Legends of Holman inductees from left in the front row, former Bishop Guertin football coach and standout player Tony Johnson, former BG standout baseball coach Bill Dod, and Charlie Mellen III and his dad Charlie Mellen, Jr., family of late longtime Nashua High School baseball coach Charlie Mellen, celebate with members of the Nashua Lions Club following the induction ceremony at Holman Stadium Thursday night. (Courtesy photo)

NASHUA – It was a night fit for Legends.

The Nashua Lions Club inducted former longtime Bishop Guertin football coach and player Tony Johnson, former standout Bishop Guertin coach Bill Dod, as well as late longtime Nashua High baseball coach Charlie Mellen into the Holman Sports Legends Hall of Fame as part of the city’s July 4 celebration Thursday night.

Their names will be added to those inducted on a plaque located near the stadium entrance on the concourse.

Dod and Johnson were surrounded by friends and family, and Mellen was well represented by his family as well. Guertin’s Director of Annual Fund, Alumni Relations and Facilities Pete Paladino was on hand as well, plus Dod’s grandaughters and Mellen’s daughter Martha Flynn and husband Mike, who came up from Florida.

Dod, of course, is the winningest high school baseball coach in New Hampshire history, with 549 victories. He took a team to the NHIAA baseball tournament 43 times, and won titles at Bishop Guertin in 1982 and in 1987, and two at Souhegan in 2003 and 2016. His coaching career began at Sanborn High School, and he coached for 50 years, retiring in 2018. He was also the athletic director at Bishop Guertin for 12 years, then Milford, and then was the original AD at Souhegan when it opened in the mid 1990s. The field at Souhegan is named after him as the Bill Dod Family Field.

Mellen, who passed away this past winter at his home in Bradenton, Fla., guided the one Nashua High to state titles in 1976, 1979, 1991, 1993 and 1994. He was inducted later in ’94 into the Nashua Athletics Hall of Fame after he had retired as the Panthers coach.

His final game as Nashua coach the Panthers entered the tourney with a .500 record and made it all the way through, then upsetting over a heavily favored Concord team.

Johnson, who grew up in Amherst, was an outstanding football player at Bishop Guertin in the late 1970s, but is most remembered lately as the coaching architect of the BG football dynasty of the early 2000s, winning six Division II titles in 10 championship game appearances. He took over a floundering BG program in 1994 and in three years had the Cardinals in the Division II championship game. At one point, his Cardinal teams won six titles in seven years, interrupted only by a late 14-13 loss to Exeter in the 2007 title game.

Johnson’s last couple of titles were won with him also serving as the BG athletic director, However, he resigned from the football job in 2011 to focus on the AD job. But missing coaching, he left Guertin after a year out of the game and was a head coach at Worcester Academy for eight years before a brief stint as football coach/AD at Bishop Brady in Concord. Johnson has returned under the BG umbrella, working as consultant/fundraiser for the schools proposed new athletic complex off of Route 111.

All three are intertwined. Dod coached Johnson in football and track, and coached against Mellen.

“Working with Charlie was always a pleasure, It was just a great relationship that we have,” Dod said. “The history of Nashua athletics and Nashua baseball was great. You wanted to make sure you were ready to play the best when you played Nashua.”

It’s ironic, Dod said he never thought he’d be considered since he wasn’t a Nashua resident. But in the 1980s he was BG baseball.

“I’ve been very fortunate to win a lot of awards,” Dod said. “And this one is special. Special for me because I never expected to get this award.”

Johnson had speed to burn as a back at BG. And when he came to Guertin to coach, he had a burning desire that he’s never lost – to win. And he instilled that culture into BG’s program.

“I felt I could build the program back up,” Johnson said. “It was pretty cool. My focus was I wanted to be the best. I wanted to be the best program in the state of New Hampshire; I knew we could do it because we had good athletes.”

And that’s how Holman Legends are made.