Whether he was traveling across country with his family, coaching a touring private school hockey team overseas, or bringing out the best in his students and athletes, the world was Dick Marr’s classroom.

Nicknamed Lefty, Mr. Marr was a hockey and baseball coach, a dorm master and director of admissions and financial aid at Milton Academy, and former dean of students and the first girls’ hockey and softball coach at Tabor Academy. He also taught English at Milton and directed Tabor’s speech and debate programs.

“Every encounter would be one in which learning could take place and lessons could be shared and placed him in position where Lefty could offer his wisdom as a gift,’’ said his son Tim of Chapel Hill, N.C.

Mr. Marr, who was an All-East hockey goaltender and varsity baseball player at Williams College, died of cardiac arrest Nov. 11 in his winter home in Pittsboro, N.C. He was 80 and also resided in Truro.

A volunteer assistant club hockey coach at the University of North Carolina, Mr. Marr formerly was a college hockey referee, baseball umpire, and commissioner of the Cape Cod Baseball League. While in his 60s, he graduated from Roger Williams University School of Law.

What is now the Flood-Marr Holiday Hockey Tournament, which was started more than 50 years ago, is hosted by Milton Academy and Noble and Greenough School. It is named in honor of Mr. Marr and Dick Flood, his close friend and former Williams College teammate.

“We were private school rivals as players and coaching rivals who had an extraordinary lifelong friendship,’’ said Flood, a former Nobles hockey coach. “We shared special moments with each other’s families, and while we liked to beat one another on the ice, we rejoiced in the other’s successes.’’

Flood said Mr. Marr “thought outside the classroom or the game, taking his students and players to new dimensions in life.’’

One of those former students is singer-songwriter James Taylor, Mr. Marr’s English student and a hockey defenseman at Milton Academy in the early 1960s.

“Lefty was positive and enthusiastic, and you felt that team spirit and his joy for the game,’’ Taylor recalled. “He always kept things in perspective and his classroom was a lively place. He had the right attitude about bringing out as much as he could from kids while having their best interests at heart. That can be a difficult balance, and he got it right.’’

Amherst College hockey coach Jack Arena, who was coached by Mr. Marr at Milton and formerly was his deputy commissioner with the Cape league, said his mentor had “a calm demeanor and was unflappable, always curious and always looking for a better way.’’

When challenged, however, Mr. Marr stood up for his team. During an overseas hockey journey in 1970, his combined Milton-Nobles team, cocoached by Flood, was detained at the airport before departing the Soviet Union. Mr. Marr was no stranger to Moscow, having played there in 1959 with the US Senior amateur championship team.

“They didn’t want us taking their money home,’’ recalled former Nobles star Levy Byrd, “so right in front of the soldiers, Lefty took a wad of rubles and ripped them in half.’’

Richard Thomas Marr was born in Dorchester and grew up in Milton, the son of John D. Marr Jr., who had been a football standout at Boston College, and the former Elizabeth Thomas. His uncle Daniel F. Marr, known as “the Colonel,’’ was a cofounding owner of the Boston Patriots.

Mr. Marr attended Boston Latin School and graduated from what is now Governor’s Academy. He received a bachelor’s degree in American history and literature from Williams and a master’s in English from Middlebury College.

In 1959, Mr. Marr married Ginny Worthington, who became assistant librarian at Milton Academy and head librarian at Tabor.

“He was full of compassion and optimism and always looking for new adventures, and there was no pretense about him,’’ said Ginny, who along with their children visited 46 states, combining travel with Mr. Marr’s numerous roles as a hockey camp coach and a recruiter for the Upward Bound and A Better Chance programs.

In 1967, Mr. Marr took a leave from Milton Academy to teach at the Solomon Lewenberg school in Boston. “He championed the underdog and loved a good, fair game,’’ said his daughter Amy of Mill Valley, Calif.

Mr. Marr was liaison for the Norwegian hockey team at the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, N.Y., and headmaster at Aspen Country Day School in Colorado from 1980-84. He was at Tabor Academy in Marion the next 19 years.

“He had the kindest heart of anyone I ever met,’’ said former Tabor hockey and softball player Eva Nahorniak.

“Lefty gave of his time, his means, and his home,’’ Nahorniak said. “He picked me up when I arrived from Nevada my first day at Tabor and he was there when I graduated Cornell. He was one of the most pivotal people in my life.’’

As an attorney, Mr. Marr specialized in mediation. He was a member of the Outer Cape Committee Against Domestic Abuse organization and a Family Court investigator on the Cape.

His son Jerry of Newton, who also is an attorney, said Mr. Marr knew providing legal counsel “was just coaching at heart, and he naturally brought his coaching skills to this new role.’’

As Cape league commissioner, “Lefty was fair-minded and did everything in a first-class manner,’’ said former league president Judy Scarafile. “He wanted to hear from all sides when making a decision.’’

In addition to his wife, his sons Tim and Jerry, and his daughter, Amy, Mr. Marr leaves his daughter Lisa of Galena, Ohio; his sister, Susan Maguire of Clearwater, Fla.; and eight grandchildren.

A memorial service in the Boston area will be announced.

In 2007, a year in which he was named Most Improved Player at the Red Sox Fantasy Camp and traveled to every Major League ballpark, Mr. Marr wrote a series of poems divided into innings, titled “The Game of Life,’’ for his Williams College 50th reunion, including this second inning:

I remember senior spring, walking around,

Smelling the fresh air, surveying the ground.

“I’ll miss this place,’’ I said every day.

That thought’s never changed, I’m happy to say.

Lisa said her father “could see the silver lining in any storm cloud, and our silver lining is that the man that we knew did not fade away. He lived life to the fullest and on his terms until the end.’’

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