For 2001 Leominster High graduate Keith Beauregard, it’s been quite the baseball journey. Beauregard now lives in Buckeye, Arizona, with his wife Monica and two daughters, Demi (4) and Teddi (2). Beauregard is currently working as the Assistant Minor League Field Coordinator for the Los Angeles Dodgers. During the previous two baseball seasons, Beauregard was a minor league hitting instructor in the Dodgers’ farm system. Before that, he was an assistant baseball coach at Santa Clara University for five seasons, and two seasons at UMass Lowell.
As a player, Beauregard had a stellar four-year career at St. Anselm College where his name is all over the record book, including holding the all-time program marks in triples and hit-by-pitches. He also played three years of professional baseball in the Can-Am League with the Worcester Tornadoes.
Beauregard has seen a lot during his journey, but it all started in Leominster.
“The best,” Beauregard said, recalling his days in Leominster and at Leominster High School. “My closest friends are guys that I went to high school with and we are still talking about stuff we would do in the hallway in the D Wing or in the A wing. I remember taking fly balls in the parking lot when it was 13 degrees out, or going out with guys afterwards down in the Searstown area, going to McDonalds, and then after McDonalds we’d go to Wendy’s, and then hit up for the triple threat to Burger King. We spent so much time together and we built strong relationships and they last to this day.”
With the Dodgers, Beauregard works at the team’s Arizona League site.
“Once the Arizona League starts in about April, basically April through September, there will be about 60-70 guys in Arizona at our facility and I’m overseeing all that scheduling, the player programming, communication between coaches and the front office, and culture creating,” Beauregard said.
That’s many miles and many years away from his time playing baseball and basketball at Leominster High, where Beauregard truly hit his athletic stride during his senior year.
“I was always small, even my senior year in high school, but I specifically remember starting to weight train, and my competitiveness increased on the baseball side and the basketball side as well,” Beauregard said. “If you are expecting to play at the high school level or transitioning to the college side, you’ve got to put the work in.”
Beauregard said he was fortunate to be around great mentors.
“The impact my Dad, Steve Dubzinski, Ron Mazzaferro and Pete Charpentier had on my development and growth as an athlete and human were invaluable,” Beauregard said. “Sid Rafuse and Steve Santucci too with Leominster Post 151. All very different in style, but all guys you’d run through a wall for. I apply lessons I’ve learned from them daily.”
Beauregard said the players that were older than him had an impact as well.
“Just being around the guys that were a little older than me and seeing the work that they put in and how they went about their business, whether it be in the cages or on the tee, I just followed their lead,” Beauregard said. “That was the expectation of the baseball program at LHS. All the players and coaches showed a ton of support and it was a natural progression with the work that I put in.”
Beauregard said his baseball future changed during his senior year at LHS.
“My senior year of high school, I started to get some looks on the recruiting side but I didn’t come into my own until college when I started to gain like 15 to 20 pounds and started to understand a little bit more about the swing,” Beauregard said. “I also started to learn more about proper eating habits and sleeping habits and being able to apply those every day. That’s when I saw the biggest benefits on the field.”
After his playing days were over, Beauregard tried his hand working in real estate in New York.
“Maybe I wanted to see what else is out there other than baseball because I had spent so much time around the field and I wanted to explore,” Beauregard said. “I tried to sell some real estate and I wasn’t very good at it.”
That’s when Beauregard re-connected with his old coach at St. Anselm, Ken Harring, and got into coaching at Harring’s new post at UMass-Lowell.
“Kind of all I knew was baseball,” Beauregard said of the decision to get back into baseball.
“All I knew was sports. That’s what I grew up on. You have a way of finding your way back to things that are important to you.”
Looking back at his life and career so far, Beauregard said for current high school students, finding a passion and acting on that passion are important keys to success.
“Be curious and find out what you are passionate about,” Beauregard said. “Attack the passion and along the way, try to attach yourself to a winner. And that comes from building substantive, meaningful relationships with people that matter and being a loyal friend to those people. For high school kids, learning to build relationships is an important thing.”
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