It’s a hot summer afternoon in the beginning of August 2021. Along with the rest of the Oyster River High School (ORHS) soccer program, I had already been practicing for over a month. Because we were so far into these “summer sessions” the other freshmen and I thought that we had already met all the coaches. That’s until we saw a dark grey Jeep Grand Cherokee whip through the bus lane and park near the fields. Out stepped a short bald man, wearing a bright blue polo, golf shorts down to his knees, loafers, and vibrant sunglasses. He was immediately showered with greetings from the upperclassmen and was clearly a fan favorite. To us freshman though, Eugene Bilodeau was just another guy.

In 2010, while playing soccer at a Seacoast United facility, Eugene Bilodeau met Akan Ekanem. Ekanem noted that he didn’t like him at first because they were on opposing teams and Bilodeau was a “hard player.” Eventually they made it on to the same team, and then became friends.

Years later Ekanem took over as the head coach of the Oyster River High School soccer team, and Bilodeau expressed his interest in helping out. “At first it was like, just come and hang out and see what you like, pick up some ideas. It went from that to ‘I’m coming back next year.’”

Goalkeeper Evan Whalen’s (‘24) freshman year was the first year Bilodeau started showing up. Whalen didn’t really trust him at first. “He started showing up and sitting by my goal; he would give me pointers, saying what I needed to work on and what I needed to get better at — I thought it was just a random guy.” Bilodeau started showing up more, gained trust from players and became an official assistant coach.

He quicky became popular among us players. Whalen described him as “electric” because Bilodeau always knows the perfect time to say something to hype the team up or get the team going with one of his jokes.

After “first meeting” Tommy Aldrich (‘25) this past year at tryouts (even though this is Aldrich’s third year playing in the program), he put a nametag on Aldrich’s back, which is what the coaches do with the freshman because they don’t know their names yet. Aldrich jokingly described this experience as “disrespectful” and felt he needed to “humble Bilodeau.” Aldrich ended up making the team, and they were able to joke about it. “Our relationship exploded. We started talking a lot about football, and when I was on the bench, I’d always end up talking to him.”

Compared to Ekanem and the other assistant coach, Danny Watson, Bilodeau doesn’t possess as much of a technical soccer brain. Bilodeau understands this and uses it to see what the other coaches and players don’t. Wilson Kim (‘25), whose been playing for Bilodeau for multiple years, believes this is what truly makes Bilodeau a great assistant. “Us soccer players analyze the game really specifically, but he points out the more obvious things that we might overlook. “We [players] might be like, we have 3-4-3, we should go to 3-5-2’ but he might just hit you with ‘you guys just don’t look like you want it. You gotta want it more.’” 

Outside of soccer, Bilodeau has made a name for himself in the area too. He was born in 1979 in Portsmouth, NH, and hasn’t left the area since. According to his dad Raymond, growing up, Bilodeau was always a smart kid, but as high school rolled around, he didn’t really put the effort in. When I asked about high school, his immediate response was a brief second of laughter and then, “Probably shouldn’t go over that.” He says that a big factor of this was that he spent his time drawing instead of listening to teachers. But according to his dad, he became a “wild” kid. This included climbing on, then later jumping off buildings and trains. He kept his grades just high enough so that he could play sports. He played football and ran track, but always had a deep passion for soccer, baseball, and hockey.

As high school came to a close, what to do next became a question for him. He enrolled into what was then called Hesser College, now called Mount Washington College, and took night classes studying real estate. During the day, he worked, bouncing from job to job, with little luck in finding one that stuck.

“When I finished the real estate classes, I never took the test.” This quote seemed to sum up his time as a student. Bilodeau always had all the intangibles to make him a great student, but he never seemed to care.

He quickly got a job as a tax assessor, but a new opportunity came when the woman he was renting a house from offered him a job as a part time leasing agent for her property management company. He pounced on it, then later became a full-time worker. During this time, he was able to learn more than school ever taught him. He took in everything there was to know about property management.

He stayed there for nearly seven and a half years until he built up the passion to start his own business. Even with all the risks, the 32-year-old Bilodeau took out a loan and went all in on starting his company. He named it Cardinal Point, and similar to his last job, they specialize in property management. “Starting your own business is the most exciting and the scariest thing that you can do.”

As time went on, he got more and more clients, and his life got busy. Bilodeau felt he needed help. So, he turned to Raymond and asked if he would help out. Raymond saw the problems Bilodeau was dealing with and agreed. “I was getting ready to retire and I saw how busy he was, and I said, ‘I’ll tell you what Gene, I’ll help you when I retire.’” When Raymond eventually retired, he got his real estate license and became the company’s unofficial leasing agent. As time went on Bilodeau was able to hire a few official employees, who his dad would fill in for if necessary.

Although Raymond isn’t officially part of the company and he’s just there to help, he spends a lot of his time with the company and sees firsthand how his son is as a boss. “He can be tough, he can be friendly, but he wants things done his way — he likes when everybody does their job and he’ll like you right back.”

Outside of his company and soccer, Bilodeau can be seen umpiring little league baseball for fun, kayaking, mounting biking, playing pickleball, trail running, hitting the gym, hanging out with the friends he’s made through soccer, property managing, and being a longtime member of the Portsmouth community. He loves Portsmouth and thinks fondly of the town it was, as well as the city it has become. 

Now that “us freshman” only have one more year of soccer left at ORHS, we are the kids who start celebrating when we see the Grand Cherokee whip towards the field. 

– Kevin Kell