BOSTON GLOBE: Wrentham's Cory Bailey is back at Assumption College

August 27, 2009

By Marvin Pave

Boston Globe West Sports Notebook

He has created a personal blog on the Assumption College athletic website, invited 88 of his football players to his Wrentham home for a day at the pool - where they polished off more than 200 hamburgers and hot dogs - and invited Greg Comella, his teammate at Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood, and a former member of the New York Giants, to speak to his team.

Cory Bailey is back as head football coach at Assumption and he's going full speed after a one-year stint in the private sector as a placement recruiter with a Waltham firm.

When Adam Fuller resigned last winter after a 1-8 season, Assumption athletic director Ted Paulauskas asked Bailey, the college's head coach from 2004-2007, to return to the fold.

"I liked where I worked, but I had also been on a football field as a player and coach for more than 25 years, starting as a sixth-grade Pop Warner player in Wrentham, and I missed it," said Bailey, who was assured by Paulauskas that changes were being made in staffing and scholarships and that the Division 2 program was on a more solid footing.

"We now have full-time assistant coaches. We have also gone from four full scholarships when I left to a commitment over time for more than 20, and we go into the season with some very good skilled players and an improved secondary. The big question is the development of our offensive and defensive lines," said Bailey, a Globe All-Scholastic and football captain at Xaverian who went on to star as a lineman at Fordham University.

Assumption opens its season tomorrow at Millersville University in Pennsylvania with several local players in the starting lineup: junior offensive tackle and All-Northeast-10 Conference pick Matt Sidebottom (Franklin High); junior defensive tackle Mike Foley (Saint John's High in Shrewsbury), who had 39 tackles last year; junior wide receiver Mark Gately (Waltham High); junior safety Ryan Crowley, of Norfolk and Xaverian Brothers; and sophomore linebacker Nick Di Antonio (Milford High).