Longtime Harwich, Monomoy Coach Steve Wilson Gets Hall Of Fame Call

For more than 40 years, Steve Wilson dedicated his life to serving the Harwich community as a school psychologist and baseball coach.

Once health issues forced him to step down as Monomoy Regional High School’s baseball coach in 2018, Wilson kept tabs on the local teams but mostly stored away the memories he built during the decades he spent in the Whitehouse Field dugout.

Wilson was “absolutely stunned” to recently learn that he will be inducted into the Massachusetts Baseball Coaches Association’s Hall of Fame in January.

“I’ve had a chance to follow the Monomoy team and I certainly follow the Mariners, but it’s been over and done with and I haven’t been thinking too much about it,” Wilson said. “I’m absolutely thrilled and stunned.”

Wilson was hired by the Harwich school system in 1974 as a school psychologist. It wasn’t long before Harwich High’s assistant principal and baseball coach Fred Ebbett enticed Wilson to join him as a coach. Four years later, Wilson took over the junior varsity program and never left, working with Charlie Horan and Fred Thacher before he was eventually tabbed the varsity coach in 2008.

However, Wilson’s love for baseball wasn’t limited to the confines of Whitehouse Field. In 2022, he was inducted into the Cape Cod Baseball League’s Hall of Fame after serving as the league’s treasurer from 1986 until 2020. Now he joins Ebbett — who is also enshrined in the Cape League Hall after serving as the league’s commissioner for 13 years — and Thacher in the Bay State’s Coaches Hall of Fame.

The three coaches helped turn Harwich baseball into a perennial power, winning state championships in 2006 and 2007 and capturing the South sectional title in 2012. As proud as Wilson is of the on-field accomplishments, he views the attitude, effort and performance his teams had as an even greater achievement.

“We’ve always played with a lot of heart and class on the field and sportsmanship,” Wilson said. “There’s nothing more important. The players have demonstrated a great deal of empathy and compassion in helping each other as teammates. I’ve been very, very fortunate to have a great group of volunteers that helped me over the years. I learned from some of the best, and it’s really been a privilege to teach the students and players how to play baseball the right way.”

The lessons Wilson taught are still being felt today. Monomoy’s current baseball coach Steve Porter, a 2001 Harwich High graduate, reflected on Wilson’s impact in a letter of recommendation he sent the coaches association and shared with The Chronicle.

“He taught me life lessons that I still live by to this day,” Porter wrote. “I learned how to talk to people, not just how to play the game, but how to read the game. Coach taught me how to lose with dignity and win with humility. Most of all, Steve taught all of us how to be gentlemen, how to be good, productive members of our community and how to grow into successful young adults.”

Porter also added that “making sure all his student-athletes understood the responsibilities of being a good teammate, good person, and good citizen within the community” was more important to Wilson than wins and losses.

Wilson will be enshrined into the Coaches Hall of Fame on Jan. 27 at Four Points by Sheraton in Wakefield. He’ll be joined by an elite induction class that includes Kirk Fredericks (Lincoln-Sudbury/Wellesley), Charlie Eppinger (St. John’s Shrewsbury) and John O’Brien (Lynnfield). Tickets for the induction ceremony can be purchased at massbca.com.

As Wilson reflects on his time spent on the diamond in Harwich, he can’t help but think about the relationships he made in the community. From working alongside the Harwich Mariners and their longtime president Mary Henderson and manager Steve Englert, to building bonds with countless families throughout the decades, Wilson is grateful for the opportunity he had to make an impact while serving the community.

“I think what I miss most is the relationships you form with the players, with the fellow coaches, the volunteers and the many, many parents and school people that have worked with me over the years,” he said. “The greatest privilege was to both work in the school as a school psychologist for 40 years and then go out and practice baseball and play baseball on the fields. It was a great honor to work with such a supportive community and to work with both the mental side and the ability side of baseball.”