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Koster family, football coach salute Dyer at banquet
By Joshua Boyd
Thursday, January 04, 2007 - Updated: 11:10 AM EST
As one of the Chieftains football team’s top running backs, Andrew Dyer was regularly saluted for his own merits of speed, athleticism and an ability to find the seams to gain yardage.
At the end-of-year football banquet in December, Dyer added was saluted for these merits as well as carrying on the merits of a former Chieftains captain, the late Keith Koster.
Not long after Koster’s death in May 2006 at the age of 20, the Koster family of Boxford created the Keith Koster Memorial Scholarship Fund. Dyer was the first winner of the award.
“It was a great honor, just because he was Keith and he was a great kid,” said Dyer. “For them to say, I was like him is great. We played football together when he was a senior and I was a freshman.”
“We had the team vote on nominations for someone who emulates Keith’s personality,” said Richard Koster, Keith’s father
Richard was also the father of three other boys who suited up for Masconomet football coach Jim Pugh.
“A lot of the [2006 players] did know Keith,” said Pugh. “Rich Koster came over and talked to the kids about Keith, about the scholarship. It was not about who was the best player, the best student. We were looking for someone who was just a true teammate, a friend, someone who was inclusive. We had a lot of good candidates.”
Keith’s surviving family of Richard, Eileen, Ricky, Kevin and Brian formed a portion of the Fund’s board of directors, along with four others. They voted on nominations written by the team, and selected the top three candidates for the fund and talked with them over dinner, accompanied by Pugh. Dyer stuck out as the top choice.
“Andrew was a lot like Keith, if you look at the criteria,” Richard Koster said. “He reached out to the younger players. He was even a sharp dresser like Keith. He just seemed to have Keith’s personality. He seemed like the consummate teammate as Keith was. It was a hard choice.”
“I was surprised [at the banquet], especially because the three kids nominated were myself, Eric Dinarello and Craig Bunker and any one of us could have gotten it,” Dyer said. “The thing Keith had was a lot of character. I have character, I got along with my team well and I was a good leader.”
Dyer will receive $1,000 per year for each of four years of college.
The Scholarship Fund also gave $500 to a family in crisis in the Tri-Town area.
“We got some help on that from Tri-Town School Union Superintend of Schools Bernie Creeden as far as nominees who we could help a little bit,” Koster said.
The Scholarship Fund award will be an annual award.
“One of the great things we’ve had over the years [in the football program] are outstanding football kids and students who come from great families,” Pugh said. “It’s nice at the end of the evening, after all the years and talking about the seniors, to highlight a kid who really knows what it’s like to be a teammate, a family person and a brother to everyone.
“That’s certainly what we saw in Keith, and it’s a great honor for Andrew,” Pugh said.
It will be a great honor for another student at the end of the year. A plaque with nameplates will be added to the Masconomet trophy case honoring each year’s award recipient.
“[The scholarship monetary award] will be awesome, but the big part is the honor of getting it,” Dyer said. “I’ll be the only one to have played with Keith to get the award and to have my name on the plaque at the school.”
While the Koster family was happy to put a smile on the face of a football player and student at Masconomet, it was tough going through the holidays for the first time without their fourth and youngest son.
“It’s been difficult for us,” Richard Koster said. “For my wife and I as well as our brothers, but this year has seen some positives out of this horrendous ordeal. I’m sure Keith’s looking at the people who have supported us and he’s grateful.”
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