Sides is stepping away from the sideline ... again.

The current Henry W. Moore School soccer coach – and former high school and college women’s basketball coach – will again try to retire from both teaching and coaching after an unsuccessful attempt in 2000.

It was then that Julie Cusson, whom Sides mentored on an AAU team and at New England College in the 1980s, pulled him back into the coaching ranks as an assistant for the Southern New Hampshire University women’s basketball team.

“The thing is, he really relates well to the kids and really teaches basic fundamentals,” said Cusson. “He’s fun to play for. He respects you as players, and you respect him as a coach.

And he knows the game. If he tells you to do it and you do it successfully, you win.”

While Sides said championships aren’t as important as the effort of his athletes, he sports four Tri-County soccer crowns – with three boys teams and one girls team – in addition to a state championship while coaching the Central girls basketball team in the mid- 1990s. He earned four more Little Green titles as an assistant coach in the ’70s.

He’s also led dozens of successful youth and AAU teams.

“I’ve had a long and storied career,” he quipped. “But walking away is emotional in that I’ve coached some great kids and worked with some fine athletes and individuals at many levels.”

“I’ve made many friends through people I’ve coached and am still in contact with many of them,” he continued. “And now they’re making other great athletes and people for a whole new generation.”

Departing after leading the Candia girls to a championship, Sides said the timing is perfect. “Every athlete and coach is supposed to go out while they are still at the top of their game, and a lot don’t, but my decision to go now is because I still feel I am at the top of my game,” he said. “I wanted to make sure I am doing the best I’ve ever done the last year I’ve coached.”

Cusson, as a coach herself, said she understands her former coach’s reasoning for wanting to relax after 36 years, but added he will be missed by his past and current players, as well as those who won’t have the opportunity to learn from him.

“He knows how to explain things (to children) and get the most out of them, from college kids all the way down to elementary,” she said.

Along with time served as athletics director (AD) and assistant principal at Candia’s Moore School, Sides has also been physical education teacher since 1972.

Sides started the Candia school’s co-ed soccer program in the late 1970s and contributed various stints as boys and girls basketball, baseball and soccer coach.

Michelle Lavallee, who also coaches and is in her second year as the Moore School AD, said she sees the impact Sides has on children every day he arrives at work.

“Ed is extremely passionate about coaching. He reaches out to all his players and motivates them to become better players and people,” she said. “Ed is very knowledgeable, and … he has been a mentor and a role model (to me as a new coach). Not only does he spend time coaching, but he will take time to attend other sports activities to support the kids.”

The formula for success isn’t difficult to obtain, said Sides. Each year he has one initial message for those at his first practice: “A lot of kids are at home playing video games, but you’re here sweating your rear off. If you can look in the mirror and say you did all you could do, no one is going to ask any more of you.”

Sports, he said, serves as a microcosm of what happens outside the lines as well. “It’s not just soccer skills and basketball skills, but life lessons I want to teach them,” he added. “I wouldn’t have done it (all these) years if I didn’t think that’s true.”

“I’ll miss coaching, there’s no doubt about it, and I’ll miss teaching, too.”