Chris Perry stands in the Bristol Consolidated School gymnasium on May 23. Perry is a decorated wrestler, has taught physical education and coached at the school for 34 years, and also is an award winning pumpkin grower. (Johnathan Riley photo)
Part of the joy of having a passion is sharing it with others, and for decorated athlete, longtime Bristol Consolidated School physical education teacher, coach, and pumpkin grower Chris Perry, he continues to love working with the young athletes and students of Lincoln County.
Perry, of Damariscotta, grew up in Nobleboro, attending Nobleboro Central School and then graduating from Lincoln Academy in 1984.
“I grew up in North Nobleboro,” Perry said. “Everyone up in that area went to Medomak (Valley High School) but I wasn’t going to go there, I had my sights set on Lincoln all the way.”
During his time at Lincoln Academy, Perry earned the rare honor of 12 varsity letters, a distinction athletes can achieve at the high school only by making a varsity sports team each year in each sport they play. Perry earned his varsity letters in soccer, wrestling, and baseball.
“I’m quite proud of that,” Perry said.
During his time on the Lincoln Academy boys varsity soccer team under coach Jeff Bradbury, Perry said the team was required to go the Central Lincoln County YMCA in Damariscotta on Saturday’s to help coach youth soccer.
“That’s actually how I got interested in working with kids,” he said. “I thought I really like how this goes.”
When thinking about the next steps after high school, Perry remembered that spark he felt coaching and helping the youth in the area. In order to kindle that feeling into a flame, he decided to become a physical educator.
“I decided it was the best way to work with kids in athletics,” Perry said.
Perry matriculated at Springfield College in Springfield, Mass., to pursue a degree in physical education and to compete with the college’s wrestling program.
According to Perry, Springfield College was a great for him with a top-tier physical education degree and wrestling program that was one of the best National Collegiate Athletic Association division two programs in the country.
Perry said that being a wrestler in college and high school was an incredibly rewarding experience but it didn’t come without its challenges.
“It’s a very demanding sport, not just physically but mentally,” he said.
In college Perry said he would have to train over vacations, sometimes twice a day for two hours, and in his weight class, 118, there were several other competitors on his team vying to compete at that weight.
“You’re always fighting for the spot,” Perry said.
After graduating from college with a bachelor’s degree in physical education, Perry got a job at Trinity School in New York, N.Y., a K-12 Catholic school.
New York City was a big change for Perry, so he didn’t make his decision to take the job there lightly. However, he said he knew he could do just about anything, at least for a little while.
“My mindset was, I can do anything for a year, so I’m going to try it,” Perry said.
He loved the job and the school and ended up staying for two years. However, the commute from where he was staying near Gramercy Park to the school was a 40-minute train ride each way, each day of the week and it began to wear on him.
Perry wanted to move in the school’s staff dormitory on campus to cut down the commute.
“All I’d have to do was take the elevator and I’m at school,” he said.
Around the time when he found out the school didn’t have any open apartments, he got a call from his mother about an opening for a physical education teacher at BCS. After flying back home and interviewing, Perry was offered the job he’d have for the decades to come.
However, one week after he accepted the job with BCS, he got a call from Trinity School to inform him that they had an apartment for him.
“They called me and said there’s an apartment at Trinity and it’s yours if you want it,” Perry said. “I said I can’t, I’ve already taken the job and I wouldn’t reconsider.”
Perry said he was happy getting a job back home, but that he gained a lot of appreciation for the Lincoln County area being away and he was glad to have had his time in the big city.
“I don’t think I would have been as excited if I hadn’t first experienced New York City for two years,” Perry said…. “I was ecstatic that I experienced what I did, I was more excited coming back home.”
Perry has taught physical education, health, served as the athletic director, and has been the head teacher at Bristol at different points for the past 34 years.
In 2011, Perry was recognized by the Lincoln County Retired Educators Association as Teacher of the Year.
Perry’s guiding physical education philosophy has been to expose kids to different, new things they may enjoy and to get them excited about a variety of activities.
“It’s just getting them used to doing something different, getting them excited about something new, whether that’s going off to Lincoln to do track or whether that’s pickle ball” Perry said.
During each of those years as an educator at BCS, he also coached soccer, jump rope, basketball, baseball, and wrestling when the school had a program.
Perry’s goals for his athletes are just as much about life as they are about mastering the basics of the sport; learning how to be a good person by caring for others in the process of competing is ultimately what it’s about.
“I want these kids to not just be a little better, but a lot better from where they started skillwise,” Perry said. “I really focus on fundamentals and learn how to enjoy the game.”
At the same time, Perry said his athletes learn how to win as well as how to lose the “right way.” He wants them to remember that they need each other.
“Sports teach you so many different things about life,” he said. “The sportsmanship, the friendship, the caring for others, just how to be a good teammate, and how to understand that we’re all in this together.”
Perry gave a recent anecdote about one of his pitchers on the BCS baseball team hitting an opposing batter with a pitch. He said the pitcher stopped the game and walked up to the batter to make sure he was OK and shook his hand.
“We want teams to respect us for both our play and our sportsmanship,” he said.
Perry said over the years his athletes have added banners along the walls of the BCS gymnasium for wins as Busline League champions and for their sportsmanship.
During his time as coach at the school, BCS has won five Busline League baseball championships and he said “around” eight soccer championships.
When Perry isn’t leading his teams in life lessons or teaching his students the latest about physical health, he spends some of his free time tending to his pumpkins.
Perry is a decorated amateur pumpkin grower, his largest and most recent taking first place with an 867-pound pumpkin in the amateur division of the Damariscotta Pumpkinfest and Regatta growing competition.
“It’s just fun,” he said. “Everyone helps everybody, it’s competitive but everyone is there to help each other, whether you’re first or last, it’s fun.”
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