Two years after serious truck accident:

Mansfield enters another season coaching NU rifle team

By Todd Mansfield
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

Nov. 11 will never be the same.

On Nov. 11, 1999, Paul Mansfield, the current Norwich rifle coach, was delivering a load of firewood to a customer in Brookfield, VT, when his Mack truck popped out of gear and rolled over, throwing him partially out of, and under, the vehicle. The cab of the truck was smashed in, leaving him injured by the side of a remote Vermont road.

"I knew that I was hurt the minute that the truck rolled over," said Paul Mansfield. "I also thought to myself, 'man, I messed up deer season'."

After being rushed to the hospital in Randloph, VT, Mansfield was air lifted by the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Arial Response Team (DART) to the Fletcher Allen Health Center in Burlington, where he was in intensive care for two weeks on a respirator and two additional weeks recovering.

"I was very scared, very upset when I heard about the accident," said Candy Mansfield, wife of twenty-four years. "I just wanted to see him, but I was not able to until 9 hours after the accident happened."

Nearly two years later, Mansfield has nearly fully recovered from all the injuries he received in the accident.

"I had multiple bone fractures, collapsed lungs, lacerated liver and some other cuts and bruises," Mansfield said.

After sitting in his house for nearly two months after the accident, Mansfield decided to try going back to work. Instead of getting back into the firewood business, he went to work for R& L Archery part-time, making arrows and running the register.

Another opportunity opened in February for Mansfield when rifle team coach Mike Hourigan, class of 1985, announced that he was going to resign.

"In February, he heard that the coaching job might become available, " Mansfield's wife said, "so he decided that he would give it a try."

Mansfield's coaching experience began in 1987 when his children started shooting BB guns for the Northfield Junior Rifle team.

"I just kept going down with them instead of dropping them (his two children) off, and the more time I spent down there [at the range], the more involved I got with youngsters," Mansfield said.

Mansfield said that the best thing that he has learned from working with children shooters is to be patient. Being patient was the biggest thing, because the children were in the age range of eight to fifteen.

"I liked working with the youngsters," Mansfield said. "But I really like coaching the high school level and older, because it makes the kids think about what they are doing rather than telling them how to do it."

It is still a challenge to be patient with all the levels of coaching, but it is a different kind of patience, Mansfield said.

"I think that he enjoys coaching at the college level best, because the shooters are more apt to listen to him, because they want to improve their scores and succeed," Mansfield's wife said.

Mansfield came into a situation where the rifle team had finished fourth in the nation after losing 2000 graduates Emily Caruso and David Held, two All-Americans and two of the best shooters Norwich has ever had, according to Hourigan.

"He's got a tough job," Hourigan said. "He has got a little bit of expectations to stand up to, because we did have some success under my coaching career."

Mansfield said he would like to use his current coaching job as a footstool for eventually getting a full time coaching position at a Div. I school.

Mansfield said he likes coaching at Norwich, but it is hard to compete with division one and two teams.

"It makes it a little harder to recruit shooters, because we cannot offer them athletic scholarships," Mansfield said. "It also makes it harder to compete, because the other schools are getting the better shooters."

Mansfield is currently entering his second year as the rifle coach.

"I think that he is doing a remarkable job," said Erik Andreasen, 2000-2001 team captain and class of 2001. "He is doing everything that can be expected from him. I think that the team will come around and be good for him in the future."

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