HEBRON — Coming off one of the most successful seasons of his three-decades long career, Kennebunk head coach Joe Rafferty will get to put his coaching skills to use in a Maine Shrine Lobster Bowl that has been around almost as long.

Rafferty, the mainstay of the Kennebunk High School football team for more than 35 years, will lead the West all-stars in the 25th annual Lobster Bowl on Saturday in Biddeford.

After coaching his Rams to a runner-up finish in Class B last fall, Rafferty’s players say he is more than deserving of the honor.

“He had a good year with us; he definitely deserves that,” said Larson Coppinger, who will play wide receiver in the game.

For a coach who has seen and experienced just about everything involving football in the state, even Rafferty is embracing the honor.

“I’m thrilled. It’s a lot of fun,” Rafferty said during media day on Tuesday at Hebron Academy. “The camaraderie of the coaches is what I really enjoy the most. And then getting an opportunity to work with a lot of talent, obviously, with the kids.”

Rafferty will get to work one more time with three of his former players (Coppinger, as well as running back Nicco DeLorenzo and quarterback Nick Emmons), not to mention a West roster full of talent at every position.

“It’s fun, just to corral it, keep it in,” Rafferty said of working with a team full of talented players. “You can teach so fast. You can just say ”˜we want to get this in, this in, this,’ and 10 minutes later you got it in. We can put a punt team on the field in five minutes.”

But while corralling the talent is one thing ”“ Rafferty proved he could do that last season ”“ finding a way to get every player a chance to shine in the game is another.

“Absolutely they need to play. In the fourth quarter, the real coach will come out in all of us, and we’ll be like, ”˜Who’s the best 11 we got?’ But that’s the fourth quarter. As long as we know that everybody’s got it and played a good amount,” said Rafferty. “The kids have to have a good experience. They have to have a chance to play. They gave up a whole week to be here. They did a lot of fundraising.”

Rafferty also said that reminding the players that they are playing for a charity (Shriners Hospitals for Children), and that this is something bigger than the individual, is another part of his job this week.

“I hope they just keep in mind that the game, and the organization of what it’s all about, it’s not me, it’s them,” he said. “To be part of the Shriners and the hospital contribution that we make, is the big piece.”

The players made sure to mention the charity at media day, sometimes more so than the game itself. Rafferty said a presentation by a former Shriners patient at the Lobster Bowl team meeting really drove home the point to the players.

“Humbled is an understatement,” Rafferty said of the impact the presentation made on the players.

The Kennebunk players in the game also know what kind of impact Rafferty has made in their careers, and in their lives ”“ as well as the lives of hundreds of current and former Rams. It’s an impact that 45 other players on the West roster will feel leading up to Saturday’s game.

“He’s worked so hard all these years,” Emmons said of Rafferty. “He deserves it, in my eyes.”

— Staff Writer Wil Kramlich can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 323 or sports@journaltribune.com. Follow him on Twitter @WilTalkSports.