Baseball Notes: Souhegan to honor Dod, longtime coach, AD

Say the name Bill Dod at an athletic event anywhere in New Hampshire and two words will be spoken immediately. Dod is synonymous with baseball and family.

Saturday afternoon at Souhegan High School in Amherst, both will be celebrated as the legendary coach and athletic director has the school’s baseball field renamed in his honor: Bill Dod Family Field.

“I’m very honored by the whole situation,” Dod said of the ceremony that is scheduled for around 12:15 p.m. during a break in a Sabers doubleheader with Bedford (10 a.m.) and Portsmouth (2 p.m.). “I honestly never expected this. I’m very happy, very pleased that when the committee made this decision they went that extra level and are honoring my family just as much as they are me.”

Anybody who’s attended a Dod coached game since he began his 50-year career at Sanborn Regional High School in Kingston back in the early 1960s until his final game at Souhegan, knows his family – wife Sandy, daughters Betsy and Kerry, and granddaughters Alyssa and Cloe Gangemi – were a part of the team.

“They’ve supported me in all I’ve done,” the 74-year-old Dod said. “My wife has always been there, working the scorebook, taking pictures, holding me in check when I’d start getting heated. She’s been on this journey with me from Day 1.

“My oldest daughter, Betsy, was the first female baseball manager at the all-boys Bishop Guertin High School and continued doing it in college. My younger daughter, Kerry, was the baseball manager at Merrimack High School. This sport has really brought my family closer together.”

That includes his extended family which is scattered far and wide across the Granite State – highlighted by three scheduled guest speakers at the field dedication ceremony: Mike Beliveau, who has been a varsity baseball assistant at Souhegan for 29 years as well as coaching the Sabers football team during Dod’s time as AD at Souhegan; legendary Alvirne High School baseball coach Mike Lee; and longtime Portsmouth High School baseball coach Tim Hopley.

“I think it’s the perfect name for a field, especially the one that Souhegan High School baseball players will compete on for eternity,” Beliveau said. “It really is fitting. Baseball has been a Dod family affair his entire career. Home or road games Sandy or his daughters and granddaughters have been by his side. This is a special moment for anyone Bill has touched – fellow coaches, administrators, players, teachers, umpires.”

That’s a long list of individuals spanning 50 years of service to multiple communities.

Dod began coaching as a 21-year-old at Sanborn and built his legacy with stops at Bishop Guertin, Milford Area Senior High School and Souhegan High School. He’s the winningest baseball coach in state history with 549 victories, including 43 tournament appearances and state championships at Bishop Guertin in 1982 and 1988, and with Souhegan in 2003 and 2016.

Clippers head coach Tim Hopley has a 14-year relationship with Dod that has grown from a mutual respect as coaches to close friends. It’s not a coincidence that his team was scheduled to participate in Saturday’s event.

“I am personally honored, and we as a program are honored to be a part of this special day to honor a very special individual,” Hopley said. “I was a high school senior at Portsmouth playing against Bill’s team at BG, and even then as an opposing player you had nothing but respect for this man.

“That respect and admiration has only gotten stronger in my years as a coach. Bill was one of the first to reach out to me and offer any assistance when our program dropped from Division I to II. He’s had a profound influence on how I prepare as a coach – from scouting to in-game managing – and has become an even bigger influence on my life.”

These are the stories Souhegan Athletic Director Kelli Braley hears non-stop about Bill Dod. In fact, she has a similar story of her own.

“When I was named AD, he was one of the first people to contact me,” Braley said. “He told me if there was ever anything I needed or that he could do to help, all I need to do is give him a call.

“That’s just who he is as a person. It means a lot. The impact he’s had on the school, the athletic program, the teams, players and all the coaches that came after him is too large to put into words. He’s an absolute legend. Not just in the baseball community.”

On the diamond, Dod, whose teams received the NHIAA sportsmanship award multiple times, was named coach of the year numerous times. The D2 Coach of the Year award is now named in his honor.

“I’ve been blessed,” said Dod, who was inducted into the New Hampshire Baseball Hall of Fame and the NHIAA Hall of Fame in 2005. “I don’t really know if there’s a better way to describe all that I’ve been a part of for all these years. I’ve been blessed.”

