On Suffolk’s campus, Jim Nelson is “Coach.” It’s the name used by his assistant, the interns, the locksmith, and multitudes of athletes, colleagues, and staff. Though he retired from the head basketball coaching spot over a decade ago to take on the role of athletic director full time, the name sticks. It’s a familiar, welcoming title, earned by an engaging laugh, a self-deprecating wit, and an extended reach during Nelson’s more than four decades at the University.
Coach Jim Nelson, in the Suffolk gymnasium located underground in the Ridgeway building.
But he hasn’t always been Coach. In his corner office on the second floor of the Ridgeway Building, Nelson, 66, leans back in his chair with his arms folded across his chest, recalling a time when he went by another name: Dmitri Nestios. Nestios was Nelson’s alias, adopted six years after taking the assistant athletic director and assistant basketball coach jobs at Suffolk.
Nelson had been a standout guard at Boston College, and—after graduating and taking his first job at Suffolk—had been playing semi-professional basketball around Boston. When a friend brought a recruiter from a Greek league team to check out Nelson’s talents, Jim wowed the scout with his famous dribbling routine: Lying on his back, he dribbled with two hands, then with just one finger on each hand, then just the pinky, and then while doing situps. The team offered him a contract and renamed him Dmitri Nestios, which translated to “Jim from the Islands.” Because, as Nelson was told, you had to be Greek to play.
When Jim, his wife Joan, and their three children (the couple eventually had five) arrived in Greece, they were greeted with a king’s reception. Stepping off the plane at 10pm, Nelson was met by his teammates, and a speeding motorcade led them from the airport and through the streets of Piraeus, horns honking, fans cheering.
“So here’s this American, coming to be a savior,” recalls Nelson, with a thick Boston accent. “The first thing my coach said was, ‘Lie down and start dribbling.’”
The decision to leave his perfect job at Suffolk and make a bid for professional play was the culmination of a boyhood dream born in 60-cent seats in “The Heavens” of the Boston Garden, front row of the second balcony, center court. There, Nelson spent nights watching Red Auerbach, Bill Russell, and Bob Cousy—his future coach at Boston College—make the Celtics a dynasty. The same dream kept him in virtual residency at the Cambridge YMCA throughout his adolescence, working as a ball boy for those same Celtics, and picking up a game whenever he could.
Jim Nelson in 1986 at Suffolk University's former home court, the Cambridge YMCA.
Eventually, the dream shifted, the goals changed. Contract disputes forced Nelson home from Greece after just six months and he resumed his role at Suffolk, helping other athletes pursue their dreams, practicing with the Suffolk team on that same court at the Cambridge YMCA. For three decades at Suffolk, coaching was his passion. Taking over the head men’s basketball coaching position from Charlie Law in 1976, Nelson switched from “making suggestions to making decisions.”
“Those special two hours,” Nelson recalls of game days, “when you are on the floor teaching—and it is truly a teaching experience—you are unfettered by telephone calls, emails, pink message slips. …It is a sanctuary time.”
As a coach, he offered his athletes a sage approach. “He’s not the ‘in your face’ kind of coach,” says Leo Fama, who played basketball under Nelson from 1982 to 1986. “He’s more of an even-handed, teaching kind of guy.” Fama remembers in particular a game against Plymouth State, who posed an even matchup with the Suffolk Rams. Fama scored 45 points, and at the end of the victory, Nelson was pleased. “And then he looks at me and says, ‘But you know what? You should have had 52—you missed seven free throws,’” Fama says with a chuckle. But it was important: Coach wasn’t just focused on the victory, Fama says, but on how they could improve that win. He was stern in a fatherly way—a familial metaphor several former student athletes use when they speak of him.
For former hockey player Jim Gilpatrick, this takes on an almost literal meaning.
“He really is a second father to me,” says Gilpatrick. Their bond was sealed on a January night in 1996 when Gilpatrick lost the use of his legs and his right arm after colliding with a goalpost in a hockey game. Nelson visited him in the hospital, called him on the phone, and helped him get back to his studies. Gilpatrick and Nelson grew close. “I never expected him to do what he did,” says Gilpatrick. “But that’s just the thoughtful gentleman he is—and that’s why a lot of people have a lot of respect for him.”
