To much of Marblehead, Owen Coyne was a football captain, a three-sport athlete, stellar student and sailing instructor. To 8-year-old Ella, he was the “very nice” big brother who took her on bike rides.
“And Ella was his biggest fan,” said their mother, Angela Paradise.
On Sunday, as the Coyne family faced the unimaginable first days without Owen, some of his closest friends arrived at their home to pick up Ella and take her apple picking.
It was a small gesture that spoke to something much bigger: the friendships Owen built during his 17 years and the community now wrapping itself around the family he left behind.
In the days since the Marblehead High School senior died after a sudden brain hemorrhage Oct. 1, his family has heard countless stories about the impact he had on teammates, coaches, teachers, friends and people across town. Now, they are sharing their own — about the quiet, humble teenager who loved football and boating, his friends, Sunday family dinners — but perhaps most of all, Marblehead.
“I want people to know that he loved this town so deeply,” his mother, Angela Paradise, told the Current on Sunday. “He loved being a Magician. He had such pride in being captain of his team and being a mentor. He loved the businesses in his town. He loved driving around this town. He loved the beaches. He loved cruising the water on his boat.”
She said Owen would have been deeply moved by the way Marblehead has rallied around his family.
“He would be really proud of this town for how much they have supported us,” Paradise said, “during the very worst days of our lives.”
A quiet confidence
Owen’s parents say he had a quiet confidence.
“He had a great way about him,” Paradise said. “He was very humble. He would be the last one to boast about his awards or a touchdown.”
Owen loved football, but his mom said the sport was also a path to a strong college education. As he went through the recruiting process, college coaches called regularly, asking about academics, his future and what he could contribute to a campus beyond football. His mom was always impressed with his answers.
After visiting several colleges, Williams College stood out.
“After spending the day at Williams, it was just one of those days where it clicked,” Paradise said.
In July, Owen received an offer from Williams, where he planned to play football next fall. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to study, his mother said, but was excited about the possibilities ahead.
Owen also played baseball and excelled in track and field. Coach Nolan Raimo said he narrowly missed winning a state indoor track championship last year and ranked among Marblehead High’s best sprinters and high jumpers ever.
‘Every environment was better with Owen in it’
“Owen was one jump away from winning the state championship last year in indoor track, and was a top-10 sprinter and high jumper in Marblehead High track history,” Raimo wrote to the Current. “He was one of the most gifted student-athletes that I have coached, and his tenacity, passion and care he exhibited in his athletic career was only outdone by his dedication, care and empathy he demonstrated to the people around him.”
Owen would have served as a track captain this coming indoor season.
Raimo called him “the most coachable student-athlete I have worked with.”
“To those who don’t know Owen, he was a person you would cheer for with enthusiasm, and somebody who you wanted to see succeed, because of how kind, caring and passionate he was,” Raimo said. “He did all the things right from the smallest to biggest things. We are products of our environment, and every environment was better with Owen in it.”
The moments that mattered
Away from sports, happiness often meant something much simpler.
Owen had a tight-knit circle of friends that grew into a group of about a dozen teenagers. They spent their time on boats, tubing in Marblehead Harbor, making food runs and gathering around fire pits for s’mores.
“I think for him, socially, those are his most joyful moments,” Paradise said.
Family mattered just as much. Sunday night dinner was a fixture at the Coyne house, with Owen’s grandparents and other relatives gathering each week. Even as his life grew busier, his mother said, he made time for it.
This summer, the six members of the immediate family traveled to France, visiting Paris, Provence and the French Riviera over 10 days. Phones and iPads were put away so they could concentrate on being together.
Paradise is especially grateful now that they made the trip. Their final family photograph together was taken there.
At home, Owen was an older brother to Grady, a sophomore; Landon, 12; and Ella, a third-grader at Glover School.
Owen and Landon could be equally goofy together, their mother said, chasing each other around the yard with a hose or throwing water balloons. His friends made him laugh, too, about Halloween costumes and on Target runs.
Those ordinary moments have taken on new weight for the family.
Paradise hopes people will not shy away from talking to her about Owen because they are afraid of saying the wrong thing. She wants to hear the stories she never knew.
“I want to hear stories big or small,” she said. “You know, you think you feel like you know your kid, but then you you aren’t with them every hour of the day, and you don’t get like every little story that comes out of a classroom or comes out of a locker room or happens on a weekend and might seem inconsequential to them at the time. But those are the stories, the best ones I’ll live for.”
A final gift to five strangers
Even after his death, Owen is helping others.
His parents learned that organs donated by their son are expected to save five people in their 30s, 40s and 50s.
The decision was made months earlier when Owen was getting his driver’s license. Paradise was with him when he was asked whether he wanted to register as an organ donor.
“Oh, can we check this box off? Organ donation?” she recalled him asking.
They checked it, never imagining the decision would matter so soon.
When hospital staff approached the family about organ donation, Paradise said there was little to discuss.
“We know Owen would want this, and we’re on board with it,” she said.
The family hopes his story might encourage other young people and their families to learn about organ donation through New England Donor Services.
According to his family, Owen began feeling ill about a week after his last football game. He developed a headache and later began vomiting. His parents took him to Salem Hospital, where he was evaluated but not given a CT scan.
When his symptoms persisted, he returned to the hospital and was eventually transferred to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where imaging revealed bleeding in his brain. He was diagnosed with an arteriovenous malformation, an abnormal tangle of blood vessels.
His parents said they were initially optimistic. Owen was coherent and answering questions correctly while being closely monitored in the pediatric intensive care unit. Doctors believed his condition could be treated after the swelling subsided, according to the family.
He was later considered stable and moved to a regular pediatric floor. His condition then deteriorated rapidly.
Now, the family is focused the outpouring of support from the communities that knew him.
“I think for us as a family, it’s just it’s helpful to know that we have this village trying to lift us up and help us during this horrific time,” Paradise said.
And they hope that village will keep telling them about Owen — the touchdown, the sailing lesson, the joke, the kindness in a classroom, the conversation at a store, the moment among friends his parents never knew happened.
Big stories or small. They want them all.
Friends have set up a GoFundMe to “support the Owen P. Coyne Scholarship Fund and other meaningful efforts that will honor Owen, keep his memory alive, and carry his legacy forward. Funds will also help ease the many unexpected burdens and medical expenses that may arise for the family in the wake of such a heartbreaking loss.”
