Published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette on January 6, 2015
Last year, Jay Fortier coached the Easthampton girls basketball season while battling throat cancer.
With his life motto of “go big or go home,” Fortier wanted to do it again this year. Days before the current season opened, fearing his health would keep him away from the team too much, he handed the reins over.
On Monday evening, the beloved 61-year-old basketball coach, teacher and father lost his battle with cancer, surrounded by his family. Fortier is survived by his daughters Amanda and Ashley Fortier, son Wesley Fortier, and grandson Tarlo Zerbach, all of Easthampton.
“I realize now he really lived by that motto. You need to face life with vigor and determination or you are never going to get what you want,” said Amanda Fortier.
Fortier accumulated a record of 280-80 over two coaching tenures at Easthampton 1992-1996 and 2009-2014, and one at Hampshire Regional 2000-2007. He led the Raiders to five straight Western Massachusetts titles from 2003 to 2007, winning the state crown in 2003 and 2005. He also coached softball at Hampshire for a few seasons.
Fortier coached numerous 1,000-point scorers at both schools and was deeply involved in youth leagues and attentive to all Eagle and Raider teams.
As dedicated as he was to the sports, Fortier’s former assistant and current Hampshire coach Rich Moussette said he’ll foremost be remembered as a father — first to Fortier’s own three kids, but second to each of his basketball “kids.”
“I’ll remember him as a great person to his kids, a father that sacrificed his being for his kids,” Moussette said. “That’s first and foremost. … He was a great, great dad that sacrificed a lot for his kids.”
Moussette said each athlete Fortier coached became his kid as well, a sentiment shared by former Eagle Ashley Sharp and current players Abby Sharp, Courtney Urban and Niki Lewandowski.
“I think that every single person that played for him could say he was like a dad figure because of how he impacted our lives,” Lewandowski said.
Fortier’s dedication to his athletes reached outside of sports as a teacher at Mount Tom Academy, an alternative high school at Holyoke Community College. He approached those students with the same dedication as each basketball player, Amanda Fortier said.
“I think he really showed me, my brother and my sister, what’s important in life. He’s taught us a lot of things,” she said. “It’s so inspiring to watch someone every single day, never stop fighting for what they think is right. Whether it is on the basketball court, in the classroom or in life. I don’t think I ever once in 25 years saw him ever give up on anything.”
When the basketball season approached in December, he couldn’t just walk away. Numerous conversations between Easthampton athletic director Patti Dougherty and Fortier took place before his assistant coach Dan Routhier was asked to step in. Even then, Fortier still wanted a title — associate head coach — and a seat on the bench.
“He fought so hard to stay on coaching,” Dougherty said. “He lived for basketball and coaching, and he was committed and dedicated to this girls team.”
Fortier was diagnosed in October 2013 and went through chemotherapy and radiation treatments throughout the season. By February, Fortier was cancer-free and on the night to say goodbye to the seniors, Ashley Sharp thought it would be better to celebrate her coach with a cancer awareness night.
“As soon as we found out he was still coaching I kind of had the idea,” she said. “It was basically us showing we supported him through his journey like he supports us. … It went really well. He had no idea, so he was really surprised.”
The cancer aggressively returned with inoperable tumors last year, but Fortier refused to believe he wouldn’t lead the Eagles this season. Complications from chemotherapy over Thanksgiving weekend added a piece of perspective. Dougherty said that was when she and Fortier realized together that he couldn’t guarantee being as present as he was a year ago, when he didn’t miss a practice or a game.
His players’ expectations all along were right with his.
“I was totally expecting him to come back and magically be OK again,” Abby Sharp said. “I wasn’t expecting him to keep being sick. Him always being a tough guy, and being there for us even though he was sick never really showed us how sick he was. It was just weird that he wasn’t going to be coaching and pushing through like he was before.”
As Routheir took over, Fortier hoped to make it to practices and games, but his health didn’t allow it. Breathing struggles sent him to Boston for a tracheotomy to keep his airway open, which gave his family time to weigh their options.
“After (the tracheotomy) he’d been OK, still trying to fight,” Amanda Fortier said. “His cancer was too aggressive. It ended up taking over too quick.”
On New Year’s Eve, the Fortiers learned chemotherapy was no longer an option and elected to have hospice care come in the next day.
“The Cooley Dickinson hospice was excellent at coming in and making sure he was comfortable,” Amanda Fortier said. “For the past four days he has been pain free, really comfortable. When he went, it was pretty peaceful.”
She said her father touched too many youth and adult lives to count.
Moussette saw those lives from all angles — as an assistant coach, player’s father and players’ uncle, as his daughter Ashley Moussette and niece Jen Moussette were key members of the state championship teams. Rich Moussette said the family relationship didn’t change Fortier’s coaching presence, still loud and eager for the win.
“He didn’t treat them any different with me there,” Moussette said. “We would fight on the bench because I was would be saying it’s time to take her out and he would say, ‘We’re not ahead by enough.’ We’d be up by 25.”
Fortier pulled Routhier from youth coaching to high school and taught him how important preparation is. Routhier knows how big his shoes are to fill and wishes the opportunity had come around differently.
“His preparation and dedication was second to none,” Routhier said. “I am very thankful that he pushed to get me in here and work alongside him. … He was always a big supporter of me and I appreciate that.”
Fortier was known for his sideline antics, barking at his girls no matter what the score was and even did so while battling cancer last season. For those from afar and not on his court, it didn’t always make a good impression.
“He loved us. The way that he acted in the games didn’t mean anything,” Ashley Sharp said. “At practice and outside of that, he showed us the other sides of him.”
The stories are endless and fittingly, Moussette, Routhier, his players and his daughter agreed his spirit and legacy will live on, whether or not he realized it.
“I don’t know if he even knew it was a legacy he’d created here,” Amanda Fortier said. “I think anybody else you asked would tell you it was.”