Coffey Post Senior Legion manager Tim Lunn cheers up an injured Dylan Morelli during a recent game vs. Exeter at Holman Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – Tim Lunn sat on his stool calmly by the home dugout at Holman Stadium, and his words to pitcher Travis LaFontaine were calm and brief from afar.

“No more freebies,” the James E. Coffey Post #3 field manager said after LaFontaine issued a leadoff walk in the top of the seventh vs. Exeter in a late regular season contest.

There was no mound visit, and none was needed. LaFontaine got the message and Coffey escaped with the win. After the game, the first of a doubleheader, Lunn gathered his players in the dugout and noted that it was good to win, but things needed to be shored up with the post season approaching.

Either way, you get the idea: Lunn isn’t just a baseball manager/strategist, he’s a teacher of the game. And that teaching is ongoing.

“Every player needs to be taught,” Lunn, a former Cardinal infielder, said. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re a college kid or a freshman in high school, or even an eighth grader. There’s always things you can learn. And even myself, I’m still learning.

“Part of the reason I do it is so I can pass on that knowledge to these guys so they can learn how play the game at a higher level or better level. And, you know, give them coaching that I wish I had when I was playing. That’s why I do it the way I do.”

His Coffey Post Senior team, with already two wins in this weekend’s State Tournament at Holman Stadium, is the defending state champion and was one win away from heading to the American Legion World Series last August. Nashua incredibly fought its way out of the losers bracket in the Northeast Regionals before falling to Maine in the finals in Worcester, Mass. Lunn will admit that even that feat surprised him with regard to his team, because in its first Regionals trip under Lunn back in 2019 Nashua was ousted in two games. Last year’s run was the closest Nashua had come to a Regional title since 1991.

Either way, it’s pretty clear there would be no Nashua Legion program were it not for Lunn, who took it over nearly a decade ago from then-manager Kevin Palanski.

“It really just came to I just wanted to get into coaching,” Lunn said. “I started helping out with Kevin Palanski when my brother was still on the team. When Kevin decided that he had enough, obviously it was an opportunity to run my own program and kind of get some experience that way.”

Back then, Nashua was fading, and needed some strong direction. Lunn was (and still is) a teacher at Bishop Guertin and also an assistant BG baseball coach (but now an assistant at Keene State) and was in good position to know and recruit the local talent.

“At the same time, I didn’t want to just run a recreation program,” Lunn said. “I wanted to make sure it was competitive and put out a good product. And I think we’ve achieved that in the last handful of years, based off not only the results on the field but the success a lot of our players have had when they go on to the next level.”

“He’s a great coach,” said former Nashua Legion standout Derek Finlay, who is considering Keene State as his next school after he recovers from a torn ACL suffered with the Silver Knights. “He built it up from the start. We got a state championship, it took a while, but he built it up from nothing and keeps it going.”

How hard is it to do just that? Lunn had to basically run things under what was basically a makeshift Legion post when Coffey Post was having business, etc. difficulties for a few years before getting back into the baseball sponsorship game a couple of years ago. And, as he said, “Coffey being supportive is huge.”

When Legion baseball was on hiatus in 2020 thanks to the pandemic, Lunn spearheaded the effort to organize a COVID League that was basically a Senior Legion equivalent.

“It’s a lot of work,” Lunn said. “It’s a lot of work behind the scenes and outside of the view of everyone else. Everyone sees the product on the field but they don’t understand all the work that goes in in the winter, the spring, trying to figure out the schedule and everything logistically.”

Clearly, Lunn is into it, and into the idea of keeping the Legion program viable. This area had at one point Senior teams in Milford, Merrimack, Hudson as well as Nashua. Now only Nashua remains, and Lunn can reap the benefits drawing from the general area. That’s why, maybe a week after last year’s Regionals, he had his first tryout for the 2024 season.

“We’ve done that the last 10 years because we want to make sure the good players in Nashua stay playing in Nashua,” he said. “And stay playing together. We’ve had a really good group; this group of college kids and seniors, they’ve stayed together. And we need some of those younger guys to continue to do that if the program is going to continue to be successful.”

Lunn continues to teach at Bishop Guertin but a few years ago left the high school coaching world to become an assistant at Keene State. He’d love to be a college head coach someday, but he’s patient.

“Someday,” he said. “For me, I’m not one about chasing things. I coached at BG for nine or 10 years, I’ve coached this program for 10 years, and at Keene State I’m going into my fourth year.

“If the opportunity presents itself, the right opportunity presents itself, obviously it’d be something I’d entertain. But I’m happy with what I’m doing and I’m a loyal person so I want to see these things through.”

Ironically, Lunn never played in college, with the exception of some club games at the University of New Hampshire.

But he enjoys the college game.

“It’s faster, every player’s good,” he said. “Doesn’t matter what college you’re at, doesn’t matter where you came from, what school you’re playing, it’s good baseball. I think that competitiveness and the energy in every single game, to me, has been awesome.

“And to me, it’s the relationship you get to build with those guys, not just the recruiting process and talking to guys from all over the region and even all over the country. And working with those guys and seeing them grow as players and as people, at that level, has been really, really cool. It’s been awesome.

“It’s not just two-and-a-half months. It’s a year round thing. That I think is the good part.”

Meanwhile, now the push comes to try to keep Legion ball, which suffers from losing players to AAU programs, etc. alive. Lunn usually puts together besides the District B schedule a slate of weekend tournaments, normally out of state, etc. Anything to keep players engaged.

“I don’t think there’s really any cut and dry answer,” he said. “Really I think it just comes down to Legion baseball, in the state in particular, and even across the country, just taking a long look at what we need to do to be relevant.”

And there are other factors.

“Taking a look at the college level, maybe a change,” he said. “Will local baseball become more favorable for families from a cost standpoint when a lot of universities and a lot of colleges are spending time looking at kids who are willing to transfer, things like that. So rather than spending thousands of dollars (on outside programs) and travelling across the country, maybe take a look at a little more of a local flavor and what we’re able to provide.”

But he feels in New Hampshire, there are some things that need to be addressed.

“There are some conversations that need to be had to try to make things better across the board,” he said.

Meanwhile, the conversations Lunn has with his players make playing for him a valuable experience.

“Awesome,” Finlay said. “Just a really good coach, lets you play, be the guy that you are, enjoyable. He’ll let you be out there, until you mess up, takes you in and points it out.”

That’s because for Tim Lunn, the game of baseball is one big teaching moment.