New London - David Motherway was already planning to attend the Naval Academy when, one day during his senior year at Stonington High School, he thought a few hours off from school would make a welcome break.

He went to tour the Coast Guard Academy and was assigned to Ty Rinoski, a freshman football player at the time and a former East Lyme High quarterback.

"Within the first couple hundred yards, Ty knew seven or eight people. He was only a freshman and he knew everybody," Motherway said this week. "I thought, 'This is amazing.' ... What Ty showed me was that it was the right decision to go to Coast Guard."

Motherway and Rinoski were teammates at Coast Guard during the 1988 football season, when the Bears went 9-1 and won the ECAC North Championship over Plymouth State, Coast Guard's second best season in history.

With the seniors from the 1988 team celebrating their 25th reunion this year, the entire squad will be honored at today's Coast Guard season-opener against St. Lawrence (1 p.m., Cadet Memorial Field).

Members of the former team will be a part of the coin toss and all members of the team in attendance will be recognized at halftime.

A reception was held Friday night and a dinner is scheduled for tonight, including a welcome by Rear Admiral Sandra Stosz - the academy's superintendent - and a keynote address from former Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen.

Other local members of the team under coach Tom Bell were Dan Kenny and Pete Mingo, also of East Lyme, and Stonington's Rich Schachner.

"It was one of those special times where the chemistry just clicked from the guy wearing jersey No. 1 to jersey No. 99," said Rinoski, who was the Bears' senior captain and quarterback. "It was the right time, the right moment."

"We played for a coach who had us mesmerized, who had us believing in ourselves," Motherway said. "One day he told us to all reach as high as we possibly could. Then we put our arms down. Then he said, 'Reach a little bit higher.' Then again, 'Reach a little bit higher.' It's a really simple lesson, but he knew we had a little bit more."

Rinoski, a captain, is still an active duty member of the Coast Guard, stationed in Norfolk, Va., where he lives with his wife Mary-Claire and their three children. Motherway, a former tight end for the Bears, lives in Chantilly, Va., with his wife Kathie and their three children and is the vice president of corporate development at Alion Science and Technology.

Rinoski hadn't thought of attending Coast Guard until his senior year at East Lyme, either, set to play college baseball. He says now that the academy's principles of trust and teamwork were a perfect fit for a career in athletics.

The Bears, who employed the run-based wishbone offense, were in their third season under Bell in 1988, falling to RPI in the second game of the season to go to 1-1. Coast Guard then won eight straight, knocking off Plymouth, which was 10-0 and winner of 20 straight games.

During the season, the Bears established program records that still stand, including most rushing yards in a game (463 against WPI) and most rushing yards in a season (3,414).

The Bears featured Coast Guard Hall of Famer Jeff Peters, an offensive lineman who was a GTE Academic All-American, and Scott Huerter, who still holds the record with the longest rush in Bears history (97 yards).

This year's Coast Guard players will wear a sticker on their helmets to commemorate the accomplishments of their predecessors.

"I've got goosebumps thinking about it," Motherway said of the weekend. "It's a great group of guys."

"We always talked about, 'We need the edge. We've got to have the edge,'" Rinoski said. "When it came to academy teams, with our size and the fact that we didn't have the same amount of time as other teams, that (Bell) could still create that confidence ... it's a good thing for today's teams to see that it can be done. There is success that can come from hard work and dedication."

v.fulkerson@theday.com

Twitter: @vickieattheday