Joe Gilmartin won Super Bowls at North Kingstown. His legacy goes well beyond football.

Joe Gilmartin was known to many for winning games on the football field.

The people of North Kingstown knew him for more than that.

On the field, Gilmartin was a competitor, someone who took a failing program and turned it into a state power. Off the field, Gilmartin was a selfless educator, the type of man who’d give anything to anyone who asked and did whatever he could to improve the lives of North Kingstown High School students, whether they played for him or not.

It didn’t take long for word of Gilmartin’s tragic passing to make its way around the town on Monday night. Gilmartin was a football coach and teacher, but his titles don’t fully encapsulate what he meant to the North Kingstown community.

“He became a larger-than-life figure,” said James Osmanski, who played for Gilmartin and was a part of the NK team that won the Division I Super Bowl in 2019 . “Everyone knew Coach Gilmartin. With his passing there’s been so much reflection on the impact he had and we’re all grateful we had him in our lives.”

“As a football coach, he was phenomenal. One of the best in the state,” said Gabriel Sloat, one of Gilmartin’s former players who currently plays for the University of Rhode Island. “But the biggest thing that got overlooked is, even with his intimidating appearance, just how much he cared not only for his players but everyone in the school.

“That’s something I really appreciated. It’s not always something you get in a coach and you could always tell how much he cared.”

“Right now it’s tough,” said Eric Anderson, who is Gilmartin’s cousin, coached against him at South Kingstown and helped out when Anderson took a job at North Kingstown High School. “The community, from what I saw — and I can’t say too much — are pretty shook up. A lot of people are in shock.”

More: Longtime NK football coach stepping away after rebuilding program

It’s not hard to see what Gilmartin meant to North Kingstown football. He took over a once-proud program that had three winless seasons from 2009-11, returned it to past glory and into a consistent state contender.

“He said it was going to take two or three years,” said Dave Giorgi, NK’s current coach who was one of the five assistants Gilmartin brought in that year. “He said ‘I need guys to stay with me, stay the course and trust the process to turn this around.’ ”

Gilmartin looked intimidating, but being a drill-instructor type coach isn’t what made him and his program a success. Gilmartin was an educator first and when he hired assistants, he was less interested in their football acumen and more interested in how they communicated the lessons being taught to players.

“He knew he could teach [assistants] the game of football and how he wanted it to look,” said Fran Dempsey, who Gilmartin molded into his successor and took over as coach after Gilmartin retired in 2019. “The No. 1 thing was making sure there were good people who had good chemistry and would put the kids No. 1.

“I learned everything I knew about coaching from Joe.”

Gilmartin taught players about work ethic, accountability and understanding that what made you better in football would help you well beyond your playing days. He practiced what he preached, whether it was being the first one in the building every day while being the last to leave or during summers when he worked as a commercial fisherman while never letting it affect his football duties.

“I was always focused on football and had a passion for it and wanted to be great at it,” Sloat said. “Playing for him, you realize how all the little things matter — showing up on time, doing the right thing in school and out of school and how it all translates on the field.

“It’s just how to live life overall. It's stuff I think about all the time. I just try to be a better person and I think I became a better person from the things he used to coach us up on.”

“In the moment you don’t realize it,” Osmanski said. “Looking back on the way he carried us though adverse moments we faced, he knew the right things to say and how to guide us on how to be a man and for young people looking for that kind of guidance, he was the perfect role model.”

Gilmartin was a teacher at Davisville Middle School — Giorgi was one of his former students — before becoming a teacher at the high school. Pushing a cart around the hallways, students would hear Gilmartin before they saw him and he was always quick with a hello, whether or not the person was one of his players or students.

He taught history at the high school, but his teaching went beyond book learning.

“I’ll never forget the day he brought the class outside and had us sit in silence and told us to write down every sound we heard, man-made vs. nature,” wrote Madelyn Levine, who graduated from NK in 2011, in a Facebook post on Tuesday. “We were only 11, but he believed we were capable of understanding our impact on the world around us.

“Now that I’m older, it’s clear that he veered off the required curriculum and made room to teach us the value of the world and our impact. All these years later, I still think of that day outside.”

“He was an excellent teacher and was great in the classroom,” Anderson said. “We heard him say at several banquets over the years, whether it was for coach of the year or whatever, he was like ‘thank you for trusting me with your kids.’

“That was always his message.”

While his looks were intimidating, his personality was considerably different. Success on the field brought him notoriety, but around town Gilmartin was just Joe — someone to swap stories with, someone to share a laugh with and someone who would do whatever to help whoever needed it.

“He was just a selfless, amazing guy. He’d always joke that if you needed the shirt off his back, he’d be more than happy to give it to you,” Dempsey said. “If I needed to borrow his car for a week I could and if there was a kid that needed something, he made sure that kid would get it.

“It never mattered what it was. Anything he could do to help somebody he did.”

Gilmartin taught history in the classroom and taught North Kingstown football history on the practice field. He wanted players to understand you don’t just play for present success, you’re playing for the past and future as well.

Since taking over for Dempsey in 2023, Giorgi has tried to keep Gilmartin’s philosophy going strong. While none of the current Skippers played directly for Gilmartin, they’re more than aware of who he is and what he means to both the program and the school.

Before practice on Tuesday, Giorgi gave what he called “an emotional speech” to the team before they hit the practice field. He said it was one of the best practices the team has had this season.

“It’s a privilege. That’s what he always said to any team he was coaching — it’s a privilege to put on the black and gold,” Giorgi said. “I feel like a part of him was with them in today’s practice.”

North Kingstown will be at home on Friday night, hosting Burrillville in a big game that suddenly seems bigger. There are plans to honor Gilmartin and his family prior to the game and the team will take the field with decals on their helmets.

The stands at the high school can fit around 1,000 people. With what Gilmartin meant to the community, it won’t be enough.

“People have known Joe for the last 20 years,” Dempsey said. “He graduated North Kingstown and he was like the mayor of North Kingstown. Everyone knew Joe. Everywhere I went, people always knew who he was.

“You see people today reaching out or to post on social media that just had him as an eighth-grade teacher in 1994 and he was their favorite teacher. It’s not only on a football field — it’s just as a person and an educator.

“You could tell he really cared and was invested in the people he was around.”

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Joe Gilmartin won Super Bowls at North Kingstown. His legacy goes well beyond football.