Loretto teacher, baseball coach dies

Longtime Loretto baseball assistant Toby Dunn died Monday after suffering a cardiac episode at school.

The 64-year-old Alabama native had been on the faculty for the past 14 years as a math teacher, also serving initially as both a football and baseball before focusing in his later years on baseball.

“He loved teaching. He loved Loretto High School,” said former Loretto baseball coach Gary Lamm. “He taught his last class, he went out in the hallway, he came back in his room with no kids, at the end of the day. He taught his last class. I don’t know what else you could do better than go out like that when you loved something that dear to you.”

With Dunn on the staff – first with Lamm, then with Zac Curtis following Lamm’s 2020 retirement – the Mustangs made six state tournament appearances, winning a Class A championship in 2017 and a Class 2A championship in 2024, along with a runner-up finish in 2018.

“He was one of the big reasons we were able to make the turnaround we did,” Lamm said. “Once we started getting more coaches … We got David Weathers later. Having those two guys with us, our program flourished then. Of course, we had some good athletes, but (Dunn) was as fine a coach and as fine a Christian guy and friend. It was heartbreaking to hear the news when David called me.”

Prior to his arrival at Loretto, Dunn had spent 29 years teaching and coaching in Alabama, winning a baseball state title in 1990 at Waterloo.

“He’s well respected, in southern Tennessee and north Alabama,” Lamm said. “There’s a lot of people that knew him down there, that I’ve been on the phone with, that are devastated.

“He’ll be well missed at Loretto, by the kids and faculty and all of Loretto. He poured his heart and soul into it. We know where he’s at.”