Keene State soccer coaches reflect on losses, kinship, by Steve Gilbert

Rick Scott and Ron Butcher first met in 1972, in a soccer skills class Scott took as a freshman majoring in physical education at Keene State College.

Every class Scott would ask Butcher, the professor, “Need some help setting up?” Butcher and Scott have been the faces of the Keene State men’s soccer program for nearly five decades.

After three or four classes, Butcher accepted his offer to help set up cones in skills class “as long as they were perfect,” Scott laughs.

Butcher recognized Scott’s soccer skills in the indoor sessions and asked him to join his varsity team.

Scott went on to coach Keene High School for 11 years, winning two state championships, his younger brother Billy coaching the jayvees for a couple years.

Both families were led by their mothers: Scott’s dad left his family and Butcher’s father died in 1974.

Scott relates a hilarious story of his brother Billy showing his mother how to tap a keg, which she had never seen before, after she cooked for a team party.

“Mom would call and say, ‘Get the boys together and have a chat give them a kick in the butt if they need it,’ ” Butcher says, adding that she’d sometimes suggest it was he and Scott who needed the kick.

Scott and Butcher didn’t find out about the same-day deaths until the day after.