It was the middle of Friday’s game with Bow and the Souhegan High School baseball team had relaxed somewhat after jumping to an early lead that was now 5-3 at William Dod Field.

Before the start of the bottom half of the inning, the players gathered for a bit of a conference with the coaching staff. The huddle was called not by head coach Chris Metz, but rather bench coach and longtime Saber assistant Mike Beliveau.

“I’ve got to pick and choose,” Beliveau said. “I’m not the head coach. I respect all the head coaches we’ve had, coach (Bill) Dod, coach Tom Walker, and now Coach Metz. All great baseball men. They’re great because they do let their assistant coaches collaborate and contribute. Just then Coach Metz stepped back, and he knew it was time for Coach B to crank on them a little. And my point was the pitcher isn’t certainly overpowering, why are we swinging at bad pitches? Let’s go.”

And they did, en route to a 7-3 victory over a good Falcons team on a special day for Beliveau, who was honored for his 30 years of service to the school and its vaunted baseball program after the game. Beliveau, best known for his days as the one-time, longtime Sabers head football coach, was the right hand man on the baseball staff to Dod, Walker, and now Chris Metz. He returned to football a few years ago as his former player Robin Bowkett’s assistant, and went out on top with the 2020 Division II title and stopped coaching that sport. And now, after this season ends, it’s baseball’s turn.

He’s enjoyed the good life, heading up north to his home and down south. Time to do it year round.

“This is a special school,” Beliveau said. “A lot of people thought we were an experiment, too touchy-feely. What’s kept me around here are these students, the men and women. There are a lot of outstanding kids coming out of this school.”

And a lot of them were on hand on Friday to help pay tribute to their former coach, as were other coaches and friends, and his look-alike, sound-alike brother Johnny. And, of course, Dod, his good friend and the man who saw in Beliveau decades ago what we see today. One tough, competitive guy who eventually was ready to handle all the duties of a head coach.

But in baseball, Beliveau was content to be Dod’s right hand man. They are good friends and they worked together. Dod didn’t want “yes men” on his staff, and Beliveau would always have ideas the head coach may not have always agreed with but found super useful.

Longtime Souhegan assistant baseball coach Mike Beliveau tries to rally the Sabers during Friday’s win over Bow. Beliveau is saying farewell to coaching after 30 years at the end of the season. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

“I didn’t want to always hear what I was doing was the right thing,” Dod said. “And he was always thinking of things. … He’s not the type of person that if I didn’t accept his idea he wouldn’t come back. I didn’t have to use his idea or use his strategy, and he would constantly feed me suggestions.

“We were big into practice, setting up a practice so everybody knew what every minute was going to look like. He loved it.”

But the big thing: Dod had a guy on his staff that had he trusted. And that’s why when Chris Metz interviewed for the Saber head job in the fall, he made it clear that if he were hired, he wanted Beliveau on his staff. He noticed the fiery Saber assistant when Metz’s Division III Campbell Cougars last year played the Division II Sabers twice thanks to the pandemic-related cluster scheduling.

“That was the first thing I wanted,” Metz said. “You can see how much the boys love him. I gotta have that on my staff. I called him after I got the job and said, ‘I need you.'”

“He just loves kids,” said Dod, who first knew Beliveau when he was a JV coach at Milford and Dod was the AD. “He loves the interaction. He loves bringing kids from the hallway onto the athletic field.”

You wonder in these days when good, qualified coaches seem at times to be in short supply, how many more Mike Beliveaus we’ll see. This is a guy you want coaching your kid, people.

“I came up here at age 25 a boy from Massachusetts,” Beliveau said. “I’m leaving a better man because, honestly, all the relationships from the head coaches, like Bill Dod, a legend, and the parents who have been wonderfully supportive of me, and most important, the players.”

This was Souhegan’s last regular season home game, thus it was the perfect time on a perfect late afternoon to celebrate Beliveau’s career. The 12-4 Sabers will likely have another home game, maybe two in the Division II tournament, and they’re certainly good enough to be there on championship Saturday at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium.

“Here comes the competitive guy,” Believeau said. “I thought we were good enough to win it at Fisher Cats Stadium, and I still do.”

It happened with football, right? It would be a perfect way for Mike Believeau to say farewell, the ultimate win.

When he soon leaves the diamond for good, we all lose. But heck, Souhegan, you’ve certainly won already having Mike Beliveau coach your kids.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on twitter @Telegraph _TomK.