The Rivers School played Pingree in the Norm Walker Bowl yesterday at Gillette Stadium. But this isn’t about that football game. This is about how the boys at Rivers got to that game, and how on the way they learned as much about life as they did about football. Rivers has never been considered a football power in the Independent School League, which consists of some of the most elite prep schools in New England.
But last year, they hired a young coach named Rich Fisher, who brought in a sophisticated system that challenged his players as much cerebrally as it did athletically. The Rivers playbook is as thick as “War and Peace.’’ It has 62 plays and 45 formations and motions.