Hopley believes it’s those around Dod for 50-plus years who have been blessed. They talk via call or text message at least twice a week. They communicate on holidays. Dod was a special guest at Hopley’s wedding and stole the show among other guests with his years of baseball stories.

According to Hopley, Saturday’s ceremony is long overdue in honoring a man and his family that mean so much to baseball and New Hampshire.

“Whenever you hear the name Dod you hear nothing but positive stories and experiences,” Hopley said. “You‘ll hear about a love of baseball and of family. Doesn’t that speak to the kind of person he is? That’s Bill Dod.”

Eye-Opener

Bill Dod was a fiery 21 year old when he started at Sanborn Regional. He jokes that all the positive talk he hears now wasn’t the case back in the day.

“I don’t think all the umpires liked me much as a younger coach,” Dod said. “I was coaching like I was in the major leagues or something.”

That all changed in the summers of 1970 and 1971 when Dod saw how the other half lives. The fiery coach was all of a sudden feeling the heat from coaches, players and fans as an umpire in the Massachusetts-based Merrimack Valley League for college-aged players.

“It was a combination of umpiring those summer league games and becoming the athletic director at BG in the mid-70s that really opened my eyes to how I was acting as a coach,” he said. “It definitely made me re-evaluate how I coached. As AD, I couldn’t have talks with other coaches about properly representing the school and community if I was acting a certain way. It really forced me to approach things differently.”

Diamond Gems

Here’s a look at some recent standout performances from around the state:

• Salem’s Adan Ayala had a heck of a week. Ayala went 3 for 4, scored twice and knocked in a pair of runs in a 6-5 win over Timberlane on May 17. He followed that effort up with three more hits and a couple runs scored in the Blue Devils’ 6-3 10-inning win over those same Owls on May 19.
• Bedford’s Zach Fletcher (3 for 3, double, stolen base, two RBIs) earned the win on the mound in a 7-5 victory over Keene on May 17. Fletcher struck out nine and allowed only one earned run over six innings.
• Austin Hazzard allowed one hit, walked one and struck out seven in John Stark’s 2-1 win over Bow on May 17. Hazzard helped his own cause at the plate with a double and run scored.
• Souhegan’s Will Jacques hit a two-run home run and tossed two innings of relief with three strikeouts to help Souhegan defeat Pelham 10-5 on May 17.
• Windham’s Westin Lippold struck out 12 and scattered four hits in a 9-0 complete-game win over Exeter on May 17. He also paced Windham’s offense (3 for 4, two RBIs, two runs) in an 8-0 win over Exeter on May 19.
• Milford’s Damian Philbrick recorded a no-hitter in his first start of the season as the Spartans beat ConVal 9-0 on May 17. His two hit batters were the difference between a no-no and a perfect game.
• Pinkerton’s Tom Rioux (4 for 4, two runs, four RBIs) paced the Astros in a 12-2 win over Goffstown.
• Ben Williams went 5 for 5, including a pair of triples and two doubles, and drove in seven runs to power Hanover past Newport 25-1 on May 17.
• Quinn Connors (3 for 3, double, three RBIs) led Hollis Brookline’s offense in an 8-0 win over Milford on May 18.
• Catcher Ben Flanders (3 for 5, run scored) led Merrimack in a 9-4 win over Keene on May 18.
• Nashua South edged Manchester Memorial 14-13 on May 18. The Panthers were led by Jeff Lugo (three hits, three RBIs, stolen base, two runs) and River Hart (three hits, two triples, stolen base, five RBIs).
• Brandon Fish went 3 for 3 with a home run and two stolen bases to propel Londonderry past Alvirne 5-1 on May 19.
• Timberlane’s Zach Gleason struck out eight and allowed no base runners in four innings of scoreless relief in a 6-3 10-inning loss to Salem on May 19.
• Londonderry’s Owen MacDonnell struck out 11, scattered five hits and allowed no earned runs over six innings as the Lancers beat Alvirne 5-1 on May 19.

To report standout diamond performances, or offer ideas for the baseball notebook, send an email to scioneg@gmail.com.