In return, Gilpatrick paid Coach an unexpected visit. Four years after the accident, with his ability to walk—once thought gone forever—returning slowly, he stopped by the second floor of the Ridgeway building.“Coach,” Gilpatrick called out to Nelson, who was facing the window of his office. Nelson turned around, and John Gilpatrick walked into his arms. “It’s a moment,” says Nelson, “that is still a very emotional one for me to this day.”
Gilpatrick’s story may have been a special one, but Nelson’s reaction was not unusual. “He knows the kids, their names, their families’ names,” says Elaine Schwager, former head softball and volleyball coach. “He takes the time to get to know them, he asks questions about them. And when he felt like he didn’t know someone, he’d come right to me to make sure he knew. He just has a way about him that made people feel good about themselves.”
Since 1977, Nelson has taught a fall and a spring course on the Theory and Practice of Athletics, with the first semester including a section on the history of the Olympics. “The playground for our children was the Parthenon,” says Nelson, of his Dmitri days. His firsthand experience with Olympic history is useful in his teaching position—a role he relishes. “[Teaching] allows me to interact with an even wider range of individuals—in addition to our student athletes and those involved in intramural programs,” says Nelson.
And his reach extends beyond his sizable roles as athletic director and teacher. “He’s the mayor of Suffolk,” says Tony Ferullo, associate director of Public Affairs. “The Goodwill Ambassador of Suffolk—there is no more caring individual that reaches out and touches more people than Jim Nelson.” The University activities he’s involved with include heading up the annual Dean’s Reception and 18 years as chairman of the University Social Committee, a post he relates with a smile and a laugh: “How difficult can that be, right?”
Always on the scene sporting a warm glow of Ram pride, Coach Jim Nelson shows up to support the school's many NCAA Division III match-ups.
The fact that he shows up to every possible home game he can is evidence enough of his dedication to the school. But he is also noticeably unattached to a magazine, paperwork, or Blackberry, and rather stationed in the front rows, attention set. “He was supportive of all the athletic programs, even those he wasn’t coaching,” says Ellen Crotty, who played on both the women’s basketball and softball teams from 1984 to 1988. “You could always look over your shoulder and see him there in the stands and hear his voice,” says Crotty, who often saw Nelson near the front, cheering “good hit” or “way to go Suffolk.” “That meant a lot.”
“I’ve been here for about 11 years and I don’t think I ever beat him to work,” says Cary McConnell, assistant athletic director. “If I come in at 9, he’s been there for hours, and if I leave at 7, he’s still there.”
“I am certainly one that is a big believer in discipline,” says Nelson. “And to this day, I consider loyalty to the institution and the program one of the highest characteristics one can bring to their responsibilities.”
Coach Nelson's skill in shooting free throws with his eyes closed is legendary. "It's all muscle memory."
Inside his office, his loyalty to the post-Dmitri goal of improving the lot of Suffolk—the athletes, the students, the institution—is represented by a massive framed newspaper blow-up from 1990. The headline: “Suffolk Says Farewell to YMCA as Basketball Team Finds Home.” After three decades of all away games, the team had a proper home—a home built thanks to a group effort spearheaded by Nelson.
“If you ask him to walk down the street, I guarantee that within five steps, he’s going to meet someone he knows,” says Kenneth Greenberg, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “And then if you listen closely you’ll discover that he knows that person’s brother, their sister, and their children and family. His knowledge of people—because he connects with everyone—is pretty amazing.”
It was this ability to connect with people that helped Nelson nurture and expand an athletic program that has often had to share fields with other local teams. His drive and commitment are the perfect match for Suffolk’s athletes—a mass of non-scholarship student athletes often competing out of love of the games, and riding the T to games in lieu of the plush Division 1 team tour busses.
Nelson knows all their stories. His ability to cite details is uncanny: team records, the scores of various games he coached, the spelling of the names of childhood friends, the alma mater and athletic background of an intern. And it’s not because he is a statistics guy, a number cruncher, or readying an autobiography. Coach Nelson just cares enough to remember.
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