Lenny Fulham was a smiling, bushy-haired, personable kid walking the halls of Marlboro High School 50 years ago.

He was also at the nexus of the Panthers’ ascendance to Massachusetts soccer prominence.

Not long after graduation, though, tragedy struck, leaving the city — and especially his family and teammates — reeling. Fulham died in a car accident during his freshman season at Clark University.

That was October 1976, and for many years afterward, Fulham was remembered as the model of excellence at the pinnacle of a very long list of top players who came through coach John Ludgate’s program.

To this day, Fulham’s teammates look back with admiration.

“Some of us got together a few years ago (at a memorial service for Larry Grella, their Panthers teammate) and we were talking about how much of a great player and good kid Lenny was,” fellow Marlboro player Joe Modugno said in a phone interview last week. “I say this all the time to kids at all levels of soccer: ‘I never came across anyone who had the heart of Lenny.’ That kid never stopped. Nobody was going to beat him.”

And so it goes that Fulham and the rest of the Panthers kept improving in his three years on the varsity squad.

In the fall of ’75, Fulham and other senior leaders —most notably goalkeeper Rick Miller, striker Brian Bane and defender Dom D’Alessio — led the Panthers to the state tournament final, where they lost 3-0 to West Springfield and wound up an impressive
17-2-3.

That was a far cry from a losing season (2-12-1) two years earlier. And it was also a notch above a much improved ’74 campaign, when Marlboro won the first of its two straight Midland League and Central Massachusetts titles and finished 12-3-1 with a .

As a senior, Fulham was MHS’s first All-State selection. Then he made such an impact in his short time at Clark that the freshman of the year award was named after him.

As it turns out, Modugno, who Fulham convinced to apply to that college, was the first recipient of the award.

“He was the cog,” Modugno said about Lenny. “He controlled the middle and distributed the ball to the right person almost all of the time, totally unselfishly. Whatever team he was playing on, he was always the leader.”

Miller, who went on to become an Academic All-America choice at Bentley, said, “There was never anyone who worked harder and never anyone who was a better team player. He was the heartbeat of the thing.”

The school and city were enamored with the Panthers in the autumns of ’74 and ’75. According to Miller, eleven busloads of students went to see them beat Chicopee Comprehensive 3-2 in Wilbraham in the ’74 Western Mass. semifinals. As Google Maps tells us now, that’s a 60-minute, 1-hour-plus drive to what is (Central Mass. residents understand) the boonies.

And Miller also recalls with pride the ’75 state semifinal against Belmont at Hudson’s Morgan Bowl, a 1-0 win.

“We were big underdogs and the whole town was there,” he said via phone call. “We hadn’t played in front of as many people as we did that night. All of youth soccer was there. I would bet many future players there were, 10 years later, on Doug Freeman’s 1985 girls state championship team.”

At least one young fan at the time caught the lifelong soccer bug because of those mid-70s Panthers — Paulette (Beausoliel) Grant, who played for MHS later in that decade.

Recently, Grant inquired with Bedrock through Facebook: “Curious: Did you ever write about the MHS soccer player who died (right after) high school. I recall a boys squad of successful, skilled players heading to a state final and he being a star forward.”

When told it was Lenny Fulham, she said, “Thank you, thank you for that name  that has been lost in the depths of soccer names in my memory. I was in junior high, I believe, and recall being fascinated by the beautiful game, thanks to that team, that season of success, and those players. The fascination of the game, skills and tactics of soccer was on a different level for me back then. It never left.”

It was a sad day on Oct. 2, 1976, when the Marlboro community lost Lenny Fulham. Modugno said it shook him, and Miller talked about the shock and feeling numb. They also both felt deeply for the Fulham family and recalled how hard it must have also been for D’Alessio, who was Fulham’s best friend.

Aside from Fulham, Modugno, Miller, Bane, D’Alessio, Grella, and Ludgate (the Massachusetts coach of the year), other contributors on that ’75 state finalist squad were: Marc Brodeur, Paul Tucci, Mark Baker, Billy Stone, Alfred Yacyshyn, Mike Flynn, Corey Frank, Teddy Rabidou, Joe Valianti, Billy McKenna, Barry Richards, Kevin Hall, Rory Moore, Joe May, Mark Tolan, Steve Paganella, and manager Louis Scerra.

“Lenny was fun-loving, he was approachable, sociable, great sense of humor, a guy everybody wanted to be around,” Miller said. “He was the light. Brighter. (It’s like he was saying)  here I am. I’m in the middle. I’m gonna have some fun and we’re going to play great soccer. For a player to have that skill, that intensity and the good humor, it was special.”