Sports

‘I’m done’: Norman Thomas coach ready to call it quits after season

Luis Monell will take over for Jean Pierre next year.

Luis Monell will take over for Jean Pierre next year. (Denis Gostev)

The Norman Thomas dugout is going to be a lot quieter next spring.

Nerva Jean Pierre, the loud, passionate and atypical baseball coach who brought a city championship to the Manhattan school, told The Post following Monday’s 4-2 win over Beacon he will retire at year’s end.

The 47-year-old assistant principal will hand over coaching duties to trusted assistant and JV coach Luis Monell, a St. John’s graduate who played briefly in the Anaheim Angels minor league system.

“I’m done, I’m gonna follow my friend Ian [Millman],” Jean Pierre said referring to the former Francis Lewis baseball coach who stepped down after last season. “I have three sons – I want to spend more time with them.”

Jean Pierre has a 13-year-old son, Wesley, and two 9-year-old twins, Dalton and Derick, with his wife, Lude. Jean Pierre has toyed with leaving the last few years, but it finally dawned on him during Easter Break when he was hardly home.

“I didn’t spend one day at home,” said Jean Pierre, who previously coached at Tilden and led Norman Thomas to the city title two years ago, becoming the first African-American coach to win a PSAL Class A baseball championship.

Jean Pierre said he will remain at Norman Thomas as an AP, will be a resource for Monell, 25, who has molded several of the current Tigers on the JV level, and a fixture at games when the opportunity presents itself. He just won’t be in the dugout, screaming at the top of his lungs or running postgame wind sprints with his players.

“No doubt about it, it’s gonna be hard – I love doing this – but this is the right time,” he said. “It’s perfect. The program is in a good place, I got the right person to take over. I coached him at Tilden, he knows the system; he’s from the system. He’s a young manager and he has a lot of energy.”

Jean Pierre later added: “I’ve been grooming him for three years for this.”

Though excited about the opportunity to run his own program at such a young age, Monell said he was disappointed at the news. He’s learned a great deal from Jean Pierre, first as a player and then as a coach. Monell wasn’t surprised, however. The two have talked about the possibility the last few years and Monell saw a difference in Jean Pierre lately.

“I haven’t seen him as serious about it as he is now,” the coach-in-waiting said.

With such a young team playing its best baseball of late, there is the possibility of a long playoff run. Jean Pierre sees a bright future, the rest of this month, next spring and the one after.

“I really believe this team has a championship run in them,” he said.

No matter what happens from here on now, Jean Pierre guaranteed next spring he won’t be in the dugout in uniform, but with spectators in his work clothes presumably loud as ever. The Tigers would like to give him as many games left as possible.

“We’re going to try to make it as far as we can go for him,” junior ace Jeffrey Ledesma said.

zbraziller@nypost.com