As he began the last of 36 years as head baseball coach at Bates College in 1990, Chick Leahey reflected on the previous 35.

“Sometimes you’re down and things don’t go well and sometimes you’re up and everything falls in,’’ he told a Bates publication in 1990. “I just try to encourage the players and promote confident attitudes on the field. If you maintain a positive attitude maybe that will rub off.’’

With his favorite phrase — “find a way’’ — he motivated others to share his optimism.

Mr. Leahey, a former president of the New England Intercollegiate Baseball Coaches Association whose 1976 team won the Eastern College Athletic Conference championship, died March 26 in Hospice House in Auburn, Maine, after a brief illness. He was 90 and lived in Lewiston, Maine.

“I admired his approach to the game. He was very engaged, never taking his eye off a single pitch,’’ recalled Andy Carman, a star catcher for Bates on the 1984 squad that led all NCAA Division 3 teams with a .355 batting average and 11.3 runs scored per game.

“We never felt alone out there because Chick was like a 10th player,’’ said Carman, a Brighton native. “He made us feel confident that if we had one pitch left, we could still come back.’’

In 1990, the Bates baseball field was renamed in Mr. Leahey’s honor, and in 2011 he was inducted into the college’s Scholar-Athlete Society. He also was inducted into the Maine Baseball and Auburn-Lewiston Sports halls of fame.

Two years ago, Bates retired the No. 11 jersey he wore as head coach. Although he also had worn No. 11 as a minor leaguer in the New York Yankees system, he couldn’t do so as a student at Bates, from which he graduated in 1952 with a bachelor’s degree in economics.

Because he had played professionally, he was ineligible for varsity athletics and instead was a student-assistant freshman football and baseball coach. He was also player-coach for the popular Auburn Asas semipro baseball team that won the Down East League title in 1951 and 1952.

After graduating from Columbia University with a master’s in physical education, he returned to Bates in 1955 as head baseball, assistant football, and freshman basketball coach. He also taught physical education, directed the Poland Spring Resort’s caddy camp in the summer, and served as head counselor at Chewonki Camp for Boys.

Bob Peck, head basketball coach at Bates from 1955-65, said Mr. Leahey was part of a close-knit group that included himself, track coach Walt Slovenski, and football coach Bob Hatch. “At the beginning of our careers we lived close to one another in campus housing,’’ said Peck, who was the athletic director at Boston University and Williams College. “Because we were also assistant coaches on each other’s teams, we kept a recruiting eye out for one another.’’

Mr. Leahey’s career record was 302 wins, 339 losses, and 3 ties, but his reputation transcended the numbers.

Bob Whalen, now head baseball coach at Dartmouth College, competed against Mr. Leahey’s teams as a player and later as an assistant coach at the University of Maine.

“Chick and our head coach at Maine, John Winkin, were close because of all the years John previously coached at Colby,’’ Whalen said. “I remember respecting how well [Bates] played fundamentally and how Chick had an incredibly dignified way about him.’’

When Jim Sylvia was recruited out of Belmont High to play for Bates, Mr. Leahey sent him a handwritten letter thanking him for visiting the campus.

“I never met anyone more competitive or more caring,’’ said Sylvia, who was the senior captain and second baseman for Bates in 1984. “He was like a father, disciplining me when I was out of line and praising me when I succeeded.’’

Sylvia added that after the team played sloppily in one game, “Chick said our opponent ‘snapped your wicked beaks,’ meaning that we were too cocky and we’d have to get back to the basics.’’

Mr. Leahey, who was never ejected from a game as a player or coach, issued a directive to ban the use of smokeless tobacco by players and coaches when he was the coaches’ association president in 1986.

Born in Lewiston, William Leahey Jr. was a captain and quarterback on Lewiston High’s undefeated football team, and a shortstop on its state championship baseball team.

He was a Marine in the Pacific during World War II, and the experience of “serving alongside boys no older than the students he would later coach touched him deeply,’’ a 2011 Bates citation noted.

After the war he married Yvette Tardif, whom he had met in high school. She died 11 years later.

While working at the caddy camp, Mr. Leahey met Ruth Butler, a waitress at the resort. They married in 1960 and in recent years spent the winter months on Hilton Head Island, S.C.

“That worked out well because Dad needed golf and Mom needed the beach,’’ said their daughter Barbara Sullivan of Virginia Beach, Va., one of four siblings who played on college teams. She and her brother Mark of Rochester, N.H., graduated from Bates.

A service has been held for Mr. Leahey, who in addition to his wife, son, and daughter leaves a daughter, Ann-Marie of Moorestown, N.J.; a son, Matthew of Birmingham, Ala.; and seven grandchildren.

Mr. Leahey and his wife hosted a team party at the end of each season. Players from his teams returned to honor him when his number was retired.

“Coaching was the perfect match for him — helping young people who were beginning their life’s journey to believe in themselves,’’ Barbara Sullivan said.

In the 1990 interview, Mr. Leahey said he felt fulfilled.

“I’ve been able to grow with the game as a coach and a person,’’ he said. “Bates has been a wonderful place to be a teacher-coach.’’

Marvin Pave can be reached at marvin.pave@rcn.com.