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King: There’ll never be another coach like Alvirne’s Lee

By Tom King - Staff Writer | Jun 6, 2020

Mike Lee.

Ahhh, just bring up the name of the longtime Alvirne High School baseball coach who retired this past week, and you won’t have any shortage of opinions.

You might say no one was a more polarizing figure among New Hampshire head coaches. You either loved him, or, well, let’s just say really, really, really hated to lose to him.

And, truth be told, until perhaps the last decade or so , sports scribes didn’t often enjoy covering an Alvirne game, because it could take an eternity with all the mound visits, pitching changes, etc. We had deadlines, you know. Those marathons of “Time out, ump” seemed to diminish over the years, but you planned on three hours for a seven-inning Alvirne game just in case.

But Lee was as a coach always innovative, and loves the game of baseball because it’s a game with so many intricate details. And his teams did whatever they could do to compete and win. They didn’t always do the latter, but opposing coaches knew they had to be on their toes. If they or their players relaxed, well, they paid for it.

Just ask Nashua High School South coach James Gaj, who a couple years ago had a team that was battling for a tourney spot against a four-win Broncos team in late May. The Panthers blew a 5-0 lead as the Broncos hit-and-ran their way to six runs in the last two innings for a walk-off win.

“You know, you’ve got to play seven innings,” South coach James Gaj said. “You can’t play four, you can’t play five, you’ve got to play seven. … We got complacent after the first two innings, and because we got complacent we let these guys back into it. There’s no days off in Division I. You can’t let teams hang around.”

He may as well have said “You can’t let a Mike Lee team hang around.” Because really, that was what he meant.

You know the MLB shifts that teams are using? Heck, Lee was doing that way back when.

Remember, he coached four years under the tutelage of the master, Bill Dod, at Bishop Guertin. Lee coached the freshmen but when he was able soaked up the Dod Squad theories like a sponge.

“He knew what every (opposing) kid could do,” Lee said. “You look for any edge you can get that can help you during the course of a game. Before you started seeing it at the Major League level, we started moving guys three across in the infield, doing some crazy things.

“People would wonder, ‘What the heck is Lee doing?’ I’m just looking at the scouting report and what this kid (at the plate) has done and he pulls everything constantly. I want him to do something different and get out of his comfort zone. If he gets a bloop single to right field, I’ll take that instead of him hitting to his strengths. Of course it’s going to hurt us occasionally when we pull stuff like that, but it gives the kids more information. And that’s going to help them play the game. You see it all the time now, guys wear wristbands and have all sorts of information in the high tech era.”

When the Class L or Division I baseball tournament got to the stadium stage, either at Holman in Nashua or Gill in Manchester, if his team wasn’t still playing, or had a game at a different time, there would be Lee, sitting a few rows up behind home plate, with a binder, marking down hitters’ and pitchers’ tendencies. It never failed.

Of course, if a Bronco runner was on first, he wasn’t going to stay there. Not a chance. Even if Alvirne was up by a bunch, Lee would have his team scratch and claw to go up by a bigger bunch. Because he knew that in high school baseball, virtually no lead was safe. He’d been the victim of 10-run comebacks and probably had a few for his own team.

Of course, opposing coaches would grind their teeth. There probably weren’t too many in Division I that were all that disappointed in hearing they wouldn’t have to go up against a Lee-coached Alvirne team in the future.

“Well, I’m not going to insult the other team by not playing the game, and thinking they’re not good enough and they’re going to lay down and stop playing,” Lee said in his defense. “They’re going to keep playing. I’ve been around long enough to have lost games when we’ve had 10-0 leads.

“This is high school baseball. I know there’s a certain book out there, I get that. But we’re not going to try to bury somebody for the sake of trying to bury somebody. But out of respect for the team we’re playing, actually, we’re going to keep doing what we need to do to compete. We’re not going to insult the other team and say ‘No mas, no mas,’ and stop playing.”

Lee said that sometimes a Bronco might try to run on his own and Lee would put on the brakes. “I can see where a coach might get a little upset, and (he’d say) ‘The kid made a mistake, we didn’t have anything happening.'”

Lee always knew what his teams were up against. Alvirne, while competitive, isn’t a school blessed with some of the athletic talent – or quantity of talent – that some of the other Division I schools have had. Lee tried to make the most out of what he had, and was always pretty realistic about it.

“You’ve seen the number of programs that don’t compete in Division I anymore,” Lee said. “We’re going out there to play the game, but push our kids in practice and during the games to compete. It’s that grit and day-to-day work ethic to compete, and want to compete against the best, because that’s what you’re going to be doing in life. We don’t want to hear ‘That’s not fair.’ You go out and learn how to compete.”

And compete they did. It’s a shame, really, that his Broncos never hoisted the state title trophy. They came close in his sixth season, the Matt Stallings-Kevin Beals-Pat Manor led team that bowed to Portsmouth 2-1 in the Class L finals. The Broncos other two trips to the finals under Lee ended with 9-4 and 11-4 losses to Nashua and Keene, respectively, teams that could just hit the ball a ton. Lee’s teams, with a couple of exceptions, really weren’t offensive juggernauts.

He’s taken great pride in the players he’s coached who have become solid adults with careers as community and school leaders. “The quality,” Lee said, “of the young men they’ve become. That’s what we take great pride in. … Life’s lessons.”

We’re going to miss Mike Lee. The phone conversations were always fun and long when time permitted. We’ve both been doing our gigs for about the same amount of time. His wife Ellen, though, is thrilled, she now has her husband back.

Dod coached his last game two years ago. B.J. Neverett retired from Silver Knights duty last August.

And now Mike Lee has joined them, basically closing the book on a great baseball era for the area.

Tom King may be reached at 594-1251 or tking@nashuatelegraph.com. Also, follow King on Twitter (@Telegraph_TomK).

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