Mike Lozeau, left, observes a game with Bishop Guertin coching legends Ray Oban, center, and Dick Piwowarski early in his BG coaching career. Lozeau joins Guertin sports pioneer Don Laliberte and Nashua High footbal legend Don Grandmaisson as inductees into the Nashua Lions Club Holman Sports Legends Hall of Fame. (Courtesy photo)

NASHUA – Former longtime Bishop Guertin High School baseball coach Mike Lozeau saw Lions Club official Ed Lecius at a local dance recital a couple of weeks ago, and Lecius said, “Congratulations.”

Lozeau, caught off guard, said, “For what?”

That’s when Lecius told him he was going to be among the three newest inductees into the Lions Club’s Holman Stadium Sports Legends Hall of Fame. Lozeau joins fellow Cardinal great Don Laliberte and Nashua High legend Don GrandMaison as this year’s class. The trio will be inducted on July 4 at Holman, just prior to the city’s annual Fireworks Show, their names on a plaque that is just inside the Holman main gate on the concourse. All three are Nashua natives.

Grandmaison was known as one of the fastest running backs in Nashua High history, teamming with the late and now fellow Holman HOF member Carl Tamulevich in the late 1950s, early’60s, known as “Grammy and Tammy.”

Lozeau was BG’s Athlete of the Year in 1970, and began coaching at his alma mater as a football assistant under coaching legend Dick Piwowarski in 1976. He coached football from 1976-1995, was the head track coach from 1977-83, and took over the varsity baseball program after Bill Dod left BG for Milford in 1989. He coached through the 2001 season, then took a leave for two seasons to watch his daughter play softball, and returned from 2003-2006. In 2006, his Cardinals topped defending Nashua South in the Division I (then Class L) tournament and went on to play in the state title game, falling to Manchester Memorial in a heartbreaker, 5-4.

Laliberte was a member of the first graduating class at Bishop Guertin and its first signature athlete, playing basketball, baseball and football, and played in the Cards’ first football win ever, coming against Cardinal Cushing Academy. He was BG’s baseball MVP in 1967 and went on to play football for four years at the University of New Hampshire as a defensive end/linebacker. He was All-Yankee Conference in 1970.

(Material from the Nashua Lions Club/Ed Lecius was used in this report.)