A special dedication for a dedicated coach

GUILFORD — The relationship between player and coach at its best is a lifelong bond between teammates with a shared passion forged through long hours of pursuing excellence together.

Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom

DAVE GAW DIAMOND — Field namesake Dave Gaw takes a look at the sign for the newly-named Dave Gaw Diamond in Guilford, unveiled during a surprise ceremony as part of the Bicentennial Piscataquis River Festival on July 30. Gaw coached the baseball team at Piscataquis Community School for over two decades, compiling a record of 309-119 with no losing seasons and leading the Pirates to several Penquis League championships. The effort to name the baseball field in Gaw’s honor was led by Andy Lovell, standing to the right of the sign, a former player of Gaw’s.

If that excellence is reflected statistically, it doesn’t hurt, but the endurance of such a relationship usually stems from the heart and sweat poured into a mutual goal.

So it was no surprise Saturday morning when many former Piscataquis Community High School baseball players from the mid-1960s through the late-1980s gathered to witness the naming of the field on which they learned the sport as Dave Gaw Diamond during a ceremony held in conjunction with the town’s annual Piscataquis River Festival.

PCHS baseball alumni came from around the state and as far away as Virginia to join with family, friends, community members and local politicians to honor Gaw, whose teams compiled a 309-119 record during 23 years as the Pirates’ head coach from 1965 through 1987.

“Many lessons have been learned on this field – winning, losing, honest competition, how to never quit and how to keep on trying,” said Guilford town manager Tom Goulette.

“(Gaw) did have a scowl, a gritted-teeth growl, and a heart for his players,” he added. “He earned the admiration of everyone who ever played for and learned from him.”

A sign recognizing Gaw already had been erected at the field but had been kept under cover in recent weeks, and his friends and family did a good job keeping the secret.

“I’d seen it up there for a month,” said Gaw, who had come to the ballfield Saturday to watch his grandkids take part in the town’s bicentennial parade. “I really didn’t know what it was. I had an inkling, I will say that, but I found out when they pulled the (cover) off.

“Obviously I’m overwhelmed, happy, surprised.”

The sign was finally unveiled by Andy and Terry Lovell, owners of the Guilford Hardware store located just across Route 15 from the field.

It was Andy Lovell’s idea to honor Gaw, particularly after he bought the store a decade ago and began to look out every day at the field where he was a batboy for the former coach during his grammar-school days and then played for the Pirates as a freshman at PCHS in 1973 and as a senior in 1976.

“I always had a special bond with him,” said Lovell. “My dad died at a young age and (Gaw) kind of was my ‘dad’ to a certain degree. In an athletic sense he mentored me, and this was something I really felt strong about.”

Lovell also was motivated by similar honors bestowed upon other former coaches in the area.

“Ever since I bought the store I’ve wanted to do this,” said Lovell. “With owning the hardware store I do a lot of deliveries and I’d go to Dexter and see Ted Clark Field or to Greenville and see Loren Ritchie Field. The straw that broke the camel’s back was after Ed Guiski passed away a couple of years ago I went to a basketball preliminary playoff game in Dexter this winter and when they announced the players they said, ‘Welcome to Guiski Gymnasium.’

“I said, ‘OK, we’re going to try to make this happen in Guilford, too.’”

Lovell sent a letter to each selectman and followed that up with personal visits to explain his mission, and at the next selectmen’s meeting the vote was unanimous to re-name the town-owned field along the bank of the Piscataquis River.

Gaw, now 75, played baseball, basketball and football at Boothbay Region High School before moving on to the University of Maine where he played baseball under coach Jack Butterfield and was a team captain as a senior in 1963.

“I played first base and some in the outfield,” he said, “and I pitched for one inning.”

After graduating from UMaine, Gaw came to Guilford for the most logical of reasons.

“I got a job here,” he said.

Gaw had no long-term plan to stay in the area as a physical education teacher and coach, but he quickly grew fond of the area and its people and he and his wife Freda have never left.

“When I first came up here I coached JV basketball and baseball,” he said. “I coached the JVs for at least two years and I coached varsity (basketball) for six years, and then I became (athletic director) after I gave up the basketball job.”

But it was on the baseball diamond now bearing his name where Gaw and his teams were the talk of the town.

“In my era, basketball was nothing compared to baseball here,” said Lovell. “Everybody played baseball during the summer, all summer. We didn’t play basketball until the fall of the year.”

PCHS was a perennial contender for Penquis League honors during Gaw’s tenure, winning several titles thanks in part to an aggressive coaching philosophy that stressed such fundamentals as base stealing and the hit-and-run.

“And doing your best,” said Gaw. “If you do that things have a way of working out.”

Gaw also had the chance to coach his sons, Brian – the current PCHS athletic director – and Allen.

“I was lucky, they were both pretty good and they worked hard, and that made it a lot easier,” he said. “There was never any doubt in my mind that I was playing them when I should have been playing them.”

Gaw’s compassion for his players transcended familial lines, whether it was buying lunch after a road game for a player who couldn’t afford it or supporting them in other ways.

“If he could do something to help a kid, he would,” said Lovell. “There was one guy who came to me this morning and told me as a kid he didn’t have the money to buy a glove so he used an opposite-hand glove. He’d catch the ball and then take the glove off and throw and then put the glove back on.

“He told me that in his freshman year coach Gaw went to a store and bought him two gloves and gave them to him. What’s that tell you?”

Gaw also was active with the local youth baseball program and instrumental in bringing an American Legion baseball team to Piscataquis County.

“He’s a winner,” said Lovell. “He’d pick you up when you fell, he’d pat you on the back when you were successful. He was a great coach, absolutely a great coach.”

Gaw retired from education in 1993, and his primary baseball interests now are the New York Yankees – an allegiance that reportedly began after he lost a 25-cent bet some 40 years ago – and oldest grandson Brady, an 8-year-old making his way through the Farm League ranks.

“He’s a pretty good hitter,” said Gaw.