind the scenes work with his boys. He noted his father was a key part of his own development as a player.

“The work ethic part was the biggest thing,” Brassil said.

After graduating from his alma mater, Springfield College, Brassil found himself back in his hometown of Holyoke and has been coaching and teaching in the community the last four decades. While working in his early days as a physical education teacher at Holyoke High, Brassil got an opportunity to assistant coach a junior high school baseball team with a former high school coach of his who offered him the position.

This experience helped mold the coach Brassil became, as he was given firsthand experience and a perspective on how to manage a baseball team.

“He had a great attitude towards all sports. I got a chance to see him on how he worked with kids, the attitude he had towards them,” Brassil said. “I had some coaches growing up, some fiery ones, some laid back ones. You kind of pick up what you pick up as you go through.”

Remaining in the Paper City was meaningful to Brassil as it allowed him the opportunity to impact hundreds of student-athletes’ lives, on and off the field or court in his hometown. Brassil often would say he felt there was just something about a Holyoke kid that was unrivaled to anywhere else he had coached, which adds up with his long and impressive career in the city.

“It was all the neighborhoods. When I grew up all the neighborhoods had different mixes, some parts of Holyoke were French, Polish, Hispanic, it was spread all over the place,” Brassil said. “When I was in high school the first group of Hispanic kids came into a lot of our classes back in the late 60s, early 70s, so I made friends with quite a few of these kids that had came in.”

Brassil said growing up and meeting other kids in different neighborhoods through the different teams across the city allowed him to meet so many people he would have never met if he had not played sports. The city’s youth baseball leagues used to be separated by neighborhoods instead of through a draft process.

“I had it great growing up in Holyoke. When I came back, I wanted it to be the same,” Brassil said. “I wanted a good experience for kids.”

Brassil thinks he was able to capture some of that same magic with his own kids over the years but not without challenges. He noted one of the hardest parts of coaching was instilling the proper work ethic to play the game and improve.

He added that many lessons learned in the game are also applied to everyday life. Brassil still remembers one player he coached who “was probably the last kid I put on my team” who learned a valuable lesson during that season.

“I told those kids at the start of the year if you work at it all year long, you’re gonna get your chance. Sure enough, we had an injury and this kid got to play and ended up playing in the Western Mass. tournament and ended up being one of our better players at the end of the year,” Brassil said. “That’s the thing that I tried to get over to most of the kids on the team: there was a place for you if you put in your time. You could do it.”

When asked about what specifically in his coaching led to his long tenure and success, Brassil said he just wanted his kids to get along with each other. He noted that the melting pot of a sports locker room brings in many different personalities, attitudes and people from all walks of life and there was nothing better than getting buy in from players and finding success on the field.

On the flip side, Brassil said the worst part of his life has been the five days every year for varsity baseball tryouts. He said picking a team out of 80 to 90 hopeful student athletes always was a challenge and he hated cutting anyone, but especially the kids he knew from the school or other sports in the community.

“That’s the miserable part of being a coach,” Brassil said.

Brassil seemed to be at his best with a team and even better with a Holyoke team. Brassil has been credited for quietly but quickly building his reputation early in his career of producing well-prepared, competitive and hardworking teams. He also has been credited with continuously challenging himself to develop and learn new ways to coach the game and motivate the next generation.

Looking back on his career, Brassil’s best memory comes from when they played Central High School in a Western Massachusetts tournament at MacKenzie Field. Central’s pitcher at the time was Pat Strange, who went on to have a brief stint in professional baseball as a pitcher for the New York Mets.
Brassil said the game went into extra innings before Holyoke won on a walk-off two run home run “by the littlest guy on my team.” Brassil laughed remembering the moment and while the home run came off a different pitcher, beating that team that day has stuck with him years later.

In addition to his contributions to the baseball program, he also coached girls varsity basketball for 27 years and led the Lady Knights to a Western Massachusetts championship and state final. He was named Division 1 MIAA Western Massachusetts Girls Basketball Coach of the Year in 2010 and 2012. He ended his career with nearly 300 wins and was just shy of 600 total wins as a high school coach.
Brassil also coached college football at Westfield State University, Western New England University, and at Agawam High School, Holyoke Catholic High School and Holyoke High School.

Now retired from both teaching and baseball, Brassil enjoys watching his five grandchildren play a variety of sports year round.

The 2023 Massachusetts Baseball Coaches Association 55th Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Ceremony will be on Jan. 27 and 28 at the Four Points by Sheraton in Wakefield.