Then-Nashua South assistant track coach Bill Stumpf watches the pole vault competition during the recent NH Decathlon-Heptathlon at the Fran Tate Track, the final event of his long coaching career. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – The time had come. It wasn’t easy when Bill Stumpf, a Nashua Athletics Hall of Famer, had to inform his fellow Nashua High School South track and field coaches last month that his time spending winter and spring with them was ending.

“It’s good,” Stumpf, 73, said. “I’ve spent a lot of time doing this, over 40 years, doing track and field and football. It’s been a huge part of my life. But at the same time, I think I’m ready to – I’ve strugged with my health recently, and more so than before, and I feel like I want to spend more time with my wife. My best friend – my wife Janet.”

And thus the ‘R’ Word was the answer. Stumpf gave up football as an assistant when the The Split occurred some 23 years ago. Health issues were cropping up and they’ve continued, causing him to take an almost five-year break from coaching track at South over a decade ago until Panthers head man Doug Booth coaxed him back seven years ago.

He’s taking medication that has worn him down physically, he’s suffered a couple of falls while coaching, and Stumpf just realized that those signs were pointing him in the direction that it was time.

But he’s glad Booth called him a few years ago to take him out of his coaching sabatical.

“It didn’t take much for him to say that ‘We’d love to have you back’,” Stumpf said. “I didn’t know Doug but it didn’t take long for me to get to love and care about him immediately.

“He’s been great to me, totally understanding every time I’ve gotten sick. I had COVID three times.”

It’s funny, Stumpf always considered himself a football guy, playing at Nashua and Plymouth State. But he competed in track at both schools, and a guy he considered his second father was late legendary Nashua track coach Fran Tate.

Tate said to Stumpf as an athlete and then when he considered doing it, “You should keep doing it.”

He said to Tate he might turn into another Buzz Harvey, the legendary football coach and Nashua AD. Tate, Stumpf said, would always tell him, “You will never be a Buzz Harvey. You may be another Fran Tate, but you’ll never be another Buzz Harvey.”

Stumpf laughed when recalling that. “Fran was such a kind, easygoing guy,” Stumpf said. “He used to come here all the time. He would call me on the phone, my guys would come over to his car. He had a little buggy in the back of the car. They would take the buggy out, and he’d get in it, and he’d come watch practice or a meet. He’d watch everything.”

Stumpf remembers going to see Tate at a rehab center in Manchester when it was known he was about to pass. It turned out he did shortly after the visit. But he’s a big part of the now former Nashua assistant’s memories.

“He taught me just be kind and have patience with kids,” Stumpf said. “And accept kids, no matter what their abilities were. Coach them up. That was his thing. Coach them up. He knew everybody’s times and distances and everything else.

“He knew when somebody ran that that was their best run or they needed to run faster. When somebody jumped 17 feet, he’d say ‘That’s his best by two feet.’ Just a kind, easygoing guy.”

Stumpf competed for Tate in Tate’s final season, 1971. Oh man, he would crack me up. He’d have his pipe, smoking away He’d be ‘Now, now, Billy, go do this.'”

Stumpf had enjoyed being an assistant, no head coach headaches. He’s worked with a lot of top talent. But for him, what ‘s the biggest success story for anyone who did something they couldn’t do before they were being coached by him?

“There’s a few kids,” he said. “I always had kids who either were on the spectrum of autism, or an intellectual disability, that I’d include.

“But I’d have to say one of the biggest success storie is Lauren Gaudette. She’s coached with me, she ran the discus circle. People were coming up to me and said, ‘Wow,she’s done a great job.’ It’s funny, she’s great at imitating. And sometimes I look at her and the things she’d say is how I’d say it.”

Stumpf not only worked with Gaudette as both being coaches – she’s been a football, basketball and track assistant at various schools including Nashua South but was also the Manchester Memorial head girls varsity basketball coach.

But he also coached her as a Nashua athlete as a javelin thrower, discus and shot putter, as she overcame spina bifida to compete. And coach.

“It was super satisfaction,” Stumpf said. “You go from (Olympian) Laura Gerraghty to her and everybody between, and I enjoyed every single one of them.”

And as one former South athlete, among many, who posted on social media said, “The throwers in Nashua have no idea the caliber of coach and mentor they were fortunate enough to have.”

He’s going to miss the athletes – and those he molded into athletes – for certain.

“The kids,” Stumpf said. “I always said to Dough, ‘We have the greatest kids.’ How do we have the greatest kids? We just open the door for them.”

Stumpf has always loved the support the track athletes give each other. “Everybody always knows what somebody’s ‘PR’ (personal record) is,” he said. “You know what I mean? It’s wonderful.”

Bill Stumpf was given the perfect retirement gift by the Nashua South track coaching staff. (Courtesy photo)

After the Decathlon/Heptathlon ended, the reality was going to hit Stumpf that a chapter in his life was closing. What was he going to do to fill the time?

He also coached indoor, so in early December, the first day of practice will come. How will he feel?

“I think it’s going to be sad a little bit for me,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s going to be OK. I can adjust to things.

“I’ll probably go with some of my friends and my wife and go to a gym, I kind of like doing that stuff. So that’s what I’ll do.”

That’s the cold weather. What’s something Stumpf hasn’t been able to do that he absolutely will do in the spring with his free time?

“I’m going to go fishing more,” he said. “I’ve said my wife is my best friend, and she goes with me. I’ve got a little pontoon boat now with a little electric motor, and I can go anywhere I want now. And I take my grandsons, I’ve taught my grandsons.”

He even goes on the Nashua River and other bodies of water. So when the gun sounds for a race at the Fran Tate track, Bill Stumpf will probably hear it, and smile.