A once high school football rival becomes new head coach at St. John’s High School

By Bill Doyle
CFP Correspondent

New St. John’s High School head football coach Gary Senecal knows all about the challenge of playing in the Catholic Conference.

Xaverian of Westwood won the Super Bowl in Division 1 last fall and fellow Catholic Conference member Catholic Memorial of West Roxbury won it in Division 2. In the final 2024 MaxPreps.com football rankings of Massachusetts high schools, St. John’s and Malden Catholic were the only Catholic Conference schools that weren’t ranked.

St. John’s won five Super Bowls from 2004-2010 and a state championship in 2017 under coach John Andreoli but has not posted a winning record since joining the Catholic Conference in 2021.

“That’s the big mountain to climb here, right?” Mr. Senecal said. “The Catholic Conference is the best football league in New England.”

St. John’s also plays two of the top teams in Central Mass., but Mr. Senecal is unfazed.
“I know people are going to think I’m crazy for saying it,” he said, “but I don’t think St. John’s is as far behind as everybody thinks they are and I wouldn’t have come here if I thought it was. I think there’s a lot of talent in this building and I think there’s a heck of a lot of talent in Central Mass.”

Mr. Senecal believes playing in the best conference should make his players better.

St. John’s announced Saturday the hiring of Mr. Senecal, 39, to replace John Vassar, who parted ways with the school after coaching the Pioneers to records of 5-6 and 3-8, including 1-9 in the Catholic Conference, over the past two seasons.

Mr. Senecal lives in Worcester with his wife, Megan, and their children, Mae, 10; Paul, 8; and Joel, 5.

Mr. Senecal served as St. John’s co-offensive coordinator and offensive line football coach in 2023 and he’s in his second season as the school’s head indoor and outdoor track coach. So he’s familiar with the school and he’ll know some of the players who he’ll coach in football this fall.

“That was probably the biggest appeal to the job,” he said. “I know what’s in this building and ... what these kids are capable of.”

In addition to St. John’s, Mr. Senecal has served as an assistant football coach at his alma mater of St. Peter-Marian, Keefe Tech, the University of West Georgia where he earned a Ph.D. in psychology, and Assumption University.

Mr. Senecal will try to turn around St. John’s as quickly as he improved the football team at St. Paul Diocesan Jr./Sr. High School last fall. In his first season as a head coach, he guided St. Paul to a 6-5 record and a berth in the Division 7 state playoffs. Over the previous three seasons, the Knights were only 6-24. Mr. Senecal credited his players, not his coaching, for the improved record last fall, but he was proud of the work ethic he installed at practice.

“That was something that the kids needed last year, good practice culture, and it’s something I hope to bring to St. John’s,” he said. “I was lucky at St. Paul to inherit a really good group of kids who were hungry to be coached hard and they took hard coaching well. I anticipate the same thing will happen here at St. John’s.”

When Mr. Senecal served as assistant defensive line coach and scout team coach at Assumption University in 2015 and 2016, he learned from head coach Bob Chesney to motivate the players to practice as hard as possible.

“And then when they get to the field, the game is just kind of another day,” he said.
Chesney went on to coach at Holy Cross before moving on to James Madison University last fall.

“Bob’s culture is just incredible,” Mr. Senecal said. “Bob could probably get out of football and run a Fortune 500 company if he wanted to because it’s not about Xs and Os, it’s his temperament, it’s his relationships with people, it’s how consistent he is every day.”

In a St. John’s press release, Chesney said, “I could not think of a more perfect union than that of St. John’s and coach Gary Senecal. Congratulations to St. John’s on hiring the perfect football coach to lead their young men and program. Gary is a tireless worker, disciplined man and a great father. Gary has an elite football mind and he is a lifelong learner that will challenge his players to be the best version of themselves on and off the field.”

Mr. Senecal played offensive and defensive line for St. Peter-Marian and he was a captain of the football team as a senior. Back then, St. Peter-Marian and St. John’s were archrivals in football so he never would have imagined that one day he’d become head football coach at St. John’s.

“If you would have told me that when I was 17 years old,” Mr. Senecal said, “I would have fought you.”

Mr. Senecal admitted he had to think twice about accepting an assistant coaching job with the St. John’s football team two years ago because, as he said, “it was still built into my DNA” that St. John’s was the enemy. Obviously, that’s no longer the case.

At St. Anselm College in New Hampshire, Mr. Senecal played defensive line and was named Male Student Athlete of the Year as a senior in 2007.

Catholic education is important to Mr. Senecal. In addition to St. Peter-Marian and St. Anselm, he attended Trinity Catholic Academy in Southbridge and he earned his master’s degree at Katholieke Universiteit, a Catholic research university in Leuven, Belgium. He also works at Assumption University as an associate professor of Human Services.

“I am a believer 100 percent in my Catholic upbringing,” he said, “and my Catholic education has been a huge contribution to my faith in God.”

Mr. Senecal enjoys teaching, but other than raising his three children with his wife and serving his country in the U.S. Army Reserves since 2013, he said coaching is the most rewarding thing he’s ever done.

“I see my job as a person who looks to develop character, faith and purpose in young people,” he said. “That’s my calling, that’s my job and I believe that that’s a calling from God.”

“Coach Senecal has been a true leader,” St. John’s athletic director Michael Mead said, “and steward of our mission as the head coach of our winter and spring track programs here at St. John’s. We are confident that his experience and dedication to our student-athletes and families will be a tremendous asset to our football program and we look forward to his leadership within our community.”