FITCHBURG – In March, Mike Pucko took over as football coach at Fitchburg High, Pucko’s alma mater and a past powerhouse program that won a total of four games the last three seasons.
The results, obviously, were deflating.
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“These kids have been beaten up for three years,” Pucko, a 1971 FHS graduate and 2013 inductee to the school’s hall of fame, said. “They think there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. They’ve heard all about how Fitchburg used to be, and I think they don’t believe it.”
Part of Pucko’s task is to re-establish a winning attitude and culture in the program, and on June 24, he invited Ashton Grant, the New England Patriots quarterbacks coach and an Assumption record-setting wide receiver, to Crocker Field to speak to Raiders players about his own experiences, answer questions, give advice and instill those important elements that Pucko hopes will help get Fitchburg back to where it wants to be.
Pucko was an assistant on coach Bob Chesney’s Assumption staff when Grant played, and Pucko and Grant, who began as a volunteer assistant, later worked together on Chesney’s staff at Holy Cross.
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“I was with Coach Pucko a few years ago at Assumption and a few months ago I was in Santa Clara (Calif.) at the Super Bowl,” Grant said, “and none of that was because I was super fast or super strong. It’s just because I always thought I could be something and I worked to get there.
“You have to put the right foot forward and do things the right way to attain what you want to do,” Grant told Red Raiders players.
The 30-year-old Grant, who played at Assumption from 2014-17, is in his second season with the Patriots. Last year, he played a major role in the development of quarterback Drake Maye, who led New England to Super Bowl LX and was the NFL MVP runner-up.
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“These kids needed someone like Ashton,” Pucko said, “with his history and his work ethic and where he’s gone in life, to show kids in Fitchburg what the possibilities are if you decide to listen rather than just think you know everything. I’m hoping (listening to Grant) is one of those buttons that gets pushed and makes a big difference in these kids’ lives.”
Grant engaged members of the FHS team, as well as some Fitchburg youth players, in an informative and inspiring 50-minute Q&A that covered topics such as recruiting, nutrition, the weight room (“It’s where the culture starts,” Grant said), social media (“Imagine your grandmother is reading everything you post on social media,” Grant said), grades (Grant’s weren’t the best in high school), setting a daily schedule, leadership, establishing a positive mindset, and the Patriots’ offseason acquisition of receiver A.J. Brown.
“It’s really important that he was here,” Fitchburg rising sophomore Daniel Munoz, a two-way lineman, said. “The motivation and support and advice he was giving us is going to help us be the best versions of ourselves so we can turn this program around.”
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Grant grew up in Manchester, Connecticut, and prepped for a year before arriving at Assumption, where he played from 2014-17. When Chesney became Assumption’s coach in 2013, the Greyhounds had posted two winning seasons in the prior 17 years. By the time Grant was a senior, Assumption had achieved a No. 8 national ranking.
“We set a culture of competitiveness,” Grant said. “When we took the field every Saturday, it wasn’t a question of if we were going to win, it was how much we were going to win by. We knew we were built differently than the teams we were playing.
“Coach Pucko was part of Coach Chesney’s turnaround at Assumption,” Grant told the Raiders. “You’re in the right hands if you want to get this turned around and play for a winner.”
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Pucko had great runs as the coach at Holy Name High, where his teams won three Super Bowl titles, and West Boylston High.
In 2020, while at Holy Cross, Grant was the Cleveland Browns’ first recipient of the Bill Willis Coaching Fellowship. The assignment was supposed to last three weeks. Instead, it turned into Grant’s five-year stay with the franchise and his rise to quarterbacks coach (2023-24).
Grant met Patriots coach Mike Vrabel in 2024, when Vrabel worked as a consultant with the Browns.
“Today I was looking up to someone I could be later in life,” Fitchburg rising sophomore and running back/linebacker Angel Lara Torres said. “Coach Grant made me see everybody can make it and he made me open my eyes to holding yourself to a standard. Once your team sees that, they’re going to want to do that and we can come together and start creating that culture.”
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Grant was at Polar Park in Worcester when Maye and his wife, Ann Michael, hosted their Celebrity Softball Classic on May 31.
Grant said Maye had a good offseason and minicamp.
“He has looked great,” Grant said. “He looks like someone getting comfortable with what we’re asking him to do the second year in the system. Like everybody, the first year is learning what do to; the second year is learning why you’re doing it and how you can manipulate certain things and I think he’s coming along nicely.”
Grant shook the hand of every FHS player and invited them to Patriots training camp in late July.
“Building a program starts now, in the offseason,” Grant told them. “Today is the first right step. Coach Chesney always says it takes a year to put a trophy in a trophy case. Now, it’s about how do you show up and show coach and your teammates you can be depended on every day.”
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‒Contact Jennifer Toland at jennifer.toland@telegram.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @JenTolandTG.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Patriots QB coach Ashton Grant helps motivate Fitchburg football team
