Last MHS Baseball Season for Mike Nestor

Former Mustang Coached for Thirteen Seasons

– Allison Goldsberry

Assistant Medford High School baseball coach Mike Nestor is hanging up his Mustang cleats after thirteen seasons and twelve years as a coach.

Nestor is excited to spend more time with his family, especially coaching his three boys, Mikey, 8, Shawn, 7, and Logan, 2, who currently play Little League for the Braves.

Despite the increased family time the decision to step down was not an easy one.

“It was extremely tough to retire this year!” Said Coach Nestor.

Nestor said he was actually thinking about it last year but he considered the class of 2010 special and he wanted to to “see them finish developing into the excellent young men they turned out to be.”

“The captains this year were by far the best group of captains a coach could ask for. They all had their own way of doing things as far as hustling, working hard, being a leader when needed to be,” said Nestor, referring to captains Danny Gunn, Kyle Heath, and Greg Wilson.

The 1995 vocational school graduate began coaching because he felt he had something to offer to the players. Nestor also maintained a close relationship with long-time MHS baseball coach Paul Mattatall, who hired Nestor as his assistant in 1997 after coaching him as a member of the Mustang baseball team.

“I also got into coaching because of the coaching that I had all the way from Little League through high school [because] each taught me something and I wanted to pass it on,” said Nestor, a former Greater Boston League All-Star catcher.

Mattatall said he had a very close relationship with Nestor and that he knew someday he would want to take him on as a coach.

“He showed he had an unbelievable knowledge and interest in the intricacies of the game…I knew he would be great coaching material…He could teach the catching position like no one else,” said Mattatall.

As a player Mattatall said Nestor was a hard-working and talented catcher who was not afraid to speak up. He was selected as a GBL All-Star catcher with Peabody’s Steve Lomasney, who went on to have a brief career with the Boston Red Sox.

Mattatall and Nestor coached together for ten years, and Mattatall said they got to the point where they could almost read each other’s minds, with some even asking if they “shared a brain.”

There were many memorable moments over the course of Nestor’s coaching career, and several of them involve current head coach Nick Tucci, who Nestor coached over a decade ago. There was the trip to Cooperstown with Arlington High during Tucci’s freshman year in 1998, the home victory over Lowell in the state tournament in 2000 when Tucci was a junior captain.

Nestor also enjoyed seeing the kids he coached grow up to be “outstanding” men, including Tucci, who he said wasn’t always easy to coach!

“Coaching Nick wasn’t always the easiest. His attitude and work ethic sometimes wore me out!” Said Nestor.

However, it was Nestor’s work ethic that made an impression on Tucci, who was coached by Nestor for four years.

“He has had a tireless work ethic that has amazed me for some time now. I will always remember him as my coach, not my colleague. I even had a very hard time calling him by his first name for some time because I respected him as a coach for all my years as a player. He was always ‘Coach Nestor’ to me,” said Tucci, who took over from Mattatall as head Medford High baseball coach in 2008.

Tucci, who captained the 2000 and 2001 seasons, recalls Nestor waking up early to hit grounders to him and other dedicated baseball players two hours before batting practice began at 9:00AM. Nestor also dangled the promise of a chicken parmesan sub if Tucci hit a homerun off of him in batting practice.

“He always paid off his bets, and I always wondered why he would sometime groove them to me right over the plate so that I could hit it out of the park. Looking back, it was probably so that he could sit down and bond with one of his players at Amici’s Restaurant because he cared so much about you as a person,” said Tucci.

Tucci has coached alongside Nestor for three seasons but still thinks of him as a coach, and he continues to learn from him.

“He was tough on me and continues to be tough on me to this day. He pushed me and countless other Medford High School baseball players over his 13 years to get the best out of their abilities. Despite the fact that I now call Mike Nestor my colleague and friend, I will always think of him in my mind as ‘Coach Nestor.’ I hope that one day when his sons are playing on the Medford High School baseball team he will rejoin me like the good old days,” said Tucci.

Nestor said he owes thanks to his friends and family for their support throughout the years, including Tucci, Mattatall, Athletic Director Bob Maloney, his father, Kenneth, former MHS baseball coaches Mark Smith and Dave Polcari, and Little League coaches Frank Deluca and Lonnie Hilson.

Nestor has been a Medford DPW employee for nine years and is currently acting Foreman for all the city’s parks and playgrounds.

“It brings me great pride to maintain the fields that I have once played on and that Mustangs are currently playing on,” said Nestor.

Photos: Top left: Nestor’s fiancee, Erin McNamara, and children Mikey, Logan, and Shawn. Top right: Nestor with Bill Monbouquette, Coach Tucci, and senior captain Ben Waldrip during the 2008 baseball banquet.